Proposal: Fiction ideas set in a participatory economy

I’m interested in the idea of writing fiction, in particular science fiction, to help promote the model of a participatory economy. I even have an idea for a couple of stories.

Story Idea One: We meet a man named Mel. Mel is a CEO and like the stereotypical CEO is self-absorbed, sociopathic, manipulative, mean, quick to anger, and even quicker to make decisions. He is woken up early one morning and is told that half the employees of his company have quit, because he and his whole company have magically been transported to a world with a participatory economy. Suddenly, everything that Mel knows and everything Mel knows how to do is ineffective at best, and usually hideously wrong. In a matter of weeks, everyone in Mel’s company has left, and so Mel is forced to start anew, but the comedy or errors just continues. Nobody wants to join Mel’s worker’s council because they regarding his incessant bossiness as akin to slavery. Mel tries to join a worker’s council, but to no avail since he regards balanced jobs as beneath his dignity – except that all jobs are balanced for desirability and empowerment. Fast forward twenty years: Mel finally reforms his ways, in day-to-day action if not in intent.

Story Idea Two: A fictionalized depiction of the transformation of the world from a market-strewn hellscape to a worldwide participatory economy, written like a grand detailed history spanning decades or centuries. It starts with the small-scale writings of a few diehard adherents, at first ignored and dismissed. Early attempts to put the ideas into practice are small-scale and with little support are doomed to fail, even among sympathizers. But years and decades pass, and with a newer generation hungry for new suggestions and familiar with the old ideas, take up the mantle to further spread the ideas and implementing them into wide practice. The equivalent of a “red scare” then takes hold, as the powers-that-be are fearful of losing power in this brave new world. The resulting war of ideas becomes a war of weapons, and the participatory economy advocates are defeated. This whole saga repeats itself three, four, five times, until a new world is finally won. Moral: Fights can take longer than you expect.

What other ideas do others have? What story or stories are folks interested in writing?

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These are both really good! Like really, really good, I like 'em.

Story 1:

I must say that a workers council should never ever exclude a person even if he/she is mean.

Story 2:

I would say that a hot war is not something we would engage in. I like the approach of swizzerland: If “our” country would be invaded, we would simply not comply to anything the invaders would like us to do (that might include to kill all but is unlikely because who does all the work then.
And “a coucil based country” has an informal structure that is very strong for a resistance movement!
It will be very difficult to contol “us” once we are free! :slight_smile:
A much liklier outcome would be an economic war (like sanctions cough) How THAT develops would really be interesting to see.

M

Story 1:

I must say that a workers council should never ever exclude a person even if he/she is mean.

Yes. Good observation. Actually, does the CEO have to be so evil as well. I think it would also be interesting to have the CEO be somewhat torn. As a CEO, (s)he has to be ruthless. That is the nature of capitalism. Could (s)he also be a parent that teaches his child to share and has brief moments where (s)he realizes that we teach children about sharing and balanced jobs, but in the workplace jobs are anti-balanced.

Best of luck with this project. Hopefully, I can read it when you are done.

The webcomic Wolverton is set in a fictional town whose political/economic system is modeled after the one in Marinaleda (a Democratic socialist town in spain ) but with some additions by the author of the comic that seem to have elements of participatory systems. Also everyone in said town is a werewolf.

I don’t know what you’ll think of this idea, but how about a radical version of Squid Games. I’ve watched a bit of it and read an article in Jacobin about how it is critiquing Capitalism. It might be critiquing, but it doesn’t provide clear direction. The proletariat in the shoe could have violently rebelled against their masters. They could have got that jackpot and used it to build participatory enterprises. Just throwing out some ideas.