SolidarityEconomy.net

Context

“Economic Democracy: A Worthy Socialism that Would Really Work” laid out a model that was to form the basis of my book Against Capitalism, published by Cambridge University Press in 1993. The article, like the book itself, was a theoretical response to the triumphalism of the TINA crowd (There Is No Alternative) that followed the collapse of Soviet Union and the rejection of socialism by its satellite states in Eastern Europe. “A Worthy Socialism” was intended to demonstrate rigorously that there is an alternative, at least in theory: an economically viable form of socialism that would be more democratic than capitalism and at least as efficient. Against Capitalism made the same point, but extended the argument (more…)

by Jerry Harris, SolidarityEconomy.net

Globalization opens the door on many possible futures. The fundamental changes taking place creates a host of contradictions played out at every level of society, all interlinked and simultaneously affecting one another. The integrative force of global production, finance and technology has qualitatively changed social relations along with culture, politics and the way we see the world and ourselves. Globalization, as a mode of accumulation and wealth has achieved a hegemonic position but its social structure and nationally defined characteristics continue to be formed. This is particularly true of its political expressions and the role of civil society.

Therefore far from a determined and certain future multiple alternatives exist, all dependent on human agency and struggle. On one extreme is the possible collapse of globalization into a world defined by reactionary nationalism, fundamentalist theologies and environmental collapse. Another future may be a long period of relative stability and capitalist transnational hegemony, punctuated by periodic crisis’ that are resolved by the institutional structures that come to characterize the globalist era. The habits, ideas and relations formed during the rise of nation states and (more…)

[Editors’ note: on February 10, 2007 the Open University of the Left hosted a debate between David Schweickart and Mitchel Szczepanczyk at In These Times in Chicago. Following is Schweickart’s critique of Parecon. An article by Szczepanczyk can be accessed online]

Let me begin by saying what Michael Albert, Robin Hahnel, Mitch Szczepanczyk and I all agree about. We agree-That capitalism is a deeply flawed economic system that needs to be replaced by a more humane social order. Capitalism gives rise to obscene inequalities; it is ecologically destructive; it is undemocratic.-That the Soviet model of central planning is not the answer. Even if democratized, the system would not be desirable. The model itself, as an economic model, is fundamentally flawed. (more…)

[From SolidarityEconomy.net editors: While there’s been plenty of coverage of Chavez’s ‘ruling by decree,’ little has been said about the matters concerned and how its part of his country’s legal system. It also gives an idea of how something like ‘Economic Democracy’ might be brought into being in other countries as well.]

By Venezuelanalysis.com, Caracas, January 17, 2007

Venezuela’s National Assembly approved a resolution yesterday, according to which the legislature would declare emergency sessions for the approval of an “enabling law,” which will allow President Chavez to pass law-decrees on specific issues in the next 18 months. The National Assembly (AN) will begin deliberations on the law tomorrow. (more…)

Max Ogden, SolidarityEconomy.net

January 16, 2007, Australia

With acknowledgements for helpful comments – Dave Davies, Dave Feickert, and Greg Pettiona

The Australian Council of Trade Unions (ACTU) has led a very fine campaign against the reactionary industrial relations legislation and is winning the public debate. However in the long term the union movement needs to add another important dimension to its strategy, if it is not only to regain and increase membership and the critical role that a (more…)

Interview with Heinz Dieterich
By Cristina Marcano, Rebelion.org

Q. Professor Dieterich, did you invent the concept of “Socialism of the 21st Century”?

A. Yes. I developed it, beginning in 1996. It has been published with its corresponding theory in book form, from 2000 on, in Mexico, Ecuador, Argentina, Central America, Brazil, and Venezuela, and, outside Latin America, in Spain, Germany, the People’s Republic of China, Russia, and Turkey. Since 2001, it has been appropriated all over the world. Presidents like Hugo Chávez and Rafael Correa use it constantly, and so do labor movements, farmers, intellectuals, and political parties. (more…)

by David Schweickart

Immanuel Kant proposed three questions as constitutive of the philosophical enterprise: What can we know? How should we act? For what may we hope? As a philosopher long interested in economic issues, let me offer some thoughts on these questions as they apply to our contemporary economic order: What do we know? In what may we hope? What should we do? I want to talk about the big picture–about capitalism and about what, if anything, might come next.

