Does Parecon Lead to a Lack of Specialization?

A reader takes issue with my article The Insanity of Parecon and the Importance of Efficiency of Specialization:

---

Your article, The Insanity of Parecon and the Importance of Efficiency of Specialization and its only critisism of Participatory Economics, is based on a false assuption. You assume that balanced job complexes means elimination of specialization. Balanced job complexes simply mean they are balanced for empowerment, it says absolutely nothing about switching between professions or industries, and anything of that nature. "This kind of 'learning-by-doing' is severly curtailed under Parecon, because while one day I might be building a birdhouse, the next day I'll be digging a ditch, and the day after I'll be running a nuclear power plant." This is not true.

Suppose you work building birdhouses, and you choose that as your primary job. That job will not only consist of building birdhouses. Rather, you will have the opportunity to design birdhouses, do the finances, maintain the machinery, communicate with customers, etc. The total mix of tasks will be balanced for empowerment/creativity work vs. onerousness/boring work.

"Another benefit of specialization is the idea of 'learning-by-doing'. The more often I do a particular task, the more productive I become at that particular function and generally the quality of my output increases as well." I agree. But I don't see how Parecon doesn't promote learning or increasing ones capacity. Your argument that Parecon does not achieve this is based on the assumption that Parecon lacks specialization.

Participatory Economics will promote learning-by-doing BETTER than capitalism. In our current capitalism economy, 20 percent of the population has a monopoly on creative and empowering tasks. The other 80 percent do mostly boring and repetitive tasks. Parecon eliminates this division and allows for far greater social mobility than capitalism. And I mean social mobility not in terms of income or class, but rather satisfaction and the pursuit of happiness.

"The philosophy of Parecon would require that experienced surgeons use their value time to mop the floor and clean toilets. It would also require that janitors be allowed to perform open heart surgery!" Again, this simply is NOT true. You are thinking of janitors of today, who would be totally unqualified. Of course we don't want anyone untrained doing surgery. In Parecon, though, the janitor would have had the opportunity to get training, and become M.D., but if he/she didn't up to it, they could choose another task, all within the hospital. The only thing that Parecon states is that jobs should be balanced for empowerment. It says nothing about having unskilled people working in places they have no ability to work, but it DOES provide the opportunity for learning and growth.

I recommend you read Looking Forward: Participatory Economics for the 21st Century by Michael Albert and Robin Hahnel and The ABC's of Political Economy by Robin Hahnel.