Chomsky signs up to Z Communications/ZMag new Parecon party

[The Idler]

Michael Albert, Patrick Bond, Noam Chomsky, Carol Delgado, Bill Fletcher, Mandisi Majavu, John Pilger, Lydia Sargent, and Fernando Ramon Vegas Torrealba have signed up to Z Communications/ZMag new Parecon party.

[Rakhmetov]

Great ... can the Beaver come out and play? :laugh:

[chegitz guevara]

meh

[Gorilla]

Michael Albert, Patrick Bond, Noam Chomsky, Carol Delgado, Bill Fletcher, Mandisi Majavu, John Pilger, Lydia Sargent, and Fernando Ramon Vegas Torrealba have signed up to Z Communications/ZMag new Parecon party.

...




meanwhile the working class
http://www.chicagoclout.com/weblog/archives/Drinking%20on%20the%20Job%20Chicago%20City%20Worke r.jpg

[chegitz guevara]

I don't mean to dismiss the spotterliness of the OP. In that it has some interest. I just think in the overall place of things, it's not going to mean much, though it's possible a lot of naive college kids follow Chomskey into this "party."

[NewSocialist]

Michael Albert, Patrick Bond, Noam Chomsky, Carol Delgado, Bill Fletcher, Mandisi Majavu, John Pilger, Lydia Sargent, and Fernando Ramon Vegas Torrealba have signed up to Z Communications/ZMag new Parecon party.

Interesting. Is there a link to the party's website? I was wondering when Michael Albert would finally form a party.

I honestly don't understand the hostility so many people on this forum have for Michael Albert or Parecon, when it's essentially just a detailed explanation of the very same sort of decentralized economic planning those very people endorse. Further, Mike Albert has contributed the majority of his life fighting on behalf of leftist causes and providing some level of economic coherence to socialist economic alternatives to capital. I know that he and Chomsky reject Leninism, but they're libertarian socialists after all. Maybe it's the fact that both Chomsky and Albert reject Marx's economic reductionism that pisses people off?

[Jose Gracchus]

How come people on this forum routinely post bald-faced assertions without a link or shit to back it up? What, I'm expected to take random people's word as authority, or do their homework myself?

EDIT: I went over to Z Communications to see what the issue was about, and all I can find is Albert put up some poll about whether people would join an organization.

[Gorilla]

EDIT: I went over to Z Communications to see what the issue was about, and all I can find is Albert put up some poll about whether people would join an organization.

It's a trap to get your email address.

[Jose Gracchus]

No shit, but what does that have to do with the OP claim. :rolleyes: Is anyone going to have anything substantive to say, or is this just going to be more snickering shit-talking in the leftie ghetto?

[Gorilla]

No shit, but what does that have to do with the OP claim. :rolleyes: Is anyone going to have anything substantive to say, or is this just going to be more snickering shit-talking in the leftie ghetto?

This is Revleft, dude.

[graymouser]

I honestly don't understand the hostility so many people on this forum have for Michael Albert or Parecon, when it's essentially just a detailed explanation of the very same sort of decentralized economic planning those very people endorse. Further, Mike Albert has contributed the majority of his life fighting on behalf of leftist causes and providing some level of economic coherence to socialist economic alternatives to capital. I know that he and Chomsky reject Leninism, but they're libertarian socialists after all. Maybe it's the fact that both Chomsky or Albert reject Marx's economic reductionism that pisses people off?
Chomsky and Albert are somewhat different cases. With Chomsky you've got a guy who admits that he doesn't really understand much about the economics (there's a whole long rant in Understanding Power about this, that caused me to lose a lot of respect for Chomsky) but pontificates on points anyway, but he's still good on the imperialism questions. Albert on the other hand has gone a long way toward establishing a framework for a quasi-anarchist market socialism, which I don't consider useful at all, and aside from that Z hasn't really put forward too much of value.

As to the question itself, what a loaded passive-aggressive bit of bullshit.

[NewSocialist]

Albert on the other hand has gone a long way toward establishing a framework for a quasi-anarchist market socialism, which I don't consider useful at all, and aside from that Z hasn't really put forward too much of value.

