Looking Forward. By Michael Albert and Robin Hahnel Go to Table of Contents 2.Participatory Workplaces

To get a a feel for the size of the U.S. economy that is to be made participatory note that in 1986 there were 68,076 agricultural services, forestry, and fishery establishments; 34,973 mining establishments; 355,452 manufacturing establishments; and 1,441,236 retail trade establishments. There were 937 metal mining establishments, 3,773 bituminous coal and lignite establishments, 23,322 oil and gas extraction establishments, 14,000 rubber and miscellaneous plastic products establishments, 6,725 primary metal industries establishments, 17,374 electric and electronic equipment establishments, 6,152 textile mill product establishments, 57,299 printing and publishing establishments, 2,327 petroleum and coal product establishments, 187,430 food stores, 362,895 eating and drinking places, 36,037 general merchandise stores, 141,884 apparel and accessory stores, 205,597 real estate offices, 54,759 banks, 18,543 movie theaters, 2,018 museums, etc. To get a feeling for the size of the U.S. economy in 1987 there were approximately 3.5 million salespeople, 1.7 million food servers, 1.4 million registered nurses, 2.7 million janitors and cleaners, 2.3 billion general managers and top executives, 2.1 million cashiers, 2.2 million truck drivers, 2.3 million office clerks, 3.2 million secretaries.... The U.S. gross national product in 1988 was $4.8 trillion. Personal consumption was $3.2 trillion. Total government expenditures were just under $677 billion. "Education in a society with a participatory economy must provide its citizens the skills, knowledge, and experience essential to playing a creative, self -managing role in society and in the special fields of their choice." In considering the possibilities for a participatory economy in the U.S. it is important to remember that about a fourth of the federal governments' expenditures go directly to defense related purchases and staffing and that defense employment is about 1 million civilians plus about 2.1 million active duty military personnel. The U.S. defense budget in 1988 was just a bit over $290 billion. (In contrast, France spends about $28 billion, West Germany $28 billion, England $27 billion, Japan $20 billion, and Italy $13 billion.) Five of the largest corporations in the country, all received more than half their business from the federal government - Lockheed (86%), General Dynamics (85%), Martin Marietta (85%), McDonnell Douglas (65%), and Raytheon (55%). Retool much of this to address social needs, and the quality of life of the U.S. and much of the world could be vastly improved. For a discussion of theoretical concerns and visionary aims relating to other spheres of social life than the economy which are, however, compatible with participatory economics, see Liberating Theory (South End Press), and the other books referenced on page 6. We return to this issue, as well, in the conclusion of this book

Participatory Publishing: Northstart Press Naturally, Northstart Press organizes jobs to accomplish tasks with dispatch at high quality. But Northstart's participatory priorities also require that all workers exercise their talents and express their wills. Instead of selling books to make profits, Northstart's workers are pleased when readers are entertained or enlightened. Northstart workers choose among submissions by deciding whether readers will benefit sufficiently to merit the resources, time, and energy required to publish them. Writing, editing, and design are done largely as now. But proofreading and copy -editing occur by computer program, for -matting is automatic, and the result is stored in computer banks for electronic accessing. We can imagine that to save trees and other resources and to reduce onerous tasks most books might be electrically conveyed to portable booksize computers that have the heft, look, and feel of traditional books and allow readers to alter the size, layout, design, and resolution on their system's paper -page -like "screen'' Only for volumes of special merit or on specific order would books be printed. In this way preparation and distribution costs could drop dramatically, scarce resources could be protected, and consumers could enjoy easy, direct, and nearly free access to whole libraries of information. Computer programs could also facilitate design by allowing easy manipulation of graphics, charts, and type style, size, and page alignment. Indeed, people's "electronic -books" might even allow them to choose larger type or more white space or even new pictures, graphs, or layout of their own design. While some of these technical changes could theoretically occur in a capitalist future, many will not because they would conflict with profitability and subvert hierarchy. While they could occur in a participatory economic future, whether they will will be determined in light of their human and social effects on work, consumption, libraries, bookstores, the ecology, and the reading experience. But these are issues of investment, a subject we will address in detail later. Many business tasks would also differ in a participatory publishing house. Due to technological innovations (assuming they are adopted), most Northstart fulfillment -filling orders and tracking inventory -occurs by phone onto electronic books. Large warehouses are no longer necessary to store titles. Over production no longer leads to shredding unsold books. Fulfillment workers maintain records of people who access different titles since this information is useful to authors, researchers, and within Northstart. We can summarize changes for other departments as well. The task of participatory promotion would be to help potential readers decide whether they want to take a closer look at titles, but there would be no effort to entice people to "buy" books they cannot benefit from. Participatory workers wouldn't want to waste resources, energy, or time producing inferior products. Northstart sends informative promotional messages to people most likely to enjoy, appreciate, or learn from new titles. Similarly, the