Alternatively, a good's status might not reverse every time but might follow a crazy path that never converges toward equilibrium. Moreover, when we consider that each product's status affects the status of many others, so that during an iteration changes in eating out at restaurants will affect the status of gas for cars and food for home cooking, we can see just how messy things might become. Just as we make progress on one front, another could get farther out of whack. Clearly, we need to adopt rules and authorize interventions that do not bias outcomes or reduce efficiency or equity unduly but that do ensure that convergence occurs in a reasonable time. We should emphasize again that there is no one correct way to operate a participatory planning system.
Many features are contingent.
The various tasks we have enumerated could surely be carried out in different ways. Facilitation boards could be defined differently or even replaced by other institutions. There is no reason to 'expect that participatory structures will be identical despite differences in these other spheres of social life. Thus, developing preferred rules and institutions will be largely a historical task. Chosen forms in any particular society will have to fit particular environmental, historical, and cultural circumstances that no abstract model such as ours can fully anticipate, and, in any event, the character of optimal institutions and rules Will alter as any particular participatory economy develops.