Great discussion guys. What I don't understand, and forgive me if I'm missing the obvious, is in a real, complex economy where decisions have more variables than washers/dryers - where does the kind of information you're talking about come from? Didn't Stiglitz just win the dynamite prize for this stuff? A left-libertarian economy is going to be more decentralized and localized(I would assume). Even then, is it possible to truly guage the ramifications of all potential actions for a worker within a system and then make a rational choice based on this information? I would think that garnering this information would only be possible in a centrally-planned economy.

Most of what I have seen here misses very key features and ideas of the Parecon system. It's a tragedy actually, because I don't have the time to correct it all, and due the system explanatory justice.

I would suggest actually reading about the whole system and how it's various features overlay and interconnect on upon each other. For key features and processes have been completely missed in the above.

For instance, there is huge incentive in a Parecon to make work life, ie., its production consumption and allocation as beneficial and efficient to it's denizens as possible.

Because each works in what is called a Balanced Job Complex.

Ruffly, this is a set of tasks which amount to a quality of work life that is average for the society.

This does not mean that there is no specialization in a Parecon, instead it means that everyone has something to do which empowers them. Of course there is difference between talents & abilities, both innate and earned through perseverance, but Parecon fully recognizes and embraces this. It may be that Joe physicist can take 5 mins and come up with an equation that solves the worlds energy problems, but should his reward come not out of monetary reward, but the love and passion for committing the act alone? If all were operating at this level of consciousness, influenced by the mechanisms of the overarching economic structures, do you not see how this would propel quality over mediocrity.

I hold that our current level of operation as a species on this planet, is that of an infant, yet to have learned to crawl.

If balance were achieved, and incentive to eliminate the rote was high, as it would be in a Parecon, think of how quickly , almost exponentially the quality of the economic pie could be grown! The previously dormant bottom 80% would become a highly functional group of individuals each co-operating for the good of all, which would truly be the good of the individual. This is so, because no one is an island unto them self.

If we come to see the economy holistically, versus atomisticly, then like the cells of the body, which when co-operating in harmony thrive and flourish, the economy can do the same. But when there is blockage, and competition, ie the current patent system, and cells compete, we have a cancerous tumor so great that death is a risk to great to not reconsider our current trajectory.

The reason for this is because hierarchies of power breed corruption in decision making processes, due to the few who aggrandize their own short term interests above a more sustainable approach. Also, if we want a truly democratic system, people have to be empowered to make decisions. Naturally an environment which instills this attribute into them, is needed. Also, if every one has to share in the rote work, then there is huge incentive to get rid of it, instead of using it as a means for control by the few over the many.

Coupled with this, remuneration for effort and sacrifice gives monetary incentive(credits, which in a parecon are non transferable, ie when they are spent they disappear!) to take control of what most of us have actual influence over; versus what genes, tools, and other things we inherit, which we do not have control over.

But whats truly wonderful, is that in a good economy, ie parecon, the biggest incentive of all is to innovate something which you and your peers truly believe is something for will benefit humanity. This is because in a Parecon I don't make money by any of the corrupt means which plague our planet today, ie war, coercion, and secrecy etc