In my last two columns, I outlined the main reasons for which I believe we should oppose capitalism, and presented a perspective that finds private property an excess of authority rather than a natural right that must be protected, and offered a solution to reconcile the need for privacy and ability to use resources for personal uses with the need to curb the excessive authority of private property and injustices that come with it.

So now our task is to offer an alternative to capitalism. It isn’t enough to simply be opposed to something. If we can’t come up with something better, then no matter how many flaws in something we point out, our opposition to it is worthless.

Before coming up with a model though, we should come up with some values we want it to embody. I propose the following values: participatory democracy, freedom, non-hierarchical structure, equitable distribution of wealth, equitable division of labor, and cooperation.

Participatory democracy, freedom, and a non-hierarchical structure kind of fit together. If we really value democracy, that means we value people having direct say over the decisions that impact their lives. A system is democratic to the extent that people’s impact over decisions is proportionate to the impact of the decision upon them. The closer we get to fulfilling the maxim, the more a system is based on direct democracy, and the less hierarchical it becomes.

Likewise, if we value freedom, we want, to the extent possible, people to be free of coercion and free of others making decisions for them. There are two ways to achieve this: the first is to have no interaction with other people at all, and the second is to make decisions through participatory democracy. The first may be appropriate in some situations, but it is impossible to model an economy on. Since decisions can only be made unilaterally or democratically, we can only fulfill our values of freedom by fulfilling our values of democracy, which both translate into a non-hierarchical participatory democratic structure.

In promoting the idea of democracy (equality in decision-making power) and non-hierarchical structures (equality in the enjoyment of freedom) the logical extension is to promote equality in wealth distribution and division of labor. People’s share of the pie should be based on the effort they expend, not the power they accrue, and if there is onerous work that must be done, everyone should either take equal part in it so that no one is doomed to a life of only onerous work, or should learn to live without the products of onerous work.

We want cooperation because competition erodes solidarity and reduces our humanity. What does it say about us if we can’t live productive lives without always trying to put ourselves first at the expense of others?

Socialism-and perhaps we should just trash the word, given its damnation to synonymy with central planning-has long had a libertarian wing, often falling under the titles “anarchism,” “anarcho-communism,” “anarcho-syndicalism,” or “libertarian socialism.”

Whatever you want to call it, I would suggest that anyone interested in libertarian alternatives to capitalism and markets check out the website www.parecon.org as a starting point. “ParEcon” is short for “Participatory Economics,” a model that economists Michael Albert and Robin Hahnel have developed as a detailed economic vision to show just how such an economy could function in an efficient and productive manner. Of course, most of the concepts and values of ParEcon are part of the long libertarian socialist tradition, but Albert and Hahnel’s contributions are unique in that they move beyond vague generalities and lay out a detailed vision that is convincing and can stand up to analysis.

So here’s a look at what a libertarian alternative to capitalism could look like:

There are basically two main categories of economic decisions that must be made: in one category, there are the macro-economic questions of what will be produced, how much, and how to distribute it; and in the other, how they will be produced (for example, the decisions pertaining to the inner workings of the workplaces that produce/provide the goods and services). For these categories we can have two forms of decision-making bodies: consumers’ councils and workers’ councils.

Workers’ councils would consist of everyone in a given workplace that democratically make the decisions that affect that workplace. They could, of course, also consist of sub-divisions to make decisions that only affect part of the workplace. We should take note here that while this does involve people in increased amounts of time making decisions, it also eliminates the need for professional decision-makers who spend just as much time. The difference is not in how much time is spent making decisions, but rather whether the decisions are made democratically or unilaterally.

Consumers’ councils would be councils at a community level where individuals and families would submit consumption requests, and those requests would be hashed out to be modified to ensure equitable and realistic distributions. Consumers’ councils would round up collections of individual consumption requests for that community and the consumption requests of that community itself (for resources to maintain public parks, for example), and communication would take place between the aggregate consumers’ councils and workers’ councils to compare the consumption requests with the economic possibilities. If resources must be reallocated to different workplaces to meet the consumption requests, plans would be drawn up, or if it were simply impossible to satisfy the consumption requests, the information would be relayed back to individual councils to negotiate modifications of requests. I think in a transition period this would be rocky and take quite a while to settle into, but as with any transition, things would smooth out over time.

In order to determine how to distribute the wealth, some sort of prices should be set. The prices should be objective calculations that reflect the effort that went into the product, measured by aggregate hours of work, the natural resources used, and the social costs, such as environmental damage. This would be hard to accomplish through direct democracy, so it is important that any indirect democracy and delegation involved be kept in strong democratic check through easy instant recall mechanisms, thorough transparency, and final sovereignty to accept or reject decisions by the people through direct democracy.

This is a vision of a future that is recognizable. The extent to which it is possible is the extent to which we work for it. Over time, through trial and error, our visions can be refined. But it is clear that there are better alternatives to what we have now. Ultimately, all that can stand in our way is our own inaction.
Chris Masterjohn is a Collegian Columnist