Parecon - old wine in new skin

Its human nature, ain't it ? Smoke and mirrors

Albert does appear to have this habit of associating any criticism of him from the Marxists ( or platformist anarchists it now seems )as Trotskyist .
Examples of this is from his response to the SPGB (again it required cutting and pasting of Alberts article from the restricted Z-Net )
"...(The editors want to reject the Soviet system I hope for good reasons rather than only because Trotsky did, in the end.)...." and again here "...And all this is so, note,just by decree, by definition, by the authority of humpty dumpty, in my view, and I guess Trotsky, or whoever, in the editors' view..." .

Albert is unaware that the World Socialist Movement was perhaps the earliest critics of Bolshevism, very much alone and against popular feeling when they questioned the validity of the Bolshevik claims. They have offered numerous critiques of Trotsky over the years. Michael Albert, nevertheless , unintentionally reveals that his attitude is that all criticism of Russia begins and ends with Trotsky or Trotskyists, (which explains the obssession with bureaucracy of the deformed workers state or bureaucratic collective state or whatever neo- or ex--Trotskyist of Russia view Albert adheres to in his co-ordinator class thesis.)

The SPGB roots are in what was called "The Impossiblists Revolt", accused of impossiblism by the reformists and gradualists. They failed with their remedies. What's Occams Razor Theory say - the simplest explanations and the simplest solutions are more likely to be true. Little need to create such an intricate and elaborate construct as Parecon when all that is required is the understanding and co-operation of the majority of the people to establish socialism - a moneyless, state-less world. Critics of fee access often claim that there are no other alternatives for allocation other than central planning, participatory planning, and markets.

Planning in socialism is essentially a question of industrial organisation, (By industrial organisation we mean the structure for organising the actual production and distribution of wealth) of organising productive units into a productive system functioning smoothly to supply the useful things which people had indicated they needed, both for their individual and for their collective consumption. What socialism would establish would be a rationalised network of planned links between users and suppliers; between final users and their immediate suppliers, between these latter and their suppliers, and so on down the line to those who extract the raw materials from nature.

I certainly would have no quibble about the description that we were proposing participatory economics but since that phrase appears to be another way of describing Parecon ideas i was loathe to use it .
Rather than "participatory economics" we have always expressed it as we have in our Object in Declaration of Principles - "democratic control of the means and instruments for producing and distributing wealth and by and in the interest of the whole community " and from our 3rd Principle -"democratic control by the whole people " ( http://www.worldsocialism.org/spgb/gbodop.html ) for the active involvement of all in the administration of society . The wording was not accidental but was deliberate to differentiate ourselves from the syndicalism and industrial unionism of the turn of the century . Indeed from the early days of the SPGB formation we have been critical of those currents which would have placed the actual producers in control of their individual industries which would have lead to sectional interests and competition and conflict with other workers , rather than social ownership by everyone . Our demand is that control should be by ALL of society .

The SPGB is accused of proposing to use "cost/benefit analysis." This presupposes a way to measure social cost and social benefit .

This can be answered that in socialism a points system for attributing relative importance to the various relevant considerations could be used instead. The points attributed to these considerations would be subjective, in the sense that this would depend on a deliberate social decision rather than on some objective standard. All rather simple when it comes to practical application. What needs to be done will be done through discussion and agreement of priorities and needs. The advantages /disadvantages and even the points attributed to them can, and normally would, differ from case to case. So what we are talking about is not a new abstract universal unit of measurement to replace money and economic value for reaching rational decisions. Simple common sense .

We have the mechanism of a self-regulating system of stock control, using calculation in kind, which would enable us to keep track of supply and demand . We have participation to allocate resources and mechanisms to decide priorities and best method .

But lets cut to the real chase and the real bone of contention that usually underlies criticism.

It is what we in the moneyless economy sector call the Lazy Greedy Man Arguement. A proponent of Parecon rejects a system that abolishes the money, prices and exchange economy did so on the grounds that "Under the moneyless scheme, those with the least social consciousness or least sense of social responsibility will win out because they will be more aggressive in taking "free" items from the distribution centers. Since there is no requirement of work the "free riders" who do no work will burden the system to the point of collapse...Why, then, burden ourselves with the risky system of moneyless "free access," with its huge dangers of being dragged down by parasitical free riders?"

The "free riders", the "shirkers", the "social parasites", the "socially irresponsible " as theuy been described in the past by proponents of Parecon. Come common ownership and we have all the lazy and greedy, all the able-bodied idle, as the Victorians classified them in the Poor Law legislation, all rushing in to empty the shelves and selfishly hoard, just because its free. Or the lesser crime of taking what they don't require. Or they will refuse to pull their weight at work and live off the fruits of other's labours. Parecon argues that people are inherently anti-social and would seize selfish advantage in a world of free access, which is, when you come down to it, the reason that Parecon insist on prices and wages and money. Yup, don't trust the plebs. The greedy lazy human nature rebuttal is usually found in the arguments of pro-capitalist apologists. Parconists are not psychologically able to continue with the logic to arrive into the only possible solution - world commune of communities in which each person will contribute as one is able and get as one needs They accept the capitalist ideology claim the a person will do no effort if not get remuneration (wage, profit, supply of needs, etc.) They do not accept that social motivation is strong enough for that.

Of course, it is always the other people doing this, not us. We is all very socially responsible aware. Only thing is, others aren't. Yup, free access won't work because of human nature? Socialists don't share this pessimism about the human character. People change when circumstances and situations change. We have always accepted that as anarchists and socialists and left Original Sin to the religiously blinkered. Nor do we believe that we cannot support non-producers. (All you unappreciated and undiscovered poets and artists out there, take a big sigh of relief and don't fret, for socialism won't condemn you to your ramshackle garrets because you concentrate on your art and not in the fields or factories and we won't have some Soviet-style writers union to say whether you are approved or not.)

Humans behave differently depending upon the conditions that they live in. Human behaviour reflects society. In a society such as capitalism, people's needs are not met and reasonable people feel insecure. People tend to acquire and hoard goods because possession provides some security. People have a tendency to distrust others because the world is organized in such a dog-eat-dog manner. If people didn't work society would obviously fall apart. To establish socialism the vast majority must consciously decide that they want socialism and that they are prepared to work in socialist society. If people want too much? In a socialist society "too much" can only mean "more than is sustainably produced." If people decide that they (individually and as a society) need to over-consume then socialism cannot possibly work.

