Rating: 
Summary: 2 points for effort, 1 for result
Review: Credit to Albert for exploring new ideas. A few good insights. But I haven't been able to finish. I found the writing style tedious. The vision described feels stifling and bureaucratic. It does not appear to put a lot of value on individual freedom. For one thing, in a Parecon I need to get approval before I do anything. I even have to submit a plan for personal consumption. It seems I can't take any entrepreneurial initiative without approval, which aside from negative impacts on the economy and on innovation, strikes me as an unjustified restriction. (Sure, many people in a capitalist economy don't have these opportunities, but Parecon is taking us further backward in terms of some liberties). The idea of being evaluated by workers' councils feels intimidating, but if done properly it could work well. Okay, some things are worth trying. I'm convinced that a more cooperative approach to organising society is possible and desirable, but as for the more radical Parecon ideas, I'm highly sceptical. It's not only this book and it's not only on the Left side of politics. Bias and a lack of rigour are too common: The Lexus and the Olive Tree by Tom Friedman was unsatisfying in its lack of rigourous, balanced analysis; and "The Road to Serfdom" was infuriating in its mixture of 1. half-truths (the efficiency of the market, and the inefficiency of government price-setting. Post-WW2 Britain even had inspector ensuring haircuts were the right price, so Hayek did have valid concerns), 2. blatant untruths (compromising the market leads inevitably to totalitarianism) and 3. enormous blind spots (Hayek completely ignores externalities, the free rider problem, and inequalities in opportunity due to differences in health care and education). So Friedman and Hayek are no more satisfactory than Albert. Actually, Albert has been far more willing to push the boundaries and explore new ideas. So Parecon does have value. It's worth reading someone who is genuinely insightful and rigourous and isn't stuck in one viewpoint. I'm very impressed with Amartya Sen's "Development and Freedom". Intelligent, rigourous and balanced. Importantly, it balances a philosophical analysis of freedom with a very empirical examination of outcomes. I'm having to read it very slowly, but it's got far more substance than Parecon, or the other books mentioned. I can see why Sen won a Nobel Prize. Parecon has its place, but I'd recommend getting a firmer grip on economics and issues of freedom before you do - and Sen's book is a good place to start.
Rating: 
Summary: Socialism disguised
Review: Dumb ideas like this are brought forward again and again. Of course, inevitably, it will result in central social planning -- see, for instance, Hayek's Road to Serfdom to understand why. Workers will be paid by hardship instead of value produced?! Hilarious. So the jobs that produce the most value, i.e., the most important jobs, will go unfilled! It's amazing anyone would take nonsense like this seriously.
Rating: 
Summary: another world is possible!
Review: even though this doesn not present totally new ideas (centuries of socialist thought and practice have presented and enacted this ideas which run counter to the bureacratic soviet system as well as to the monopolistic technocratic capitalism of today), it nevertheless presents us a contemporarized guide as to how a different society from this one plagged by extreme concentrations of wealth and power and its corresponding abuses, environmental destruction, war, crime, etc, can work. capitalism is a system that inevitably concentrates wealth in a few hands, requires inmense bureaucratic aparatuses in order to stand on its feet (tax collection agencies, military and police, environmental regulation agencies, courts, etc.) which would end up always centralizing political power in a few hands and with the implication of corruption and abuse of power. it will always end up in condemning millions to poverty and crime and specifically it created the current ecological crisis. from the point of view of a wish for a decent dignified life for humans, it stands as basically againts this wish.
if indeed one takes this wish seriously, this book shows how the problems mentioned above can be eliminated by organizing society in a descentralized truly democratic way which could provide for everyone while at the same time posibilitating and respecting everyones individuality/difference.
charges of it being unpractical can come up, nevertheless if one ends up investigating this ideas, it is because one has already found the current system as uncapable of solving this problems and perhaps even seeing in it the most crucial source of all this problems. the becoming reality of this alternative view depends of course on collective vill well aware of the cirscunstances which has in opposition to it.
Rating:
Summary: Articulate examination of a feasible alt to the status quo
Review: I am a healthy skeptic, but this text really interested me. Anything that progressively challenges the status quo is bound to be a healthy endeavor. Apparently this isn't an exhaustive study of parecon ... others maybe familiar with other works listed on the parecon site ...
Rating:
Summary: Utopia is not the word
Review: If you read the book thouroughly, Michael Albert's "ParEcon" is not utopian. One question remains. How will intellectual or talented dissidents who want more than the "effort/sacrifice" dividend? Great book, Parecon is a deep and intuitive insight on what we can reach. Our only limit is our bias towards its theory.
