Wow. Very different from what we have now. I have read Albert's and Hahnel's part econ and found it very convincing.

How would we get there from what we have now by giving a concrete example.

Well there are no living examples of Participatory Allocation that I know of but one can imagine a group of consumer coops getting together and forming a federation. Each coop has its own council and this federation of consumer coops would have a federated council with delegates from each coop. A group of worker coops can be organized in a similar fashion.

Let us say, the Greater Metropolitan area of Montreal Federation of Consumers (MMFC) and which represent 60 consumer cooperative is interested in the many of the goods and services that the Québec Confederation of Cooperative Businesses (QCCB).

Sometime this year, Members of the MMFC would make consumer proposals of goods and services - within the sectors of the QCCB -with certain particulars that they’d like to see. Consumers can ask for non genetically modified fruits or cookies without any trans fats or boxer shorts made of a new synthetic material using a process that is ecologically sound. The individual proposals would be added up and debated at the lower and higher councils in order to come up with a global consumption bundle for next year.

Now the MMFC does not just buy products from the QCCB, but let us assume that the 45% of the products in the MMFC coops derive from QCCB businesses. Hence, the consumption bundle represent 45% of all MMFC consumption.

During this time, workers at the various businesses represented by the QCCB would make their production plans for the year. These plans can be debated at the lower and higher worker councils and tabulated in order for the QCCB to offer a production bundle.

Now, the MMFC is not the only client of the QCCB, let us say it represents 20% of all its sales. Well, for this 20% of its sales, well this production bundle would only cover 20% of all the products it produces.

The Consumption and Production Bundles would be brought together at the Democratic Allocation Council that was set up by the MMFC and QCCB and on which reps of both organizations sit. The DAC would match the proposals and come up with indicative prices taking various social and ecological considerations. For example certain type of products require more strenuous and dangerous work the DAC would have this information, certain types of products are not healthy for consumers and they don’t want them, the DAC would also have this information. Hence, the DAC would come up with a preliminary plan that would probably be out of whack since there is too much divergence between the MMFC and the QCCB.

The DAC’s preliminary plan would be sent back to the MMFC and to the QCCB and they would have to revise their proposals in light of the information they got. This iteration process may be repeated several times until the DAC can put a or several plans together that converges the MMFC and the QCCB plans. These plans are sent to the MMFC and the QCCB to be voted on and a plan is selected.

Now, before you say, this seems extremely burdensome, we’ve got to take into consideration that we live in the age of the computer. Hence, individual proposal can be done on a terminal and they can be added up in milliseconds in order to give a MMFC bundle. The MMFC councils must then debate these bundle, since it could be that one or two people asked for stuff that these coops are against, like uranium or cocaine to give two ludicrous example. The convergence process can also be done via computer. So this process is much quicker than one thinks.

True, debates would take time, but isn’t that part of the democratic process.

But, this plan above was for 2006, when participants repeat this exercise for 2007, they have last year’s information that they can base themselves on, so the exercise becomes easier.

Hence, the members of the MMFC and the QCCB didn’t meet as adversaries but as participants in a negotiation that took each others needs and desires into consideration as well as other social considerations.

What happens when a monopoly bargains directly with a monopsony? A very interesting idea. The technological integration is a very interesting point, as well.

Good question.

In terms of a monopsony, I can't really conceptualize that situation in a federation of consumer coops. The example I gave of an MMFC was basically a collection 60 coops, each having many members. These members would then make individual proposals that would be added up.

In the example above, he QCCB is also a federation of various businesses. So it's not one consumer coop bargaining with one worker coop but a federation of the two actors.

In this way there's two bundles one of things workers want to produce and one of the things consumers want to consume.

Also, I think they are more than bargaining. They are making individual plans. One on the consumption side and one on the production side. Then the wants of both are sent to the other party. This allows everyone to reasses their wants with the others wants. Hence, each group takes the other's side into consideration.

Because of the federated nature of the conumption side and the production side, there is no one monopoly or or monopsony. Because of the fact that the parties are not negotiating directly but via proposals in which every single member gets to participate in there is no direct pure bargaining. More of a reality check and a reavalution. So Participatory Allocation functions in such a way as to avoid monolitic parties meeting in an adverserial role. The idea is to have each party make decisions based on data from the other side and try and work into some sort of convergence via the DAC or any other similar body.

So I don't see an eventuality of having one Monopoly bargaining directly with one Monopsony in this system.