Under capitalism, there is a very large industry devoted to creating needs.Capitalism requires consumption, whether it improves our lives or not, and drives us to consume up to, and past, our ability to pay for that consumption.In a system of capitalist competition, there is a built-in tendency to stimulate demand to a maximum extent. Firms, for example, need to persuade customers to buy their products or they go out of business. They would not otherwise spend the vast amounts they do spend on advertising.

There is also in capitalist society a tendency for individuals to seek to validate their sense of worth through the accumulation of possessions. As Marx contended, the prevailing ideas of society are those of its ruling class then we can understand why, when the wealth of that class so preoccupies the minds of its members, such a notion of status should be so deep-rooted. It is this which helps to underpin the myth of infinite demand. In socialism, status based upon the material wealth at one's command, would be a meaningless concept. Why take more than you need when you can freely take what you need? In socialism the only way in which individuals can command the esteem of others is through their contribution to society, and the more the movement for socialism grows the more will it subvert the prevailing capitalist ethos, in general, and its anachronistic notion of status, in particular.

For socialism to be established, there are two fundamental preconditions that must be met.
Firstly, the productive potential of society must have been developed to the point where, generally speaking, we can produce enough for all. This is not now a problem as we have long since reached this point. However, this does require that we appreciate what is meant by "enough" and that we do not project on to socialism the insatiable consumerism of capitalism.
Secondly, the establishment of socialism presupposes the existence of a mass socialist movement and a profound change in social outlook. It is simply not reasonable to suppose that the desire for socialism on such a large scale, and the conscious understanding of what it entails on the part of all concerned, would not influence the way people behaved in socialism and towards each other. Would they want to jeopardise the new society they had helped create? Of course not.

If people cannot change their behaviour and take control and responsibility for their decisions , not only will socialism fail but itself will not succeed then either .

Day-to-day operation and management will be left in the hands of those who operate a production or distribution unit, that the choice of deciding methods and working conditions will remain their responsibility which will be from a inter-locking local to a world-wide level. Choosing what to make and how much to make and where to make it and where to send it, however, are decisions for the community and society as a whole. That's what meant by social ownership. There is no anonymous bureaucracy lording it over us? Where is the "co-ordinator class" within money-less society ? It is the actual essence of free access to goods and services that it denies to any one particular group the political leverage with which to dominate or control others . So where will this co-ordinator class power come from, if it cannot withhold the means of life or restrict access to society's wealth from those it wishes to subjugate or exploit or take advantage of .

And how can the status of conspicuous consumption be used as a reward as it is now for a privileged elite when all have equal free access .
In free access socialism , the notion of income or purchasing power would be devoid of meaning. So therefore would the notion of status based upon the conspicuous consumption of wealth because individuals would stand in equal relation to the means of production and have free access to goods and services.

Comparisons with Soviet Union and the aspiration of a moneyless society is comparing oranges with apples. Just as the reformists tried to confuse nationalization ( or as many anarchists labelled it , state-socialism) with free access socialism. It is a complete red herring and no doubt results from the Neo-Trotskyist roots of Parecon and its denial of the state-capitalist nature of the USSR - The eternal search for the revolution betrayed, rather than the discovery of a bourgeois revolution without the bourgeoisie.



A Marxist versus Parecon economics Parecon or Free Access


The main feature of parecon appears to be that consumer and workplace councils will set prices or the exchange values of commodities, which will include the commodity labour power or wages, and that they will be free to set any prices that are democratically deemed fit.

Another feature of the system is that remuneration for work will be equitable or fair with remuneration based on effort or difficulty of the task or whatever. This second feature is actually the essence of the system and is what needs focusing on in order to understand how it might actually work as opposed to how it is intended to work.


For what it is worth we consider Parecon to be reformist because you are not intending to do away with wages, prices, or money, but advocating some sort of market-less, capitalist-less self-managed capitalism which still enforces the artificial rationing of buying and selling, that opposes a voluntarist society of " from each according to ability , to each according to need ".

It is implicit within Parecon's allocation of resources an acceptence of Vone Mises Economic Calculation Argument and that too is a reformist position .

There theory of the nature of co-ordinator class is superfluous. Why not simply call the capitalist class and/or the co-ordinator class, the possessing class, or even more simply, the ruling class. The real importance of all this "what is class analysis" has its roots in the claim made by Bolsheviks that somehow , the Russian Revolution and the Transitional State was a step towards Socialism , that the act of insurrection and their coup d'etat and the subsequent judicial abolition of the capitalist class changed the social relationships between capital and labour and created a new non-capitalist society . Reality , however , had to be understood and Trotsky's degenerate workers state failed to explain what existed, so in stepped Rizzi and Burnham with bureaucratic collectivism and managerial revolution, which Albert follows on from and develops .
A straw -man if 1917 is seen as what it was - a bourgeois revolution without the bourgeoisie and if the earlier description of Russia by non-Leninist socialists and anarchists as a State-capitalist system is accepted .

Much of Parecon's rejection of "from each according ability to each according to need " comes down to the allocation of resources factor and Michael Albert claims for Parecon the only viable system of rational determination and distribution of resources. This has been challenged by free access socialists and anarcho-communists.

Parecon maybe can be construed as a half way house in similar vein as the labour-time-vouchers systems were for Marx and the SLP but Parecon's construction of such a complicated and complex (and wasteful system !!) of elaborate checks and balances is ultimately that its proponents are unwilling or unable to accept that if given the right economic framework humans can consciously co-operate, work and consume together without the requirement of incentives and remuneration. Parecon is attractive to those who dislike capitalism, but who, in the final analysis, lack confidence that either there are sufficient resources on the planet to provide for all, or that human beings can work voluntarily, and co-operate to organise production and distribution of wealth without chaos, and consume wealth responsibly without some form of imposed rationing. Parecon to be quite conservative movement in essence.

Pareconists remain fixated to the lazy person, greedy individual critique of human behaviour. In denying anarcho-communism Michael Albert simply preaches conventional bourgeois wisdom about peoples "selfishness" and a pessimistic view of human behaviour.

Michael Albert has said

"...I think you believe, instead, that there is a capacity for humanity to generate as much nice and fulfilling goods and services as anyone could possibly desire to have, plus as much leisure as anyone could want, and so on. Well, is that really your view? If so, okay, we can agree to disagree. And, honestly, I can't imagine discussing it - further - because for me it is so utterly ridiculous, honestly.... Suppose everyone would like - if the cost was zero - their own large mansion, on the ocean, with wonderful fantastic food every day, with magnificent recording and listening equipment, with a nice big boat, with their own private tennis courts, or basketball, or golf, or whatever....a great home movie system, a wonderful violin, magnificent clothes, and so on and so forth, and, also, while they like creative work a lot, they would like a whole lot of time to enjoy their bountiful home and holdings - so they want to work only twenty hours a week and of course not do anything other than what interests them. What you seem to be saying is that you think that is possible... or, even if all that were possible, no one would want it. Both are false..."