Rating:
Summary: Albert's best work on ParEcon yet.
Review: It is amazing to see critics trivialize the incredible amount of evolution in economic theory that it has taken to get us to the point of a workable and equitable product that both enhances work output and quality of life. Demonizing Participatory Economics is very easy.. unless you've actually read the book. What Albert presents in PARECON is a solid, workable plan worthy of thought, discussion and debate in every level of society. Albert has solidified the original economic theories that he developed with Robin Hahnel in their previous works together (Looking Forward; Political Economy of Participatory Economics), and has presented thoughtful reflections on the workability of such a system in our world. It is often that critics who have not actually read through the proposals that ParEcon presents argue against it with such erroneous statements as, "the jobs that produce the most value, i.e., the most important jobs, will go unfilled!" I challenge you, the reader, to find out just how untrue this is for yourself. Participatory Economics is a long-awaited step in the evolution of economic theory, and I encourage everyone to take a look into it.
Rating:
Summary: Nice utopia, but impractical
Review: Michael Albert proposes an interesting alternative to free market economy that emphasizes equality and solidarity. The basic tenets are: - Remuneration according to effort made, not the value of what is produced. A person is basically remunerated according to the hardship of the worker. As a result, someone with a cushy desk job is effectively paid less than someone with a menial job. - Balanced job complexes. No one is allowed to monopolize "empowering" jobs while relegating some to menial jobs. Everyone is required to perform a wide variety of tasks at a given workplace, thereby balancing one's job to eliminate social class. - Participatory decision making at every level. Decisions as to what to produce and how much, as well as any societal decision for that matter, is made not by market forces nor by central planning, but by systems of committees of the people affected by the decision, voting democratically. The author goes into tremendous detail to elaborate on this, there's no way I can do it justice here. My only comment is that like all utopias, it's idealistic but sadly falls flat when faced by cruel facts. Capitalism works because it starts from the assumption that people will behave in their own self interest. It works because of it, not in spite of it. Parecon assumes that people will benevolently do what they have to do for the good of society. It collapses as soon as people start getting selfish. So for instance, Parecon rewards workers according to effort made. The only way to quantify effort is subjectively by one's co-workers. Albert suggests that members of a workplace might grade each other from A to F and divide up the workplace's allocated income accordingly. What happens when 2/3 of the workers decide to band together, rate each other A+ and the others F regardless of effort, thereby monopolizing most of the money and rendering the rating system meaningless? Alliances and plotting would quickly replace honest appraisal. This would have the general effect of depressing a company's productivity. Parecon suggests allocating less money to companies of below average productivity to prevent this, but what do you do when average productivity across different companies starts to sag because everyone's doing it? As a rule in life, if there's an easy way for people to get what they want without effort, it will happen. Perhaps not everywhere, but frequently enough that an economic system needs a seamless mechanism to deal with that inevitable fact. Capitalism deals with this as a matter of course: unproductive workers are fired and unproductive companies go bankrupt. But if the rules of the game must be constantly rewritten to force people to play fair, you economic system is in trouble indeed. The committees that are responsible for all decision making are ideally democratic in principle, but are vulnerable in practice. If any group of people are charged with the job of making decisions which directly impact others' interests, you can bet they will be hounded 24/7 by those affected. If you think special interests have corrupted Congress, try extending that model to ALL decisions of economic production and you start to see the problem. Parecon assumes that people will vote with their conscience for the good of society, but even if you could outlaw bribery of any kind, you would still end up with endless nepotism and favoritism, and in practice most committees would be run by an influential minority with the implicit approval of the apathetic majority. Most people would be too busy lobbying other committees whose decisions affect them to pay much attention to the debates of the committees they're on. Unfortunate but true. Market forces allocate rewards to those (inviduals or corporate entities) who are most productive, and does this automatically. Those that get are those who give, which maximizes productivity. As a side effect, some will get more than others, inevitably. Diversity + Freedom = Inequality. But the point is that all this happens without the need to ask wise and well meaning individuals what should be produced and who should get it. Market forces are seamless. That's why communism was such a disaster. Parecon differs in that it places decision making in the hands of numerous democratic committees instead of a small elite, but similar problems arise in either case: corruption and inefficiency. As I said, Parecon is a nice utopia. But it fails as soon as people start finding loopholes to get as much as possible for themselves, and Parecon is full of such loopholes because it places all economic planning in the hands of imperfect and corruptible human beings. It quickly degenerates into a battle between the purists who try to plug up all the leaks to achieve the "ideal" society and those who benefit from the loopholes that have been found. Dangerous and foolish, but fortunately has zero chance of being implemented.
