pequod-cljs

This is the pequod-cljs project -- a computerized simulation of some of the main components of a non-market, non-command-planning, democratically-planned economy known as a "participatory economy".

To learn more, please visit https://www.participatoryeconomy.org.

This project is written in the Clojure and Clojurescript programming languages, and is based on, and named for, a similar project called Pequod (an abbreviation for "Participatory Planning Procedure Prototype"). Pequod began as a project in the Netlogo programming language, and as a project exclusively in the Clojure programming language.

Documentation for the rationale of the library and some of its details, as originally articulated, may be found in the docs directory of this repository.

Instructions

To run the pequod-cljs code, you will need:

1. A command-line prompt.
2. An up-to-date version of Java (you can check by running java -version at your command line).
3. Leiningen. Instructions for Leiningen are available on the Leiningen website.

Once you have all of the above, confirm that Leiningen works by running:

lein --version

You should see a response that reads something like this:

Leiningen 2.8.1 on Java 11.0.7 OpenJDK 64-Bit Server VM

Ensure that the libraries needed for running pequod-cljs by navigating to the project folder and running:

lein deps

This repository simulates the participatory planning procedure in a simulated participatory economy as a web app or via the command line. To run it as a web app, start the Figwheel compiler, whhich is done by navigating to the project folder and run the following command in the terminal:

lein figwheel

Once Figwheel starts, you can view the pequod-cljs web app locally at http://localhost:3449.

Using the Webapp

There are a number of buttons along the top row of the webapp. There is a dropdown at the left of the row to select any of a number of experiments. To run the app, first select an experiment from this dropdown.

Next, press the button marked "Setup". This loads the data -- the worker councils, consumer councils, and other settings -- into the app. You can iterate through the participatory planning procedure with the buttons "Iterate 1X", "Iterate 5X", "Iterate 10X", and "Iterate 50X".

If you are interested in seeing the values for a given council at any point in the iterative process, you can use the Council Explorer. Select "wcs" (workers councils) or "ccs" (consumer councils) then type a number in the adjacent text field (all councils are identified by number, starting with one and counting up) and click the "Show Council" button. The council should appear in the Council Explorer portion of the page as a Clojure map.

After the economy reaches its convergence threshold (more about that below), you may "reset" the economy with the "Augmented reset" button. This button is intended to simulate technology enhancement within an economy over the course of a year and has the following effects:

1. Adding a small random augment to the coefficients of each workers' council.
2. Adding a small random augment to the coefficients of each consumers' council.
3. Reset the iteration counter back to zero.

Once it's reset, you can iterate through the participatory planning procedure again and compare the results with those of the previous series of iterations.

Below the row of buttons, there are a number of additional values abbreviated and explained as follows:

• WCs: A count of the number of worker councils loaded into the program
• CCs: A count of the number of consumer councils loaded into the program
• A-GDP TY: The gross domestic product for this year (the current sequence of iterations)
• A-GDP LY: The gross domestic product for last year (this activates once the "Augumented reset" button is clicked)
• A-GDP AVG: The average of the two gross domestic product calculations, when applicable

Most of the page is a chart showing five categories of goods along the top and statistics for each good.

The prices refer to indicative prices within a participatory economy. PDList refers to "price deltas" -- the rate of change for a given price, currently capped at 25%. "New deltas" refers to the new price change after an iteration.

The row entitled "Percent Threshold / Threshold met?" is your barometer as to when the iterations are "done" (there's no block for continuing iterations; conceivably it could run forever). The row changes color to the following:

• blue if all the surpluses (the difference between supply and demand, as a percentage) for that category are below 3%
• green if all the surpluses are below 5%
• yellow if all the surpluses are below 10%
• organe if all the surpluses are below 20%
• red otherwise

To reset the app, simply refresh the page. Note that iterations only proceed in one trajectory; if you want to "rewind", you must refresh the page and repeat the process.

Using the Command Line

There is a Clojure clone of the pequod-cljs code, called csvgen, which can generate CSV output of a participatory planning process.

To use csvgen from the command line, run:

lein run -m pequod-cljs.csvgen [namespace]

...where [namespace] is the namespace of the data file whose contents you're using for the iteration. Note: csvgen uses .clj source files in the src/clj/pequod_cljs/ directory, and csvgen delivers its output to STDOUT, so it is advisable to redirect the output into a file, as in:

lein run -m pequod-cljs.csvgen experiment01 > experiment01.csv

The output, from left to right, is the iteration, threshold color, all the collective metrics presented in the pequod-cljs webapp, one column at a time, along with the effort score and output score of all councils, both for a given "year" and an augmented "year".

There is a parameter in the -main function in csvgen.clj called toothaches?. If you set toothaches? to true, you artificially augment the results forcing increasing returns to scale.

Generating/using new experiments for the webapp

To generate new experiments, use the command:

lein run -m pequod-cljs.gen [namespace] > [namespace].cljs

where [namespace] is the name of the namespace and the file to generate.

The parameters for generating workers councils and consumer councils may be themselves adjusted in the files:

src/clj/pequod_cljs/wcs.clj

and

src/clj/pequod_cljs/ccs.clj

You can adjust the number of councils generated with the calls to create-ccs-bulk and create-wcs-bulk as seen in the file:

src/clj/pequod_cljs/gen.clj

The number of worker councils is determined in each of three arguments for each of three "industries" (public goods, private goods, intermediate goods) in create-wcs-bulk. The number of consumer councils is the value of the first argument in create-ccs-bulk.

The newly-created experiment(s) can then be invoked in either of two ways:

1. Through the webapp, by placed the experiment with a .cljs extension in the src/cljs/pequod_cljs directory and updating the src/cljs/pequod_cljs/core.cljs file. core.cljs would need three changes: adding in the namespace, adding the invocation of the new namespace in the wcs data and ccs data in the setup function, and adding in an option for the namespace in the experimentation dropdown in the all-buttons function.

2. Through the csvgen utility, by placed the experiment renamed with a .clj extension in the src/clj/pequod_cljs directory and updating the src/clj/pequod_cljs/csvgen.clj file. csvgen.clj would need two changes: adding in the namespace, and adding the invocation of the wcs data and ccs data in the setup function.

Experiments from Democratic Economic Planning

This software package was used to generate and test experiments referred to in the book Democratic Economic Planning by Robin Hahnel (Routledge, 2021). You can download the files:

http://www.szcz.org/depexperiments/

If you wish to use the file in this application, download the files you wish to use from the link above, use gunzip to uncompress the files, place them in the appropriate directory and make the adjustments as noted above for using new experiments.

Figwheel

Figwheel will automatically push cljs changes to the browser.

Figwheel also starts nREPL using the value of the :nrepl-port in the :figwheel config found in project.clj. By default the port is set to 7002.

The figwheel server can have unexpected behaviors in some situations such as when using websockets. In this case it's recommended to run a standalone instance of a web server as follows:

lein do clean, run

Tests

To run the automated tests in pequod-cljs.util-test, run:

lein test

Update package-lock.json

The Javascript libraries referenced in the package-lock.json file can be updated with this command:

npm install --package-lock-only [LIBRARY_NAME_GOES_HERE]