"...if something is of no cost, and I want it, sure, I will take it, to enjoy it, why not..."

"...Tell everyone that they can have a free house, a really nice car, or two, whatever equipment the like for sports or hobbies, whatever TVs they would enjoy and other tools of daily life, whatever food they want nightly, etc. etc. because it is all free, no problem for them to take what they want. And see what happens....no one will be able to conduct themselves responsibly..."

"... since they can have product, from the available social product, regardless. So sloth is rewarded. Likewise greed..."

For free access Socialists and Anarcho-Communists we will continue to struggle to create a structured society where people have accepted socially mutual obligations and the realisation of universal interdependency and we understand that decisions arising from this would profoundly affect people’s choices, perceptions, conceptualizations, attitudes, and greatly influence their behavior, economically or otherwise. Humans behave differently depending upon the conditions that they live in. Human behaviour reflects society.

The scare-mongering about the co-ordinator class simply just not arise since society members free access to goods and services denies to any group or individuals the political leverage with which to dominate others which has been a feature of all private-property or class based systems through through the control of and restrictions to the means of life. This will ensure that a socialist society is run on the basis of democratic consensus.

In an anarchist world the notion of status based upon the conspicuous consumption of wealth would be devoid of meaning because individuals would stand in equal relation to the means of production and have free access to goods and services. Again Parecon (since of its support and the continued existence of a wages system and remuneration differentials) cannot do away with a status hierarchy in which social esteem is closely related to an individual’s “pecuniary strength” , those at the top of this hierarchy exercising their pecuniary strength which provides the key signifier of social esteem in this hierarchy. Hence there remains emphasis on extravagant luxury which only the rich can really afford and those lower down this hierarchy imitating those higher up. We can readily guess that with luxury items rationed only to those that "deserve " by their work contribution settled by bjc committees , the less fortunate and more envious will endeavour to appropriate these luxuries by theft which will require Parecon police, Parecon lawyers and judges and ultimately Parecon jails and warders .

To have a system that allows wages to be dispensed on the basis of work carried out, allows money to circulate, and restricts access to wealth (food or housing) unless you have sufficient money to purchase something, doesn't seem to be too far from capitalism in terms of its outward appearance. retains major elements of the market system. More importantly is simply highly unlikely to be workable in the real world. Parecon appears to me to be about building a massive (and socially unproductive) administration for policing all the wage levels, labour outputs, prices etc. Anarchism/world socialism is not about creating ever greater bureaucratic structures, but quite the opposite - it will be about removing the barriers capitalism has developed which prohibit access to wealth, and at a stroke create an economic environment without individual (ie monetary or, in Pareconese, consumer credit accumulation) incentives .

Parecon is attractive to those who dislike capitalism but it must be terribly deflating for a person to have devoted so much time and energy in creating an elaborate , complex, convoluted construct to offer an alternative to capitalism and then to have others declare that it was totally unnecessary and that the answers and solutions already existed and stood on firmer foundations. This is the case with Michael Albert .

We shall need to await "years and decades into a Participatory economy" for free access.

Firstly, it has to be stated that to establish socialism the vast majority must consciously decide that they want socialism and that they are prepared to work in socialist society , not just the 33% you quote with the passive support of another 33%. The establishment of socialism presupposes the existence of a mass socialist movement and a profound change in social outlook. So it is simply not reasonable to suppose that the desire for socialism on such a large scale, and the conscious understanding of what it entails on the part of all concerned, would not influence the way people behaved in socialism and towards each other. Would they want to sabotage the new society they had helped create? Of course not. If people cannot change their behaviour and take control and responsibility for their decisions , not only will socialism fail but Parecon itself will not succeed then either .

To establish socialism the vast majority must consciously decide that they want socialism and that they are prepared to work in socialist society. For socialism to be established the productive potential of society must have been developed to the point where, generally speaking, we can produce enough for all. This is not now a problem as we have long since reached this point. However, this does require that we appreciate what is meant by “enough” and that we do not project on to socialism the insatiable consumerism of capitalism. Under capitalism, there is a very large industry devoted to creating needs. Capitalism requires consumption, whether it improves our lives or not. In a system of capitalist competition, there is a built-in tendency to stimulate demand to a maximum extent. Firms, for example, need to persuade customers to buy their products or they go out of business. They would not otherwise spend the vast amounts they do spend on advertising. There is also in capitalist society a tendency for individuals to seek to validate their sense of worth through the accumulation of possessions. It does not matter how modest one's real needs may be or how easily they may be met; capitalism's "consumer culture" leads one to want more than one may materially need since what the individual desires is to enhance his or her status within this hierarchal culture of consumerism and this is dependent upon acquiring more than others have got. But since others desire the same thing, the economic inequality inherent in a system of competitive capitalism must inevitably generate a pervasive sense of relative deprivation. What this amounts to is a kind of institutionalised envy and an alienated capitalism. Indeed Michael Albert has recognised this when he says "We live in a world with institutions that propel greediness and self-centered calculation. The messages all around us foster these antisocial attitudes"

 Yet Parecon because of its support for the continued existence of a wages system and pay differentials cannot do away with a status hierarchy.

In socialist society, productive activity would take the form of freely chosen activity undertaken by human beings with a view to producing the things they needed to live and enjoy life. The necessary productive work of society would not be done by a class of hired wage workers but by all members of society, each according to their particular skills and abilities, cooperating to produce the things required to satisfy their needs both as individuals and as communities. All wealth would be produced on a strictly voluntary basis. Work in socialist society could only be voluntary since there would be no group or organ in a position to force people to work against their will. Socialism does not require us all to become altruists, putting the interests of others above our own. In fact socialism doesn't require people to be any more altruistic than they are today. We will still be concerned primarily with ourselves, with satisfying our needs, our need to be well considered by others as well as our material and sexual needs. No doubt too, we will want to “possess” personal belongings , and to feel secure in our physical occupation of the house we live in, but this will be just that – our home and not a financial asset. Such “selfish” behaviour will still exist in socialism but the acquisitiveness encouraged by capitalism will no longer exist. The coming of socialism will not require great changes in the way we behave, essentially only the accentuation of some of the behaviours which people exhibit today (friendliness, helpfulness, co-operation) at the expense of other more negative ones which capitalism encourages.

