Several decades ago, Margaret Thatcher claimed: “There is no alternative”. She was referring to capitalism. Today, this negative attitude still persists.

I would like to offer an alternative to capitalism for the American people to consider. Please click on the following link. It will take you to an essay titled: “Home of the Brave?” which was published by the Athenaeum Library of Philosophy:

http://evans-experientialism.freewebspace.com/steinsvold.htm

John Steinsvold

Perhaps in time the so-called dark ages will be thought of as including our own.
–Georg C. Lichtenberg

1. I’ve never taken a position on land ownership. Intellectually, there is, of
course, a strong argument for holding land collectively (as is done in China, where
the state retains ownership but grants families long-term leases.) No one
“invented” the land after all, or made it by his or her own labor. This precludes
poor peasants from selling their land to richer peasants, leading to ever larger
estates.

On the other hand, people who work the land develop such strong attachments to it
that a case can be made for private ownership. This also encourages their
development of the land and their caring for it responsibly. So long as wage-labor
is prohibited, or at least restricted, there’s little danger of large private
estates developing, apart from agricultural cooperatives—and even these are likely
to be relatively small.

2. It’s true that cooperatives under capitalism often invest more of their earnings
in their enterprises than do capitalist firms, but I don’t see this as a desirable
feature in an economy of worker-self-managed firms. We don’t want workers competing
with workers to work for less money (take-home pay). They have their depreciation
reserves to invest. But if they want to invest more, it’s more fitting, I think,
that they go to the investment bank for funds. This gives society as whole more
control over investment, which determines the future development of the economy.

As you say, this strategy may well be important during a transition period, in which
workers actually own their firms, rather than simply lease them from society, and
have to compete with capitalist firms, which are not averse to squeezing their
employees in ways that cooperative firms are reluctant to do (speed-ups, deskilling,
wage cuts). But I don’t think this is ideal.

I wouldn’t want to make a big issue of this, however. It’s a feature of the basic
theoretical model, but workers in practice many want to relax this restriction. The
tradeoff is between lessening dependence on public banks (and the bureaucracy that
might entail) and encouraging worker self-exploitation. Different societies might
decide this question in different ways.

Some people are already grappling with big, system-change issues and so you can just say “hey, why don’t you read this book and we’ll talk about it?” Or you start a book club, or study group.

But with others, it may just be too big of a leap right away, connecting a particular problem they’re facing (whether it be a community issue or the war in Iraq) with the need to replace capitalism with economic democracy. It doesn’t mean they’ll never get to that point… but that it may take time. And trying to make that leap to early or too quickly might turn someone off.

At any given point in time, people can be divided (roughly) into three categories: advanced, middle and backwards (or, if you like, “leaders,” “supporters” and “opponents”).

Our job as organizers is to identify and win over the leaders/advanced to our ideas as the key to finally moving masses of people, while isolating our opponents. At the same time, our movement needs to be successful in constantly working to raise the level of consciousness of the masses to a higher level–to the level of the advanced.

To the credit of the right/neoliberalists, they’ve made most people feel that we are at the pinnacle, whether they really know what’s going on or not. Most people have been ingrained with that knee-jerk assumption. So why i really like this interview is that Schweickart provides unusal clarity to what the economy currently is and what its capable of. If feels as if he has the style of talking about it that diffuses the potential volatility of this issue, to where it clearly becomes a matter of common sense.

As an organizer, my challenge is to replicate that sensation when talking about it to people i’m outreaching to, which i feel i don’t quite have it yet… But i feel to achieve it is absolutely critical, because once you get to that point, the point beyond someone’s knee-jerk response, it becomes clear that Schweickart’s proposal is overwhelmingly practical in context of neoliberalisms increasingly extravagant failures.

Then one question i have, especially for any Georgists out there, how does Economic democracy deal with land and real estate? Is that all lumped under ‘capital markets’? My understanding is that Marx considered land as capital, but I like George’s perspective that land is not capital, its part of the commons (although applied uses like farming and buildings etc. belong to people and contribute to capital development, they just can’t indefinately own the plot of land the building or farm is on – similar to DS’s notion that one person’s family cannot indefinately own a buisness)… So i was just curious how would an economic democratic system deal with land and real estate ownership etc.?

Here’s what I mean.

All of us on the left working for change face two general kinds of tasks–mass democratic tasks and socialist tasks. The two are linked, but not the same.

The ‘mass democratic’ tasks are very familiar–the peace movement, the women’s movement, the fight for worker’s rights, the fight against racism, the Walmart campaigns, and so on. Most of us are up to our ears in these campaigns, as we should be.

Our socialist tasks, however, take a little thought.

First, there has been a crisis in socialism for at least two decades. Many old forms have collapsed, some have changed and push ahead, and still others are just being born. But there’s no clear and widely accepted platform of what socialism is and how to get there, not yet anyway.

Second, in almost all of the industrial world, the conditions, while exploitative and oppressive, are not yet revolutionary. In other words, socialism is not yet at the center of the agenda for mass action. If you were trying to united a progressive majority to win an election or other mass campaign, you wouldn’t make socialism the centerpiece of your agitation, if you raised it at all. This doesn’t last forever, but it’s the way things are now.

But, third, this also means our socialist tasks are no less critical. It means, instead, that these tasks take the form of theoretical and intellectual work, and revolutionary education. It means developing fresh ideas on a socialism appropriate to the 21st Century and the transitional policies of structural reform that can take us along a viable socialist path in the course of our mass democratic campaigns. As was pointed out long ago, without revolutionary theory, there is no revolutionary movement.

This is where David’s book can be an organizing principle. An easy way to bring like-minded people together these days–and at this level–is to start a book club or study group, and have ‘After Capitalism’ as the starting point. From there, people can take up other contending or complementary works, and eventually launch the research efforts that go into progressive policies and programs.

Goodness knows there’s a dire need for such work. Just take the immigration issue. While there are many good slogans at the marches, no one I know has yet to define a program for immigration reform that can both unite a majority of the working people and do justice in the conditions facing the undocumented immigrants. But to come up with policies and programs like this, it helps a great deal to understand the ‘deep structures’ David talks about and how they can be changed.