Rating: 
Summary: Just another attempt at brainwashing the masses
Review: This book is good for two audiences: 1. People who are socialists and want to read more ways they can implement their big plans to destroy capitalism. 2. People who are reasonable/capitalists who want to read a laughable proposal to unite the masses and bring down the great evil capitalist societies of the world. So basically this book is suitable for anyone. But seriously, it is simply another way to say "Down with successful people! I deserve an equal share of the economic pie just because I'm a human and I'm equal to everyone else!" and other familiar chants of the far, far left wing. It's actually quite amazing to me that people still propose such nonsensical "progressive" ideas to implement socialism and can keep a straight face. Some people are incapable of reason and/or learning apparently. This book tries to counter the common (as in common-sense) attacks on socialism and uses the familiar notion that past attempts at socialism were different or implemented incorrectly and that this new great revolutionary book has the answers to make sure the next attempt is successful.
Rating:
Summary: The future of economics
Review: This is a book about economics, by which the author means work, production, consumption, what we get, what we do, etc. It is about finding institutions for accomplishing all this that meet people's needs and that further positive values including equity, diversity, solidarity, and people controlling their own lives -- an advanced kind of democracy. I've been watching the anti globalization movements, and the antiwar movements, and wondering what people are for. I heard about this book, and I got my answer. This isn't just fluffy adjectives. This is a careful and complete discussion of key institutions for the economy to replace those of capitalism - it is anti capitalism with a positive goal. And the amazing thing is, not only does the goal as described by Albert have wonderful attributes -- after all, what idiot would produce a book about goal for society and not claim great achievements for it? -- but the book is very convincing that parecon would work. Parecon, the name of the economy as well as of the book, is described in day to day detail. Objections of all kinds are carefully considered. Yet, with all the detail, and with all the provocative content that is so different than what we are all familiar with, it is a pretty easy read due to being very clearly written. This book assumes only that you have consumed and worked, not economics background. What can I say? I came away thinking that this participatory economics would be a vast, almost unimaginably vast improvement on what we now have to put up with in our economic lives. Does that make me anti-capitalist? I guess so. Does it make me an advocate of revoluionatizing the economy? I guess so. It sure as hell makes me want to urge others to get this book and read it. By the way, this is not your parents socialism...it rejects what goes under that label, and what goes under green labels, and what involves markets, and what involves central planning -- it is new, better, more liberatory and more viable. I reccommend anyone who cares about the future read this book. Hell, I think this is the future of economics -- only the question is, how long in the future -- I hope not too long.
Rating:
Summary: Clear alternative to capitalism
Review: This is the clearest exposition yet of participatory economics,
an alternative to captitalism, market socialism, and
Soviet-style central planning. The participatory economics
model was developed by Michael Albert in collaboration
with Robin Hahnel. I would recommend reading this book
with Hahnel's recent book, The ABCs of Political Economy,
which provides a more in-depth critique of mainstream
pro-market economics. Instead of allocation by how much
power or bargaining clout you have -- which is how markets
really work (forget about mainstream propaganda
about markets as "efficiency machines"!) --
participatory economics is based on the idea of
self-management -- each is to have a say over economic
decisions in proportion to how much they are impacted. Governance by corporations and the state is replaced
by democratic worker and neighborhood organizations.
The market is replaced by participatory planning -- the
creation of a comprehensive agenda for production by
the direct input of requests
for work and consumption outcomes by individuals and
groups, and a back and forth process of negotiation.
Intead of elite planners, as in Soviet-style central
planning, we all would craft the economic plan. In the process of individuals and groups evaluating
possible outcomes, the planning system takes account
of consumer and worker preferences, thus giving measures
of social benefits and costs. As each production group
approximates to the average social cost/benefit, waste
is avoided. The overall structure is designed to support
the tendencies in human nature towards solidarity and
cooperation, as opposed to the market, which imposes
a regime where "nice guys finish last." Parecon has a particularly elegant solution to the
problem of under-production of collective goods,
and over-production of negative external effects,
like pollution, which are widespread and destructive
effects of markets. Little is said about how such an economic framework
would come about. Albert thinks that having a good
vision of where we want to go is important to motivating
the kinds of mass movements that would be needed to
bring about such a change.
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