Goods and services would be provided directly for self determined needs and not for sale ; they would be made freely available for individuals to take without requiring these individuals to offer something in direct exchange. The sense of mutual obligations and the realisation of universal interdependency arising from this would profoundly colour people’s perceptions and influence their behaviour in such a society. We may thus characterise such a society as being built around a moral economy and a system of generalised reciprocity.

ONLY free access denies to any group the political power with which to dominate others through control and rationing of the means of life.

Michael Albert says " Further, if we agree on rejecting systems with markets and/or central planning for allocation, don't we have to offer an alternative method of allocation?"

In proposals for a rudimentary method for calculation labor costs associated with a socialist economy, we operate under the assumption that the labor-hour will be adopted as the unit of choice. This has the strongest tradition in socialist literature, however in the 21st century different units, such as the kilowatt-hour, being a bit more scientific in that they are derived from actual physical measurements in addition to time, may prove to be more universal and accurate as an accounting tool...

Some sort of objective hierarchy of productive processes might need to be established, which would control at which step of the process each of them would be factored into a new labor hour calculation, and then, in turn, modified themselves by later iterations. It may be useful to look now at a hypothetical list for illustrative purposes. Let us imagine that the administrative bodies of a socialist economy, with democratic approval, enacted that all productive processes would be assigned to one of the following groups and then placed them in this sequence:

1. Raw materials production
2. Energy production
3. Productive Equipment and Tools
4. Facilities, Infrastructure and Transportation
5. Human Needs
6. Waste Management

1. Labor time calculation for not only a global socialist economy, but each productive process making it up, would probably have to be an iterative one, meaning the results of rudimentary calculations are fed back into a series of successively deeper (and more accurate) calculations for the purposes of taking into account all of the interdependent labor costs inherent in any one process.
2. Since you have to start somewhere, socialism can perhaps assume that raw materials are in infinite supply. Of course this is not true in most cases, but the finite nature can then be expressed in their LP values.
3. Therefore the steps in the iterative process could then start with the simple labor hour costs for actual production, which are then are summed with the labor costs inherent in the other physical quantities necessary for production (energy, machinery, transport etc).
4. Some labor costs can be reduced by collective action.
5. Waste is factored into the overall labor-time calculation for any given process, as well as the overall socialist economy. The method for doing so is flexible.
6. At the same time an overall socialist economy is performing iterative calculations of the labor costs necessary to meet human needs, individual productive processes have to undergo similar calculations to arrive at an ever-increasingly accurate labor cost for their product.

It is in a manner such as this that a socialist economy may be administered so that a reasonably good means of determining how much (and what type of) labor will be necessary, both in total and from each worker, to meet the needs of a global population.


How do you calculate and factor in scarcity?"

First we have to define what scarcity is. Orthodox economics and Parecon argue it is limited supply - versus- boundless demand. Our wants are essentially “infinite” and the resources to meet them, limited, claim the economists.
Von Mise and Parecon claim that without the guidance of prices socialism would sink into inefficiency . According to the argument , scarcity is an unavoidable fact of life .It applies to any goods where the decision to use a unit of that good entails giving up some other potential use. In other words, whatever one decides to do has an "opportunity cost" — that is the opportunity to do something else which one thereby forgoes; economics is concerned with the allocation of scarce resources.

However in the real world, abundance is not a situation where an infinite amount of every good could be produced. Similarly, scarcity is not the situation which exists in the absence of this impossible total or sheer abundance. Abundance s a situation where productive resources are sufficient to produce enough wealth to satisfy human needs, while scarcity is a situation where productive resources are insufficient for this purpose. Abundance is a relationship between supply and demand, where the former exceeds the latter. In socialism a buffer of surplus stock for any particular item, whether a consumer or a producer good, can be produced, to allow for future fluctuations in the demand for that item, and to provide an adequate response time for any necessary adjustments.Thus achieving abundance can be understood as the maintenance of an adequate buffer of stock in the light of extrapolated trends in demand. The relative abundance or scarcity of a good would be indicated by how easy or difficult it was to maintain such an adequate buffer stock in the face of a demand trend (upward, static, or downward). It will thus be possible to choose how to combine different factors for production, and whether to use one rather than another, on the basis of their relative abundance/scarcity.

Whereas capitalism and Parecon relies on mostly monetary accounting, socialism relies on calculation in kind. This is one reason why socialism holds a decisive productive advantage over capitalism AND Parecon because of the elimination for the need to tie up vast quantities of resources and labour implicated in a system of monetary/pricing accounting. In socialism calculations will be done directly in physical quantities of real things, in use-values , without any general unit of calculation . Needs will be communicated to productive units as requests for specific useful things, while productive units will communicate their requirements to their suppliers as requests for other useful things.

"How do you tell when something is becoming scarce, and how do you pass this information on to others?"

Well, we use the tools and systems that capitalism bequeathes us ,which will be suitably modified and adapted and transformed for the new conditions. There is stock or inventory control systems and logistics. The key to good stock management is the stock turnover rate – how rapidly stock is removed from the shelves – and the point at which it may need to be re-ordered. This will also be affected by considerations such as lead times – how long it takes for fresh stock to arrive – and the need to anticipate possible changes in demand. The Just-In-Time systems are another well tried and trusted method of warehousing and lInkIng up supply chains which can be utilised. If requirements are low in relation to a build-up of stock, then this would an automatic indication to a production unit that its production should be reduced . If requirements are high in relation to stock then this would be an automatic indication that its production should be increased.
And there will be the existence of buffer stocks to provides for a period of re-adjustment.
It may be argued that this overlooks the problem of opportunity costs. For example, if the supplier of baked beans orders more tin plate from the manufacturers of tin plate then that will mean other uses for this material being deprived by that amount. However, it must be born in mind in the first place that the systematic overproduction of goods – i.e. a buffer stock – applies to all goods, consumption goods as well as production goods. So increased demand from one consumer/producer, need not necessarily entail a cut in supply to another or at least, not immediately. The existence of buffer stocks provides for a period of re-adjustment. Another point that this argument overlooks the possibility of there being alternative suppliers of this material or indeed, for that matter, more readily available substitutes for containers (say, plastic).

Some kind of “points system” might be used to evaluate different projects facing society - cost-benefit analysis which is not dependant upon dollars and cents calculations .Under capitalism (also read Parecon) the balance sheet of the relevant benefits and costs advantages and disadvantages of a particular scheme or rival schemes is drawn up in money terms , but in socialism a points system for attributing relative importance to the various relevant considerations could be used instead. The points attributed to these considerations would be subjective, in the sense that this would depend on a deliberate social decision rather than on some objective standard. In the sense that one of the aims of socialism is precisely to rescue humankind from the capitalist fixation with production time/money, cost-benefit type analyses, as a means of taking into account other factors, could therefore be said to be more appropriate for use in socialism than under capitalism. Using points systems to attribute relative importance in this way would not be to recreate some universal unit of evaluation and calculation, but simply to employ a technique to facilitate decision-making in particular concrete cases. The advantages /disadvantages and even the points attributed to them can, and normally would, differ from case to case. So what we are talking about is not a new abstract universal unit of measurement to replace money and economic value but one technique among others for reaching rational decisions in a society where the criterion of rationality is human welfare.