Part I: Four Development Theses

The publication in 1978 of G. A. Cohen’s Karl Marx’s Theory of History: A Defense marked the beginning of an exciting new genre of Marxist scholarship in the English-speaking world.[1] “Analytical Marxism” was the (soon-to-be applied) official appellation. “Marxism without the bullshit” was the unofficial label among core afficionados. (more…)

This is the second
of two articles assessing
classes and class struggle in China’s past
and present day. Here, David Schweickart,
replies to YiChing Wu’s article from yesterday,
which was actually an earlier exchange between them at the Global Studies Association at Depaul University in 2006.

What’s Wrong with China?

By David Schweickart
Loyola University

There’s plenty wrong with China, as everyone knows.

–The income gap is large and widening–China’s Gini coefficient, a standard measure of income inequality, is now larger than the U.S.’s.

–Unemployment is rising as large numbers of state-owned enterprises shed workers, before or after they are privatized.

–There are sweatshops providing the Wal-Marts of the world with cheap manufactured goods.

–Corruption is rampant.

–So is environmental degradation. Consider the comments of Pan Yue, China’s Deputy Environmental Minister, made in a recent interview:

Our raw materials are scarce, we don’t have enough land and our population is constantly growing…. Cities are growing, but desert areas are expanding…. Five of the most polluted cities in the world are in China; acid rain is falling on one third of our territory; half of the water in China’s seven largest rivers is completely useless, a quarter of our citizens lack access to clean drinking water.

With so many things wrong, China must be capitalist, right? Much of the Left thinks so, seeing China hell-bent on self-destruction, a trajectory that can only be remedied by a genuinely proletarian revolution. See, for example, Barbara Foley’s “From Situational Dialectics to Pseudo-Dialectics: Mao, Jiang and Capitalist Transition, ” published in Cultural Logic (2002), or Martin Hart-Landsberg and Paul Burkett’s “China and Socialism: Market Reforms and Class Struggle,” a special issue of Monthly Review (July-August 2004) that was subsequently published in book form, or Robert Weil’s “Conditions of the Working Class in China,” a lengthy manuscript now circulating on the internet. (more…)

This is the first on two articles assessing

classes and class struggle in China’s past
and present day. The second, an exchange
with Yi Ching Wu by David Schweickart,
will appear tomorrow.

Yesterday’s Class Enemy:
Class Ideology and the Politics
of the Cultural Revolution

By Yi Ching Wu
University of Chicago

It is not so much of an exaggeration to say that the Cultural Revolution was all about class-it was, in any case, officially self-defined as “a great revolution in which one class overthrows another.” The notion of class framed the experiences and practices of hundreds of millions of Chinese people. Class and class struggle constituted the very political framework of the movement, and defined its main objectives. A highly elaborate vocabulary of class pervaded the everyday life of the entire Chinese population. But what did it really mean to talk about “class” during the Cultural Revolution? What was the meaning of “class struggle,” and who were its primary targets?

These apparently innocuous questions have no self-evident answers. In the contemporary Chinese context, the meanings of such political terms as “class,” “class struggle,” and “revolution” have been largely evacuated. They belong to this class of words which, by virtue of having been used so much and so often, have come to mean almost completely nothing at all. Yet these are by no means trivial questions. My purpose of probing the meaning and character of class politics during the Cultural Revolution is to explore two broad questions with regard to the internal complexity as well as the historical significance of the Cultural Revolution. First, in what sense was the Cultural Revolution cultural? And second, to what extent was it revolutionary? (more…)

You have probably heard the story of the scorpion that convinces a frog to carry it across a river. Halfway across, the scorpion stings the frog, which means both will drown. The frog does not understand; the scorpion explains, “I couldn’t help myself. It’s my nature.”

In the abstract, worker-owned enterprises and labor unions would appear to have much in common. Both share the goal of improving pay and working conditions. Both aim to give workers a say in the workplace. And both belong on any progressive’s short list of strategies for building a more just economic system.

But when unions and worker-owned businesses actually interact, they sometimes act more like the fabled arachnid.

