Building a Living Democracy
Beyond Socialism and Capitalism
by Gar Alperovitz
Sojourner, April 1990

Page 7 of 9
FreeTime

A final question related to planning involves provision for greatly expanded amounts (and substantial equality of) free time for democratic participation and individual self-development and fulfillment.

Even with all its economic problems, the United States is so wealthy that if its gross production were divided equally among all its citizens today, each family of four would receive roughly $80,000. Allowing for only moderate growth, a conservative projection of 20th-century trends suggests that this figure could well reach $160,000, then $320,000, and then substantially more by the end of the next century (all in today's dollars; more if inflation is assumed.) Indeed, a straightforward projection of 20th-century trends would yield almost $500,000 for every four people. This implies no change in our roughly 40 hour work-week. The numbers would be much larger if, say, Japanese trends were projected.

An alternative overall possibility would be to maintain incomes at the "average" $80,000 level (with adjustments for different family size and other factors) and, slowly, over time, reduce what might be called the "necessary" workweek to 20 hours, then 10 hours, or even lower. Another logical option would be to work longer hours and allocate a share of the production to the Third World. Of course, in any of the options, recycling and ecologically oriented planning would be necessary to reduce environmental costs.

The most interesting choice from the point of view of democratic participation involves reducing the workweek, because a greater amount of free time would permit involvement in community decision making. If greater democratic participation (and personal liberty) is defined as a necessary and fundamental requirement of a new system and new vision, the time available must be fairly divided. Today some people work an 80 hour week and some are unemployed and without income--an inevitable result of the haphazard functioning of the market. Planning is needed to ensure both that greater amounts of free time are available and that a reasonable degree of free time is assured to each and all.

More free time does not necessarily mean time spent not doing productive work. If a portion of "necessary work" is required for overall economic goals, other time might be spent in small independent enterprises, worker-owned ventures or cooperatives. A dual conception of future economic life--one in which a portion of work is defined as necessary for overall community goals and another portion is defined as totally free--is a common-sense, if all-too-little-discussed, emphasis. Such an economic conception also mirrors a dual moral emphasis that gives equal weight both to community and to individual independence, liberty, and fulfillment.

Implicit in the above structural conception there is also what might be called a potential community-building cycle of relationships. In contrast to the "vicious cycle" in which economic inequality limits democratic participation, in turn weakening a politics of reform that might hope to achieve positive movement toward greater equality, a community-building cycle would establish a public trust to manage the "community inheritance" and target economic activity in order to sustain both community and individual liberty.

Not only is the requisite planning premised upon non-totalist objectives, but its specific goal is to produce greater individual security and greater individual free time. These in turn are the conditions needed to sustain both individual liberty and real participation, and to ensure, therefore, that planning itself can be made increasingly democratic and accountable.