There is the The “Law of the Minimum” WHICH was formulated by an agricultural chemist, Justus von Liebig in the 19th century. Liebig’s Law can be applied equally to the problem of resource allocation in any economy.For any given bundle of factors required to produce a given good, one of these will be the limiting factor. That is to say, the output of this good will be restricted by the availability of the factor in question constituting the limiting factor. All things being equal, it makes sense from an economic point of view to economise most on those things that are scarcest and to make greatest use of those things that are abundant.

Priorities can be determined byapplying Maslow’s “Hierarchy of Needs” as a guide. It would seem reasonable to suppose that needs that were most pressing and upon which the satisfaction of other needs are dependant would take priority over those other needs. We are talking here about our basic physiological needs for food, water, adequate sanitation and housing and so on. This would be reflected in the allocation of resources: high priority end goals would take precedence over low priority end goals where resources common to both are revealed (via the self regulating system of stock control) to be in short supply .

Since the needs of consumers are always needs for a specific product at a specific time in a specific locality, we will assume that socialist society would leave the initial assessment of likely needs to a delegate body under the control of the local community. In a stable society such as socialism, needs would change relatively slowly. Hence it is reasonable to surmise that an efficient system of stock control, recording what individuals actually chose to take under conditions of free access from local distribution centres over a given period, would enable the local distribution committee to estimate what the need for food, drink, clothes and household goods would be over a similar future period. Some needs would be able to be met locally: local transport, restaurants, builders, repairs and some food are examples as well as services such as street-lighting, libraries and refuse collection. The local distribution committee would then communicate needs that could not be met locally to the bodies charged with coordinating supplies to local communities.

Production and distribution in socialism would thus be a question of organising a coordinated and more or less self-regulating system of linkages between users and suppliers, enabling resources and materials to flow smoothly from one productive unit to another, and ultimately to the final user, in response to information flowing in the opposite direction originating from final users. The productive system would thus be set in motion from the consumer end, as individuals and communities took steps to satisfy their self-defined needs. Socialist production is self-regulating production for use.

To ensure the smooth functioning of the system, statistical offices (and those exist now in a variety of forms) would provide estimates of what would have to be produced to meet peoples likely individual and collective needs. These could be calculated in the light of consumer wants as indicated by returns from local distribution committees and of technical data (productive capacity, production methods, productivity, etc) incorporated in input-output tables. For, at any given level of technology (reflected in the input-output tables), a given mix of final goods (consumer wants) requires for its production a given mix of intermediate goods and raw materials; it is this latter mix that statistical offices would be calculating. Such calculations would also indicate whether or not productive capacity would need to be expanded and in what branches. The centres would be essentially an information clearing house, processing information communicated to it about production and distribution and passing on the results to industries for them to draw up their production plans so as to be in a position to meet the requests for their products coming from other industries and from local communities. As stated before the only calculations that would be necessary in socialism would be Calculations-in-Kind. On the one side would be recorded the resources (materials, energy, equipment, labour) used up in production and on the other side the amount of the good produced, together with any by-products.Each part of of production would know its position. If requirements are low in relation to a build-up of stock, then this would an automatic indication to a production unit that its production should be reduced. The supply of some needs will take place within the local community and in these cases production would not extent beyond this , as for example with local food production for local consumption. Other needs could be communicated as required things to the regional organisation of production. Regional manufacture would produce and assemble equired goods for distribution to local communities .

To repeat, given that socialism will still need to concern itself with the efficient allocation of resources and this will be achieved mostly through calculation in kind. Decentralized production entails a self-regulating system of stock control. Stocks of goods held at distribution points would be monitored, their rate of depletion providing vital information about the future demand for such goods, information which will be conveyed to the units producing these goods. The units would in turn draw upon the relevant factors of production and the depletion of these would activate yet other production units further back along the production chain. There would thus be a marked degree of automaticity in the way the system operated. The maintenance of surplus stocks would provide a buffer against unforeseen fluctuations in demand.The regional production units would in turn communicate its own manufacturing needs to their own suppliers, and this would extend to world production units extracting and processing the necessary raw materials

.Decisions will be made at different levels of organisation: global, regional and local but with the bulk of decision-making being made at the local level. A socialist economy would be a polycentric not a centrally planned economy. Socialism will be a self regulating, decentralised inter-linked system to eventually provide in due cours for a self-sustaining steady-state society.
Imagine a situation where human needs were in balance with the resources needed to satisfy them. Such a society would already have decided, according to its own criteria and through its own decision-making processes, on the most appropriate way to allocate resources to meet the needs of its members. This having been done, it would only need to go on repeating this continuously from production period to production period. Production would not be ever-increasing but would be stabilized at the level required to satisfy needs. All that would be produced would be products for consumption and the products needed to replace and repair the raw materials and instruments of production used up in producing these consumer goods. This has been called by some economists a 'steady-state economy' and what Marx called 'simple reproduction'.

In capitalism people's needs are not met and reasonable people feel insecure. People tend to acquire and hoard goods because possession provides some security. People have a tendency to distrust others because the world is organized in such a dog-eat-dog manner. In capitalist society there is a tendency for individuals to seek to validate their sense of worth through the accumulation of possessions. In socialism, status based upon the material wealth at one's command, would be a meaningless concept. Why take more than you need when you can freely take what you need? However, this does require that we appreciate what is meant by "enough" and that we do not project on to socialism the insatiable consumerism of capitalism. The establishment of socialism presupposes the existence of a mass socialist movement and a profound change in social outlook. It is simply not reasonable to suppose that the desire for socialism on such a large scale, and the conscious understanding of what it entails on the part of all concerned, would not influence the way people behaved in socialism and towards each other. Why would they want to jeopardise the new society they had just helped create? In a particular situation of actual physical shortage perhaps resulting from crop failure we can assume that the shortage can be tackled by some system of direct rationing such as prioritising indviduals needs by vulnerability , and if there is no call for that criteria , by lottery , or first come first served

Michael Albert's Failings

 Parecon appears to be about building a massive (and socially unproductive) administration for policing all the wage levels, labour outputs, prices etc. In contrast , the practical aspects of a (world - and not national) socialist revolution is not about creating ever greater bureaucratic structures, but quite the opposite.

