Effort ratings among workers' councils and federations

Questions
1

After reading Democratic Economic Planning, I have been thinking of an alternative regarding effort ratings. In the book, Dr. Hahnel primarily discusses effort evaluations among individuals within worker councils or through a committee evaluating workers’ effort. Additionally, he proposes setting a cap on the average effort scores each council can receive, which could be equal for all councils or, alternatively, based on each council’s benefit-cost ratio.

I would like to suggest a third alternative: that there also be effort allocations not only among individuals but also among worker councils and federations of workers.

Of course, worker councils and federations cannot evaluate each other in the same way that individuals do, as individuals share a workplace and observe one another directly. However, I believe that among federations and councils, there can be fairly objective ways to measure effort.

This is because, in Parecon, there is a detailed and publicly available record of the activities of each federation, including all production and the provision of services, as well as how these meet the population’s demand. In addition, there could also be a table that establishes, using a common unit of effort and sacrifice, the average effort and sacrifice required for each good and service offered in the economy. With these two pieces of information—the record of goods and services provided and the effort table—it would be possible to calculate the total effort contributed by each federation and council by multiplying the total goods and services they provide by the corresponding effort multiples.

The other two alternatives proposed in the book raise some concerns for me, as I believe they may conflict with the principle of rewarding effort.

For instance, if a worker council’s average score is capped based on its benefit-cost ratio, this may create unnecessary discontent and inequality because there could be workers with high benefit-cost ratios but relatively low effort and sacrifice. For example, in a power plant, it is possible that a large amount of electricity is generated with minimal inputs, resulting in significant benefits for the population, even though the workers in that plant may not necessarily exert as much effort or make as many sacrifices as those in other federations or councils with a lower benefit-cost ratio.

On the other hand, if the cap on rewards for each council is equal on average, we again fail to reward effort and sacrifice, as we assume all efforts and sacrifices are equal on average, which is not the case. For example, miners probably make, on average, greater efforts and sacrifices than archivists.

The best way to solve this problem, in my opinion, would be for the federations and councils to agree on a table of multiples that establishes the average amount of effort required to produce each product and service in the economy. Once these multiples are agreed upon, at the end of the annual planning cycle, the goods and services produced by each federation or council could be multiplied by the previously agreed multiples. This would allow for an objective calculation of the useful effort contributed by each federation and council.

However, I am unsure whether this would be viable or if it would be too difficult to achieve consensus. I am also uncertain about what the protocol or procedure for reaching that consensus would look like. For example, would there be an annual meeting of federations where all send representatives to present, review, and negotiate the multiples for the table of each product and service? Or could there be a more efficient way to reach such a consensus if it were feasible?

If achieving this is not possible, then perhaps the solution most aligned with the principle of rewarding effort, and the most practical one, would be for the average effort score cap for all councils to be the same.

Please let me know if (1) you think creating the table of effort multiples is feasible and (2) what the protocol for creating it might look like.

I look forward to hearing your thoughts on this!

2

Hi, Julian. Could you explain how such a common unit can be established? Many thanks.

3

Hi Shujun. Thank you for your question. I’ve been reflecting on it over the past few days, and here’s what I’ve come up with regarding the creation of a table of effort multiples.

To start, I believe we could base the calculation on work time as the foundational metric. First, we would measure the time required to create each product or service in the economy. This includes not only the time spent directly producing the good (e.g., assembling shoes in a factory) but also the time contributed by those performing indirect but socially necessary tasks. For example, workers managing logistics, cleaning the factory, or maintaining equipment are all essential to the production process, and their time should also be included.

Once we account for work time, we could add a factor to reflect the degree of unpleasantness or danger associated with the work.

  1. Unpleasantness:
  • Since whether a job is “pleasant” or “unpleasant” is highly subjective, we would need a democratically agreed-upon scale. For example, we could use a scale from 1 to 5 (or 1 to 10), where 1 represents mildly unpleasant work and 5 (or 10) represents extremely unpleasant work.
  • The challenge would be deciding how to adjust the time multiplier for unpleasantness. For example, should an extremely unpleasant job count as double or triple the actual time worked? This would require a philosophical and ethical debate, as there isn’t an objective answer.
  1. Danger:
  • For dangerous jobs, we could potentially use a more objective approach by calculating indicators such as the rate of accidents or fatalities per hour worked.
  • However, as with unpleasantness, determining the exact multiplier for danger would also require democratic deliberation, as it involves ethical judgments about how much additional recognition riskier jobs deserve.

By combining these factors—work time, unpleasantness, and danger—we could calculate an adjusted effort multiplier for each product or service. This would allow us to assign effort ratings not only to the individuals performing the work but also to the worker councils and federations responsible for delivering the goods and services.

For instance, if producing a particular product, such as industrial chemicals, involves dangerous conditions, the time required for production might be adjusted upward. For example, 8 hours of work under such conditions could translate to 16 adjusted effort hours (or another multiplier determined democratically). These adjusted effort ratings would then feed into a comprehensive table of multiples, assigning effort values to all goods and services in the economy. This table would serve as the foundation for distributing effort-based rewards fairly and consistently among councils and federations.

That said, I’d like to hear your thoughts on this approach. Do you think it’s viable, or would it be more practical to follow Robin Hahnel’s suggestion of basing the Average Effort Rating on the benefit-cost ratio instead?

Looking forward to your input!

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4

Is the “work time” you mentioned here directly observable? Like I can use a watch to directly measure it?

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5

In the process of creating the table of multipliers, it would indeed be possible to conduct a detailed investigation, including precise measurements with chronometers to determine the time required for various tasks. For example, researchers could visit factories, workshops, or service providers to analyze exactly how much work time, under what conditions, and with what effort is required to produce various goods and deliver services in the economy. Using that information, the average time and effort required for each good and service could be calculated, and from those calculations, the table of multipliers would be created.

It’s important to clarify that this process would take place before initiating the planning cycle. Once the table of multipliers is finalized and the plan is in operation, it would no longer be necessary to measure the time taken to produce each product or service in the economy.

Instead, it is only necessary to record the quantities of goods produced and delivered, as well as services provided and accepted, for each workers’ council and federation, which is already a feature of Hahnel’s model. Based on these records, the previously created table of multipliers would be used to calculate each council’s and federation’s effort ratings or consumption credits by multiplying the total number of units of each product and service by the average work time required to produce it.

Let me know if this explanation is clear. Also, what do you think about the feasibility of this approach compared to the alternatives mentioned by Robin Hahnel in his book, Democratic Economic Planning? These alternatives are:

  1. Assigning the average effort scores based on the cost-benefit relationship.
  2. Having all councils and federations share the same average effort cap.

Which of these do you think is the most viable or appropriate?

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6

Just to add something to consider the feasibility of measuring work time of certain goods an services. This tasks can be automated embedding this operation in the tools that a firm has with “internet of things” devices, accounting and inventory systems; that gather this data and send it to the federation. I believe something like this is necessary because measurements should be updated according to productivity improvements.
Systems like this already exists but on undemocratic firms it is used by the hierarchy as a disciplinary measure against individual workers.

7

Hi Julian.

Your suggestion is interesting and I will reflect in detail if I am available.

Personally, I have been considering using peer prediction mechanism to incentivize reviewers to report their true evaluation of a worker’s effort.

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