Facilitation board
key feature of parecon; decentralized economic planning apparatus
A facilitation board is a proposed economic institution conceived by economists Michael Albert and Robin Hahnel which act in systems of economic democracy as agencies that facilitate information exchange and processing for collective consumption proposals and for large-scale investment projects, workers requests for changing places of employment, and individuals and families seeking to find membership in living units and neighborhoods, among other functions.
The proposed boards form part of the process of participatory planning within Albert and Hahnel's economic system of participatory economics and Participism. If adopted, they would serve to manage and coordinate proposals by workers and consumers in place of a central state or markets.
Description
Iteration Facilitation Boards (IFBs) act as management bodies in participatory economics and perhaps other similar systems for local consumer and worker councils and are the mechanism via which economic allocation is decided upon and ultimately implemented in an economy without a state or markets; although the kind of participatory planning found in parecon could also possibly be combined with an artificial market (arket) for certain commercial goods and services.
Participatory planning
Democratic participatory planning is an economic practice used to determine the production, consumption, and allocation of resources, goods, and services in a given economy and recommended as a solution to the problems seen in both statist central planning within state-socialism and privatist markets within capitalism. Facilitation boards are used to guide this process effectively.
Through participatory planning, workers and consumers decide democratically which and how many goods to produce, decide construction plans, determine how vital resources are managed and all other economic issues at various levels through a system of confederated "nested councils" or assemblies with local economic issues being determined at the local level, and administrative issues on a wider level being determined by city, regional, provincial, and country councils with delegates sent successively to each level to communicate the decisions made by the nested council below them.
Local decisions like the construction of a playground might be made in the ward or city council, probably interacting with both city and countrywide councils through rotating delegates. Countrywide decisions, like the construction of a high-speed mass transportation system, would be discussed by the country council, possibly interacting with a city council in the city where the materials are produced, or countrywide or international councils.
Role in economic planning
During an event known as a planning procedure, which could be an annual, bi-annual or quarterly event, facilitation boards first announce a set of indicative prices which workers and consumers use, individually and through their councils at each level, when deciding on their production and consumption proposals.
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