It must be terribly deflating for a person to have devoted so much time and energy in creating an elaborate, complex, complicated construct to offer an alternative to capitalism and then to have others declare that it was totally unnecessary and that the answers and solutions already existed and stood on firmer foundations. This is the case with Michael Albert when he helped design the Parecon model. He rejected free access socialism, or as others describe it, anarcho-communism on the grounds that it was an unachievable utopia. Without quite knowing what he was rejecting.

And Michael Albert's reasoning is deeply and profoundly conservative. In fact, most of his objections to a society without buying and selling, without money and without wages and without prices derives at their root from the theories of Von Mise and the Economic Calculation Argument .

In his responses to the case for free access socialism, he confuses the abolition of the Law of Value to the abolition of valuations ie "... it will always be very desirable to make judgements about what we want to do with our time, resources, energies, etc..." even though the article clearly stated "...In any economy there needs to be some way of prioritising production goals..." and offered various details on the means to achieve this using the tools and methods of to-day's society that are able to be adapted and transformed and carried over to socialism to determine and satisfy needs and wants in a rational way in socialist society - all conveniently ignored by MA .

What was being stated in the article which Albert seemed to overlook was, to now use the words , of Paresh Chattopadhyay.

"The problem of rationally allocating productive resources in an economy is common to all human societies at least as long as these resources remain relatively limited compared to needs. However, there is no need to assume that this allocation could be effected rationally (if at all) only through the exchange of resources taking the value (price) form."

And although Paresh says it of other economic writers the following equally applies to MA and Pareconists

"The authors of the model [read MA and Parecon] under consideration in common with their opponents confuse the rational allocation of resources as such with the rational allocation of resources uniquely through the price system ... The point is that the allocation through the value form of the products of human labor is only "a particular social manner of counting labor employed in the production of an object" precisely in a society in which "the process of production dominates individuals, individuals do not dominate the process of production" (Marx). Only the "routine of daily life" makes us accept as "trivial and self-evident" that a social relation of production takes the form of an object" (Marx ).

http://libcom.org/library/capitalism-socialism-defence-...dhyay

Michael Albert still confused by the difference between allocation choices (valuations) and the abolition of value goes on to say

"What is bad about capitalism and for that matter, neoclassical economics, is not that they think economies involve choices among possibilities based on valuations. Maybe I am sheltered somehow, but I know of no serious marxist economist, or any other kind of economist - indeed radicals of any stripe at all, who wouldn't be pretty much horrified at the idea that such claims could be taken seriously."

Well , does he consider Engels a serious economist when he says value becomes redundant ?

"Hence, on the assumptions we made above, society will not assign values to products. It will not express the simple fact that the hundred square yards of cloth have required for their production, say, a thousand hours of labour in the oblique and meaningless way, stating that they have the value of a thousand hours of labour. It is true that even then it will still be necessary for society to know how much labour each article of consumption requires for its production. It will have to arrange its plan of production in accordance with its means of production, which include, in particular, its labour-powers. The useful effects of the various articles of consumption, compared with one another and with the quantities of labour required for their production, will in the end determine the plan. People will be able to manage everything very simply, without the intervention of much-vaunted "value". - footnote- As long ago as 1844 I stated that the above-mentioned balancing of useful effects and expenditure of labour on making decisions concerning production was all that would be left, in a communist society, of the politico-economic concept of value. (Deutsch-Französische Jahrbücher, p. 95) The scientific justification for this statement, however, as can be seen, was made possible only by Marx's Capital."

http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1877/anti-du...6.htm

But of course when offered this quotation Albert simply dismisses it

"My guess would be there are a hundred interpretations of the above...and honestly, I could not care less...I don't believe in scripture...so to speak."

Which begs the question why Albert appealed to the authority of serious Marxist economists in the first place as a refutation and requests book references elsewhere .

In denying free access socialism , Michael Albert simply preaches conventional bourgeois wisdom about peoples' selfish human .

"...I think you believe, instead, that there is a capacity for humanity to generate as much nice and fulfilling goods and services as anyone could possibly desire to have, plus as much leisure as anyone could want, and so on. Well, is that really your view? If so, okay, we can agree to disagree. And, honestly, I can't imagine discussing it - further - because for me it is so utterly ridiculous, honestly.... Suppose everyone would like - if the cost was zero - their own large mansion, on the ocean, with wonderful fantastic food every day, with magnificent recording and listening equipment, with a nice big boat, with their own private tennis courts, or basketball, or golf, or whatever....a great home movie system, a wonderful violin, magnificent clothes, and so on and so forth, and, also, while they like creative work a lot, they would like a whole lot of time to enjoy their bountiful home and holdings - so they want to work only twenty hours a week and of course not do anything other than what interests them. What you seem to be saying is that you think that is possible... or, even if all that were possible, no one would want it. Both are false..."

"...if something is of no cost, and I want it, sure, I will take it, to enjoy it, why not..."

"...Tell everyone that they can have a free house, a really nice car, or two, whatever equipment the like for sports or hobbies, whatever TVs they would enjoy and other tools of daily life, whatever food they want nightly, etc. etc. because it is all free, no problem for them to take what they want. And see what happens....no one will be able to conduct themselves responsibly..."

"... since they can have product, from the available social product, regardless. So sloth is rewarded. Likewise greed..."

I have heard it argued that Parecon may be a transional stage towards "from each according to ability , to each according to need " and if "anonymous" is correct concerning the employement of computers then Parecon can fight it out with the Labour-Time Vouchers proponents which also was criticised for being impossible to apply practically due to the complexity of calculating labour hours .

For Free Access Socialists and Anarcho-Communists, however, we will continue to struggle to create a structured society where people have accepted socially mutual obligations and the realization of universal interdependency and this would profoundly affect people’s choices, perceptions, conceptualizations, attitudes, and greatly influence their behavior, economically or otherwise.

The free access model which does claim "to each according to need' is a very feaseable idea and that it is the necessary pre-requisite for human liberation is criticised simply on the grounds that won't work because people just ain't like that.  If people cannot change their behaviour and take control and responsibility for their decisions , not only will socialism fail but Parecon itself will not succeed then either .



An industry that has far flung supplier and customer links, such as manufature of steel products. how is this to be linked to communities throughout north america for example?


The first and most important point is that we are not starting from the beginning. Its not a blank sheet. We are taking over and inheriting an already existing economic system which has in place various means of determining allocations and trade-offs. There are countless professional and trade associalitions and marketing boards and government departments which have the research and diagnostic tools available, not just the trade union movement of the syndicalists. All those bodies may be at present based on commerce but can be quite easily democratised, socialised and integrated organisationally .

