Hello! So basically, I have a TV and my neighbor wants to get it. How might this play out in parecon, assuming there’s a scratch on the TV and it’s 1 month old i.e a used product??
Here’s what I think (although I want to hear what you think as well):
Since money is not transferable, you need to contact a council, maybe 1 of those consumer council, in a process that’ll be like listing a product on eBay. Then perhaps send the link to your neighbor. The council would set the price so no negotiation. You receive some credit afterwards.
Yes, that’s basically how I could also see a solution to dealing with second-hand goods working. There could be a dedicated organisation that handles receiving second-hand used goods from consumers, crediting them with the depreciation, and then listing items for sale.
Anders Sandstrom has written about how “used goods” might be handled in a participatory economy. So I would refer you to Anders on this subject.
What I can say In brief is this:
It is not true that “money is not transferable” in a participatory economy. First of all THERE IS “MONEY,” contrary to what some people have assumed, and which some people don’t like because they don’t like quantifying how much things should exchange for. So any country with a participatory economy would have a currency… like the dollar, the euro, the peso etc.
In a participatory economy people would get income… in whatever their national currency is… because of effort ratings they get at work, and because of various forms of income they might get as disability or retirement benefits, etc.
They can spend all that income in the year they get it, or they can save some of it to spend later, or they can borrow to spend more in a year than they have income that year. Basically they will have a bank account with something like a credit union, to which they can apply for loans, for all of that.
SO… to answer your question… there is no reason you cannot sell your used TV to anyone you wish for whatever amount of money you negotiate between the two of you… which they would hand you in dollars, euros, or pesos.
Anders has discussed some subtle issues about this at great length. I have talked more briefly about them in a section of Democratic Economic Planning, pages 121 - 127.
I’ll for sure check out Anders and thanks for the clarification on the “money is not transferable” point as well.
I thought I had read that somewhere in the book.
Glad you brought up this question Kenneth. It has reminded me to post an article on second-hand goods in a Participatory Economy that Anders wrote a while back. It’s online now here: