Looking Forward. By Michael Albert and Robin Hahnel Go to Table of Contents Glossary

ACCOUNTING MONEY: Each individual has a "dollar" income recorded in the economy's computer system. The income will be above or below average if the actor is borrowing or lending, or works more or less than average. When an individual or unit proposes receipt of some good, it spends "accounting money" to get it. Every unit and individual can spend up to its income each year, each expenditure being deducted from its account. No cash changes hands, the computer record of remaining income merely decreases with each new expenditure. Likewise, accounting money does not earn interest. ALLOCATION: The process determining how much of each good is produced and how it is distributed among different users. Markets, central planning, and participatory planning are different systems of allocation. BALANCED JOB COMPLEX: A collection of tasks within a workplace that is comparable in its burdens and benefits and in its impact on the worker's ability to participate in decision making to all other job complexes in that workplace. Workers have responsibility for a job complex in their main workplace, and often for additional tasks outside to balance their overall work responsibilities with those of other workers in society. BORROW An individual can consume more than his or her workload warrants on condition of consuming less or working more in the future to pay off the loan. CAPITALIST CLASS: Those who own the means of production in capitalist economies. CCFB--COLLECTIVE CONSUMPTION FACILITATION BOARD: A group of workers organized to provide information and, when requested, advice and guidance to consumption units re collective consumption options. CENTRAL PLANNING: An allocation system wherein a group we call coordinators develops a plan for work units to carry out. While they may take citizens' preferences into account, the coordinators make the final decisions themselves. CFB--CONSUMPTION FACILITATION BOARD: A group of workers organized to provide information and advice to consumers re their personal options. COLLECTIVE CONSUMPTION: Consumption undertaken by groups of individuals acting together and sharing responsibility for the cost (in accounting money), such as playground equipment for a neighborhood park or a new theatre complex for a city. COORDINATOR CLASS: Planners, administrators, technocrats, and other conceptual workers who monopolize the information and decision-making authority necessary to determine economic outcomes. An intermediate class in capitalism; the ruling class in coordinator economies such as the Soviet Union, China, and Yugoslavia. COORDINATOR ECONOMY: An economy in which a class of experts/technocrats/managers/conceptual workers monopolizes decision-making authority while traditional workers carry out their orders. EFB-EMPLOYMENT FACILITATION BOARD: A group of workers who assist people wishing to change their place of work. HFB-HOUSING FACILITATION BOARD: A group of workers who assist people wishing to change their residence. lFB-ITERATION FACILITATION BOARD: A group of workers who provide information to participants in participatory planning indicative prices, levels of supply and demand, qualitative information, etc.-for each iteration (or round) of the planning process. INCOME: The amount of "accounting money" allotted to a person each year. Income for any individuals or unit would be average or more or less depending on loans, debts, special need, and work load. INDICATIVE PRICES: Prices indicating the social costs and benefits associated with the use of goods or services. Initial indicative prices would be set at the outset of planning by lFBs based on the prior year's final prices and expected changes. Indicative prices would change from round to round in the planning process in response to excess demands and supplies becoming increasingly more accurate estimates of true social costs and benefits. ITERATIVE PLANNING: A planning process that more or less repeats the same decision-making and calculating procedures a number of times, each time drawing closer to a final plan. Each new round of the process is a new iteration. JOB COMPLEX: The collection of tasks comprising an individual's work assignment. All economies have job complexes, which may be unbalanced regarding desirability and empowerment, as in capitalism and coordinatorism, or balanced as in participatory economics. PARTICIPATORY PLANNING: A social, iterative planning process in which producers and consumers propose and revise their own economic activities in such a way as to yield an equitable and efficient plan. PARTICIPATORY PRICES: The prices generated by a participatory planning process. The same as indicative prices. PFB-PRODUCTION FACILITATION BOARD: A group of workers who provide information and guidance to production units about technological options. QUALITATIVE INFORMATION: A list of the human effects of work and or consumption, people's feelings about it, their reasons for unusual requests, etc. SLACK: Extra resources, goods, and labor set aside in the plan to take care of possible contingencies. SOCIAL BENEFITS TO SOCIAL COST RATIO: The social value of the outputs a workplace proposes to provide divided by the social cost of the inputs they propose to use. The ratio allows firms to see how their efforts and efficiency rank alongside national averages. UFB-UPDATING FACILITATION BOARD: A group of workers who identify and propose changes in a plan after it is agreed on but which become necessary during the plan's implementation.