Planning is indeed central to the idea of socialism, but socialism is the planned (consciously coordinated i mean , and not to be confused with central planning concept ) production of useful things to satisfy human needs precisely instead of the production, planned or otherwise, of wealth as exchange value, commodities and capital. In socialism wealth would have simply a specific use value (which would be different under different conditions and for different individuals and groups of individuals) but it would not have any exchange, or economic, value.
Socialism does presuppose that productive resources (materials, instruments of production, sources of energy) and technological knowledge are sufficient to allow the population of the world to produce enough food, clothing, shelter and other useful things, to satisfy all their material needs.
Conventional economics and Parecon deny that the potential for such a state of abundance exists.

Another important point not to overlook is that we are seeking a 'steady-state economy' which corresponds to what Marx called 'simple reproduction' - a situation where human needs were in balance with the resources needed to satisfy them. Such a society would already have decided, according to its own criteria and through its own decision-making processes, on the most appropriate way to allocate resources to meet the needs of its members. This having been done, it would only need to go on repeating this continuously from production period to production period. Production would not be ever-increasing but would be stabilized at the level required to satisfy needs. All that would be produced would be products for consumption and the products needed to replace and repair the raw materials and instruments of production used up in producing these consumer goods. The point about such a situation is that there will no longer be any imperative need to develop productivity, i.e. to cut costs in the sense of using less resources; nor will there be the blind pressure to do so that is exerted under capitalism through the market. Of course, technical research would continue and this would no doubt result in costs being able to be saved, but there would be no external pressure to do so or even any need to apply all new productivity enhancing techniques.

Given that socialism will still need to concern itself with the efficient allocation of resources this will be achieved mostly through calculation in kind.Decentralized production entails a self-regulating system of stock control. Stocks of goods held at distribution points would be monitored, their rate of depletion providing vital information about the future demand for such goods, information which will be conveyed to the units producing these goods. The units would in turn draw upon the relevant factors of production and the depletion of these would activate yet other production units further back along the production chain. There would thus be a marked degree of automaticity in the way the system operated. The maintenance of surplus stocks would provide a buffer against unforeseen fluctuations in demand.



The Alternative to Prices

How does this alternative to the prices system to allocate resources sound?

Decisions involving choices of a general nature, such as what forms of energy to use, which of two or more materials to employ to produce a particular good, whether and where to build a new factory, there is a technique already in use under capitalism that could be adapted for use in socialism: so-called cost-benefit analysis and its variants. Naturally, under capitalism the balance sheet of the relevant benefits and costs advantages and disadvantagesof a particular scheme or rival schemes is drawn up in money terms, but in socialism a points system for attributing relative importance to the various relevant considerations could be used instead. The points attributed to these considerations would be subjective, in the sense that this would depend on a deliberate social decision rather than on some objective standard. In the sense that one of the aims of socialism is precisely to rescue humankind from the capitalist fixation with production time/money, cost-benefit type analyses, as a means of taking into account other factors, could therefore be said to be more appropriate for use in socialism than under capitalism. Using points systems to attribute relative importance in this way would not be to recreate some universal unit of evaluation and calculation, but simply to employ a technique to facilitate decision-making in particular concrete cases. The advantages /disadvantages and even the points attributed to them can, and normally would, differ from case to case. So what we are talking about is not a new abstract universal unit of measurement to replace money and economic value but one technique among othersfor reaching rational decisions in a society where the criterion of rationality is human welfare.

Planning in socialism is essentially a question of industrial organisation, of organising productive units into a productive system functioning smoothly to supply the useful things which people had indicated they needed, both for their individual and for their collective consumption. What socialism would establish would be a rationalised network of planned links between users and suppliers; between final users and their immediate suppliers, between these latter and their suppliers, and so on down the line to those who extract the raw materials from nature. There is no point in drawing up in advance the sort of detailed blueprint of industrial organisation that the old IWW and the Syndicalists used to , but it is still reasonable to assume that productive activity would be divided into branches and that production in these branches would be organised by a delegate body. The responsibility of these industries would be to ensure the supply of a particular kind of product either, in the case of consumer goods, to distribution centres or, in the case of goods used to produce other goods, to productive units or other industries.

Since the needs of consumers are always needs for a specific product at a specific time in a specific locality, we will assume that socialist society would leave the initial assessment of likely needs to a delegate body under the control of the local community (although, other arrangements are possible if that were what the members of socialist society wanted). In a stable society such as socialism, needs would change relatively slowly. Hence it is reasonable to surmise that an efficient system of stock control, recording what individuals actually chose to take under conditions of free access from local distribution centres over a given period, would enable the local distribution committee (for want of a better name) to estimate what the need for food, drink, clothes and household goods would be over a similar future period. Some needs would be able to be met locally: local transport, restaurants, builders, repairs and some food are examples as well as services such as street-lighting, libraries and refuse collection. The local distribution committee would then communicate needs that could not be met locally to the bodies charged with coordinating supplies to local communities.

The individual would have free access to the goods on the shelves of the local distribution centres; the local distribution centres free access to the goods they required to be always adequately stocked with what people needed; their suppliers free access to the goods they required from the factories which supplied them; industries and factories free access to the materials, equipment and energy they needed to produce their products; and so on. Production and distribution in socialism would thus be a question of organising a coordinated and more or less self-regulating system of linkages between users and suppliers, enabling resources and materials to flow smoothly from one productive unit to another, and ultimately to the final user, in response to information flowing in the opposite direction originating from final users. The productive system would thus be set in motion from the consumer end, as individuals and communities took steps to satisfy their self-defined needs. Socialist production is self-regulating production for use.

To ensure the smooth functioning of the system, a central statistical office would be needed to provide estimates of what would have to be produced to meet peoples likely individual and collective needs. These could be calculated in the light of consumer wants as indicated by returns from local distribution committees and of technical data (productive capacity, production methods, productivity, etc) incorporated in input-output tables. For, at any given level of technology (reflected in the input-output tables), a given mix of final goods (consumer wants) requires for its production a given mix of intermediate goods and raw materials; it is this latter mix that the central statistical office would be calculating in broad terms. Such calculations would also indicate whether or not productive capacity would need to be expanded and in what branches. The centre (or rather centres for each world-region) would thus be essentially an information clearing house, processing information communicated to it about production and distribution and passing on the results to industries for them to draw up their production plans so as to be in a position to meet the requests for their products coming from other industries and from local communities. The only calculations that would be necessary in socialism would be calculations in kind. On the one side would be recorded the resources (materials, energy, equipment, labour) used up in production and on the other side the amount of the good produced, together with any by-products.