Northstart finance/budget department oversees scheduling within limits set by council decision -making. Finance/ budget work differs from familiar capitalist norms in both data handling and data dissemination because what is valued alters. In a capitalist firm, data assembled by the finance/budget department is restricted so that top managers and owners have access, but no matter how many computer terminals exist, only a few employees can access this information. Were non -privileged workers able to access such information, they might use it to better gauge what wages to demand, or when they might best strike. In contrast, at Northstart everyone works with any information they choose. Not only can those in promotion access budget data, so can those in fulfillment, and people in fulfillment and promotion can access data from each other's departments as well. It won't be productive for everyone to analyze all data endlessly. But it will be desirable to organize information so every actor can understand Northstart's operations and experiment with projections. Job Complexes What other changes might result from participatory organization? The most fundamental structural change is that each Northstart worker has a job complex including some editorial, production, and business responsibilities and encompassing roughly average positive and negative work attributes. The total array of tasks associated with producing play scripts, for example, is divided among a team so that each member has comparable tasks. Similarly, the editorial team working on novels allocates editing, working with authors, and soliciting new novels so that everyone gets to use their special talents and to fulfill their particular interests while no one enjoys all creative tasks or gets stuck with an excess of numbing tasks. Instead of having head editors, copy editors, proofreaders, and secretaries, each editorial team includes equal members who have diverse responsibilities suited to their own tastes and talents but mindful of the need for equity. Though one person might do more copy -editing and another take more notes, what would be disallowed is allocating conceptual work entirely to one set of people and rote work entirely to another. 'Me educational implications of this arrangement should be obvious. Education in a society with a participatory economy must provide its citizens with the skills, knowledge, and experience essential to playing a creative, self managing role in society and in the special fields of their choice. The contrast to capitalism, where schools acclimate citizens to endure boredom and order -taking, should be obvious. Councils Beyond equitable job definition, there would also be a council of all Northstart workers where each had equal voice and vote as well as smaller councils responsible for editing and producing fiction, general nonfiction, and technical books, and still smaller overlapping councils in each business division. A variety of teams would undertake preparing particular books or researching a particular reorganization of workplace technology. In assigning special jobs, there would be no need to make work the same for everybody at every moment. Equity would come on average -over reasonable spans of time -as when individuals get vacations at different times or spend months doing a time -consuming creative project and catch up on rote tasks later. One could even make provision that if a person "borrows" to take a vacation and then changes jobs, any "debt" incurred would hold over to the new workplace. Northstart's yearly plan evolves through negotiations each May. Decisions are made about how many plays, novels, and books to accept and release during the year, and about work load, materials needed, work allocation, hiring new workers, and establishing new rules and technologies. Initial proposals come from all participants in the economy, go through a number of revisions, and finally ,'mesh" into a feasible plan, including a work plan for Northstart. Northstart budget and finance workers facilitate this "iterative" process at each stage by providing useful data and suggestions to all Northstart workers. No one expects everyone to have the same priorities. Nor is it assumed that everyone will agree that the final plan is necessarily the best possible one. Northstart's proposals are altered from iteration to iteration by a process of give -and -take guided by information provided by other units. Finance/budget workers facilitate this updating, though it is overseen by the whole Northstart council. In any event, once a year's plan is determined, and we will understand this process better after addressing allocation in chapters 5 and 6, work for the new period begins. As the year progresses, most decisions are taken within particular Northstart teams and councils, though some require ratification by the whole Northstart council, and others require approval of industry or consumer councils. But this does not mean that every decision is everyone's affair. Instead, decisions are made by those directly affected, and often people delegate authority and autonomy to others with whom they work. Participatory organization allows democracy without nosiness. In a participatory workplace, of course there may be males and females, homosexuals and heterosexuals, blacks, whites, Asians, and Native Americans, Catholics, Protestants, Moslems, and Jews. But Northstart employees recognize that the cultural diversity that members of different social groups bring to work should be allowed to express itself in the context of job complexes balanced for empowerment and agreeableness. To help ensure this, every month optional caucus meetings discuss whether any workplace issues affect minority group interests. Workplace caucuses have autonomous rights to challenge arrangements they believe are sexually or racially oppressive. But since the rationale for these requirements stems not from a theory of economic relations but from theories of kinship and community relations, we do not treat the justification for employing such caucuses in further detail here (see lower sidebar on this page).