Mission Statement

CAPES Mission StatementAdopted 11/16/05, revised 2/8/06, 5/10/06: Chicago Area Participatory Economics Society seeks to disseminate, demonstrate, and develop the economic model of Participatory Economics, or 'Parecon', working locally in Chicago towards its eventual adoption everywhere. We consider all economic models thus far applied at the national-global level, whether allocating through markets or through central planning, to be fundamentally and structurally incompatible both with widespread democracy and with our future survival as a species – as an ongoing history of many despotisms, incalculable atrocities and mounting instabilities indeed suggests. We assert that economic realities, perhaps more than any others, must be susceptible to popular influence and democratic debate in order for democratic ideals to be anything but chimera: and accordingly we energetically propose an economic model based upon the democratic ideals of equity, solidarity, diversity, efficiency, and participatory self-management.