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Computer Simulations of Participatory Planning:

New Evidence for Environmental Protection

Mitchell Szczepanczyk

http://www.szcz.org

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Overview

Background: MPE, Pequod, Past research in DEP

Preliminaries: Economics, Mathematics, Computer Code

Results

Analysis, Next Steps, Resources

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Background

Participatory Economy: Democratically-planned economic model co-invented by Robin Hahnel and Michael Albert

Participatory Planning: Non-market, non-command allocation system in the model of a participatory economy

Goal: Society-wide allocation plan with no excess demand

Participants: Worker councils (WCs), consumer councils (CCs), iteration facilitation mechanism (IFM), indicative prices

Councils exchange consumption/production plans, revise in iterated process with help of the IFM

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Pequod

Participatory Planning Procedure Prototype (4 P’s = “pequod”)

Feasibility study of participatory planning: How many iterations are required?

Computer implementation of mathematical model of a participatory economy

Written originally in Netlogo, rewritten in Clojure / Clojurescript

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DEP : The Book (2021)

Hahnel et al (2021) presented findings of research

40 Experiments: 60,000 councils, 400 goods categories

Two “years”, where the second year incorporates augments to represent technological innovation.

How many iterations are required? “About six” after Year Two.

What about the environment?

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Preliminaries : Economics

Cobb Douglas production and utility functions: Maximize well-being.

Supply of pollutants: Derived from permissions granted by consumer councils.

Demand for pollutants: Pollution rights sought by workers councils.

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Preliminaries : Mathematics

Initialize a price of pollutant (700)

Each WC has an arbitrary pollutant-exponent value

Each CC has two values: Positive utility (income, z^k) and negative utility (exposure, (5zp)^j)

To optimize, take the derivative, giving us kz^(k-1) = 5jp(zp)^(j-1)

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Preliminaries : Computer Code

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Preliminaries : Computer Code

Make room in production quantities and production functions for pollutants

Make room in output for a pollutant category

Year Two augment: Each WC includes a pollution-exponent augment, while there are no changes to the augment in CCs.

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Updates : Pequod

pequod-plus

More automated tests
More code consolidation
More “Clojurey” code

Environmental impacts

New experiments: 60,000 councils, 400 goods categories, 1 economy-wide pollutant

Five experiments, two years, with and without pollutants

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Results : Pollutant Behavior

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