The Ohio Employee Ownership Center at Kent State, where I work, provides preliminary technical assistance on worker buyouts. I once met with a group of employees exploring a worker buyout of a failing paper mill in southwest Ohio. When I (more…)

Vietnam is mentioned in the news quite often these days. But the references are almost always in relation to Iraq. What’s not being covered is what’s going on in Vietnam itself — which is unfortunate, because economically, politically and socially, it might just be the most interesting and inspiring nation on the planet.In the interest of full disclosure, my affection for Vietnam goes way back. As an anti-war activist I met with Vietnamese liaisons to the anti-war movement on several occasions. In 1970 I visited Hanoi and was profoundly impressed with the character and resolve of the people, not to mention the beauty of the country itself. Even then, during wartime, the food was terrific, too.

It still is, as I discovered earlier this year when I returned to Vietnam. The people are open, friendly and confident, just as they were before. But now, not only is the war over, Vietnam is the second-fastest-growing economy in the world. (China is first.) The standard of living of millions of people is improving at a rapid pace. (more…)

The heat and the noise are almost unbearable in the casting room of Line 3 at Alcasa. This is one of two big aluminium plants in the south-eastern city of Puerto Ordaz, where most of Venezuela’s basic industries are concentrated.

It is also the test bed for a new experiment in co-management, which President Hugo Chavez says is a key step towards a “socialism of the twenty-first century”.

Alcides Rivero, who works here as a maintenance electrician, says co-management means that for the first time in this company’s 37 years of existence, the workforce has control.

“It’s us, the workers”, he says, “who decide on questions of production and technology, and it’s us who elect who will be our managers.”

(more…)

What follows is a debate between David Schweickart, author of After Capitalism and SolidarityEconomy.net editor, and Michael Albert, author of Parecon and founder of Z Magazine. The debate was sparked by Schweickart’s critique of Parecon, “Nonsense on Stilits.”

Critique Without Comprehension
Responding to David Schweickart Regarding Parecon
by Michael Albert; February 24, 2006

This essay replies to Schweickart: Nonsense On Stilts

Parecon Phenomenon 1: Serious Thought Or Manipulated Irrationality?

In David Schweickart’s view, my book Parecon: Life After Capitalism is not just nonsense…but nonsense on stilts. Strangely, Schweickart, though a philosopher, largely ignores the historical and social evidence and argument and (more…)

What are we to make of the “Parecon” phenomenon? Michael Albert’s book made it to number thirteen on Amazon.com a few days after some on-line promotion.[1] Eight of the twelve Amazon.com reviewers (when I last checked) had given the book five stars. It has been, or is being, translated into Arabic, Bengali, Telagu, Croatian, Czech, Finnish, French, German, Greek, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Spanish, Swedish and Turkish.[2] The book has been endorsed by Noam Chomsky, who says it “merits close attention, debate and action,” by Arundhati Roy, who calls it “a brave argument for a much needed alternative economic vision,” by Ben Bagdikian, who finds it “a compelling book for our times,” and by Howard Zinn, who sees it as “a thoughtful, profound meditation on what a good society can be like.”[3] Yet it is a terrible book.

To be sure, there are lots of terrible books on politics and economics being written for popular audiences these days, but these are usually right-wing harangues beating up on liberals.

They are not endorsed by the likes of the above, who are all very left and very smart. Albert himself is a smart guy. He has incredible energy. Z-Net, Z Magazine and South End Press, all of which he was instrumental in bringing into being, have been important to radical activists and intellectuals over the years, now more than ever. Many of his debates and discussions are insightful. I don’t always agree with him, but his arguments are often subtle, not easy to counter, well worth pondering. Parecon is a different matter altogether.

(more…)

This article is from the July/August 2006 issue of Dollars & Sense: The Magazine of Economic Justice. Original available here

Can thousands of diverse, locally-rooted, grassroots economic projects form the basis for a viable democratic alternative to capitalism? It might seem unlikely that a motley array of initiatives such as worker, consumer, and housing cooperatives, community currencies, urban gardens, fair trade organizations, intentional communities, and neighborhood self-help associations could hold a candle to the pervasive and seemingly all-powerful capitalist economy. These “islands of alternatives in a capitalist sea” are often small in scale, low in resources, and sparsely networked. They are rarely able to connect with each other, much less to link their work with larger, coherent structural visions of an alternative economy.

(more…)