I don't think the Parecon Ideal of people being remunerated in proportion to to their “hard work”
, period of work or "sacrifice" in work is a good idea.

Basically I don't really agree with the idea of remuneration as reward much at all. I think that the need either for reward and punishment as motivators to work are signs of what I would call mal-employment and in that in that case, what is needed is some way to make the work intrinsically satisfying and meaningful or, temporarily failing that, simply equally distributed.

I think the whole rewards and punishment thing is a legacy of sick culture and hyper competitive capitalist (in this case anyway) forms of education (education being considered as the transmission of culture across the generations). I could go into what I think are the various myths about rewards, that i think the parecon modal is mistakenly importing into its vision of a better economic system, but to save time I will just direct you to a couple of articles by the educator and author Alfie Kohn which make a lot of the points I would make about the subject pretty well. the articles are about education but from the point of view of parecon they point to views regarding work that are merely legacies of our own educations into the culture of capitalism.

The articles are: “Punished by Rewards?: an interview with Alfie Kohn” and “Risks of Rewards” are here: www.alfiekohn.org/articles.htm#null. there is also the book “Punished by Rewards” which is probably available at most libraries.


To Kohn's remarks I would add my own considerations of and experience with, various workaholics that I have known for whom work was as much a distraction and character failing as any other addiction and who harmed both themselves and others in with such behavior. I think also that the remuneration provision might also be the result of the parecon “coordinating class” imposing it habits/values/denial (activists can often be workaholics) on the the theory and so indirectly one those who would participate in its practice.

I think if there are to be differentials in remuneration they should be tied not to “sacrifice” and “effort” so much as to Consumption Criteria. By suggesting this I mean gesture at the fact that when we consume we support some form of economy and in most cases we support the sick economy of capitalism with its mal-produced, misallocated, and environmentally destructive goods and services, as well as the misery and mal-employment that goes along with that. I think that remuneration for work (if it could still be called remuneration) should, if it is to be a reward for anything, be a reward commensurate with the willingness of the worker-as-consumer to consume responsibly and so not be taking away as a consumer what they contribute as a worker to a healthy economy. In short, i am interested in creating a system in which, beyond a certain guaranteed minimum that is equal for every one, what you get paid is tied to what you are do with the money.

I suppose as a default, some equation involving the collectives profit, purchase prospectives submitted by workers, and receipts from consumption of past wages, might be involved in assessing the proper distribution of profits per worker (above what the workers may decide to collectively invest in the furtherance of a healthy economy). I hope that there will also be face to face meetings where the, probably ever changing, wage differentials might be discussed and approved. maybe it might be better to do decide the whole thing at face to face meetings in works groups with only certain flexible rules as guide lines...

I don't think that it would be very difficult to get consensus on what companies, goods and services represent healthier consumption choices than others—at least to a certain extent. perhaps consensus on this can be renewed through periodic updates on green businesses with an undated list and ranking covering as many as possible of the categories of things covered in the wage differential. I think that in order not to simply be funding consumption for the sake of consumption (even if the consumption is from more responsible companies) the distribution differential should be limited to necessities such as (organic, local food and clothing, and perhaps certain elements of sustainable technology and material) anything beyond this would perhaps need be argued before the collective and get the face to face agreement of ones work group.

This is new Idea so far as I know—it certainly is a new Idea of mine—and so what I have thrown out in the last two paragraphs regarding the details of implementation are just brainstorms. But I do think that the devil is in the details of such an idea...

I am not so sure that this arrangement solves the problem of Rewards, since there is still some potential of
of it feeling like one is being rewarded for ones consumption patterns in some way that is extrinsic to the rewards of more responsible consumption in and of itself. But I think that whether this is so will be a matter of presentation and implementation. It is not that responsible consumption is being Rewarded by the differential allocation, (and ideally there would be no invidious comparisons or competition involved) it is rather being Supported and Enabled by it. This will be a practical necessity since responsible consumption of essentials will often be more expensive (either in time or money—and perhaps grants of time could function in this same manner as money in some cases) than unsustainable versions of the same consumable.

anyway, this Idea (which I am bravely though perhaps unwisely sharing in its infant state) comes from a vision of a healthy economy within a healthy culture in which the present sick economy is understood as a complex or “economic syndrome'' of Mal-production, Malconsumption, Mal-Distribution and Mal-employment which I will share more fully in some other post since I think the above is enough to think about for now. I just feel the need to mention it now I guess as a kind of prelude to that future post.

take care,

Piankhy

i