Stock or inventory control systems employing calculation in kind are, as was suggested earlier, absolutely indispensable to any kind of modern production system. While it is true that they operate within a price environment today, that is not the same thing as saying they need such an environment in order to operate. The key to good stock management is the stock turnover rate – how rapidly stock is removed from the shelves – and the point at which it may need to be re-ordered. This will also be affected by considerations such as lead times – how long it takes for fresh stock to arrive – and the need to anticipate possible changes in demand.

A typical sequence of information flows in a socialist economy might be as follows. Assume a distribution point (shop) stocks a certain consumer good – say, tins of baked beans. From past experience it knows that it will need to re-order approximately 1000 tins from its suppliers at the start of every month or, by the end of the month, supplies will be low. Assume that, for whatever reason, the rate of stock turnover increases sharply to say 2000 tins per month. This will require either more frequent deliveries or, alternatively, larger deliveries. Possibly the capacity of the distribution point may not be large enough to accommodate the extra quantity of tins required in which case it will have to opt for more frequent deliveries. It could also add to its storage capacity but this would probably take a bit more time. In any event, this information will be communicated to its suppliers. These suppliers, in turn, may require additional tin plate (steel sheet coated with tin), to make cans or beans to be processed and this information can similarly be communicated in the form of new orders to suppliers of those items further down the production chain. And so on and so forth. The whole process is, to a large extent, automatic – or self regulating – being driven by dispersed information signals from producers and consumers concerning the supply and demand for goods and, as such, is far removed from the gross caricature of a centrally planned economy.
It may be argued that this overlooks the problem of opportunity costs .For example, if the supplier of baked beans orders more tin plate from the manufacturers of tin plate then that will mean other uses for this material being deprived by that amount. However, it must be born in mind in the first place that the systematic overproduction of goods that Marx talked of – i.e. buffer stock – applies to all goods, consumption goods as well as production goods. So increased demand from one consumer/producer, need not necessarily entail a cut in supply to another – or at least, not immediately. The existence of buffer stocks provides for a period of re-adjustment.

Liebig’s Law of the Minimum - states is that plant growth is controlled not by the total amount of resources available to a plant but by the particular factor that is scarcest. This factor is called the limiting factor. It is only by increasing the supply of the limiting factor in question – eg nitrogen fertiliser – that you promote plant growth.
Liebig’s Law can be applied equally to the problem of resource allocation in any economy.It makes sense from an economic point of view to economise most on those things that are scarcest and to make greatest use of those things that are abundant.To claim that all factors are scarce (because the use of any factor entails an opportunity cost) and, consequently, need to be economised is actually not a very sensible approach to adopt.You cannot treat every factor equally – that is, as equally scarce – or, if you do, this will result in gross misallocation of resources and economic inefficiency.The most sensible basis on which to make such a discrimination is the relative availability of different factors and this is precisely what the law of the minimum is all about.When a particular factor is limited in relation to the multifarious demands placed on it, the only way in which it can be “inefficiently allocated” (although this is ultimately a value judgement) is in choosing “incorrectly” to which particular end use it should be allocated . Beyond that, you cannot misuse or misallocate a resource if it simply isn’t available to misallocate (that is, where there are inadequate or no buffer stocks on the shelf, so to speak). Of necessity, one is compelled to seek out a more abundant alternative or substitute .

To determine priorities Maslow’s “hierarchy of needs” would be a guide to action. It would seem reasonable to suppose that needs that were most pressing and upon which the satisfaction of others needs were contingent, would take priority over those other needs. We are talking here about our basic physiological needs for food, water, adequate sanitation and housing and so on. This would be reflected in the allocation of resources: high priority end goals would take precedence over low priority end goals where resources common to both are revealed using the earlier discussed “points” system of cost benefit analysis.

To sum up , a communist steady-state equilibrium, will have been reached. Gradual change, growth, will be simple and painless. The task of planning becomes one of simple routine; the role of economics is virtually eliminated .

Prices are indeed superfluous when society is organised on the basis of production for need and exchange-values are replaced by use-values to employ Marxian terms

No Prices - No Money - No Wages

Many will say that the price system allows people to make the allocation decisions themselves by seeing how much other people want different things -

Unfortunately , prices can only reflect the wants of those who can afford to actually buy what economists call “effective demand”.
- and not real demand for something from those without the wherewithal - the purchasing power - to buy the product (or even to express a preference for one product over another. I may want a sirloin steak but i can only afford a hamburger)

The function of cost/pricing is to enable a business enterprise to calculate its costs, to fix its profit expectations within a structure of prices, to regulate income against expenditure and, ultimately, to regulate the exploitation of its workers.

Socialist determination of needs begins with consumer needs and then flows throughout distribution and on to each required part of the structure of production

But with capitalist [and neo-capitalist] system, the information is a contra-flow of information. It flows from producers, through distributors, to the consumer. This information is the prices of goods determined by the accumulating costs of production and distribution plus profit. Prices are increased in each part of production, from mining through industrial processing, manufacture and assembly, then accumulating further through distribution until the final price is passed on to the consumer.

It is indeed very questionable that prices can represent the Social Costs of allocation of resources - put a monetary value on a beauty spot to be ravaged by an open-cast mine? Once again it is the subjective judgement of a points based cost-benefit analysis of the pros and cons that will be the more accurate deciding factor , not the $ or £.
Nor does prices effective solve the dilemma of calculating Opportunity Costs. Prices simply are Accounting Costs and i see no substantial difference with Parecon Prices regardless of claims contrary .

We should not be laying down a blueprint of socialist society like the IWW or SLP plans which were quickly made superfluous by technological and communication developments but it is still reasonable to assume that productive activity would be divided into branches and that production in these branches would be organised by a delegate body. The responsibility of these industries would be to ensure the supply of a particular kind of product either, in the case of consumer goods, to distribution centres or, in the case of goods used to produce other goods, to productive units or other.We will assume that socialist society would leave the initial assessment of likely needs to a delegate body under the control of the local community.To ensure the smooth functioning of the system, a central statistical office would be needed industries(or rather centres for each world-region), local distribution committees etc etc

Details of how they are elected or appointed or delegated may indeed be vague, but no more abstract than all the committees of the Parecon model which it will be required to create for its administration. We will no doubt both be building upon but transforming what already exists, and that more than probably will be capitalism's own organisations.

It will not be central planning.  The object is to minimise direction and have society as self-regulating and de-centralised with the minimum of intervention . It is not a "technocratic" vision independent of grassroots self-managment.