Market socialism? There are absolutely no market mechanisms in parecon.. There are certain efficiency criteria promoted, such as workers grading the performances of their co-workers (which would impact ones remuneration), but that is all.


As to the question itself, what a loaded passive-aggressive bit of bullshit.Nah, your attitude is bullshit. I'm genuinely interested in understanding why people dislike the guy and I thought perhaps his rejection of certain aspects of Marxism seems like a possible reason. I'd like to read some actual reasons as to why people seem to hate the guy, nothing more.

[Jose Gracchus]

This is Revleft, dude.

Point taken.

About the above, I think parecon in the abstract might be a conceptual framework which the revolutionary movement could take a lot of strong hints and ideas from, BUT, it is totally divorced from class-struggle and idealist. Naturally it is totally side-stepped what kind of a workers' politics could establish such organizational schemata for production, distribution, and consumption. I think this is a problem with most of those out there peddling "frameworks" -- too divorced from real politics [i.e., Cockshott and Cottrell]. They may have good ideas but they need to be concretely attached to "prefigurative" realities -- today's organizational forms, today's struggles, today's society, and a materialistic historical approach to them.

[Paul Cockshott]

Point taken.

. I think this is a problem with most of those out there peddling "frameworks" -- too divorced from real politics [i.e., Cockshott and Cottrell]. They may have good ideas but they need to be concretely attached to "prefigurative" realities -- today's organizational forms, today's struggles, today's society, and a materialistic historical approach to them.

Bear in mind that what we wrote was an intervention into a specific political conjuncture, that of Peristoika. The intention was to bring out a Russian and Hungarian edition first. In that context it was very much associated with what were then today's struggles, and today's society.
What has happened since then is that the political conjuncture has changed, and in response we have seen the need to put forward intermediate goals.

[Jose Gracchus]

Bear in mind that what we wrote was an intervention into a specific political conjuncture, that of Peristoika. The intention was to bring out a Russian and Hungarian edition first. In that context it was very much associated with what were then today's struggles, and today's society.
What has happened since then is that the political conjuncture has changed, and in response we have seen the need to put forward intermediate goals.

That's interesting. That makes a lot more sense to me now. Thanks for that. Well in that case, what I like by those grizzled Old Left approaches is being clear about one's economics, one's history.

Therefore, parecon, though maybe it could be assimilated into a substantive theory of class-struggle anarchism [some things syndicat has said I thought were pretty good, looking to pareon as an influence or conceptual base], or non-Leninist workers' socialism if it grew out of a coherent politics, coherent sense of organization, and coherent struggle context, is pretty much idealist system-building.

Its certainly something I cannot imagine having coherent politics rallied around, as such.

[Hoipolloi Cassidy]

Point taken.

About the above, I think parecon in the abstract might be a conceptual framework which the revolutionary movement could take a lot of strong hints and ideas from, BUT, it is totally divorced from class-struggle and idealist.
Word. I tried reading Life after Capitalism because I'm very interested in alternative forms of distribution, pricing, etc. What I found is:

1) Albert trashes Marxist economics and then turns around and admires Marxist economists he doesn't seem to realize are Marxists. If you're going to quote or dish other sources, have the honesty to read them.

2) It's all theoretical, like a Republican preaching family values. When I can buy Albert's books on a "pay what you wish" basis (which is how I distribute my own books, BTW) I'll believe him.

3) Like Z. Magazine, it's a racket that happens to be a progressive racket, and a thoroughly hierarchical and authoritarian one. The purpose is not to promote or encourage alternative forms of distribution but to monopolize dialogue about them. Watch what they do, not what they say.

[Martin Blank]

Michael Albert, Patrick Bond, Noam Chomsky, Carol Delgado, Bill Fletcher, Mandisi Majavu, John Pilger, Lydia Sargent, and Fernando Ramon Vegas Torrealba have signed up to Z Communications/ZMag new Parecon party.

Oh, look! The petty bourgeoisie has a new sandbox to piss in.

[NewSocialist]

1) Albert trashes Marxist economics and then turns around and admires Marxist economists he doesn't seem to realize are Marxists. If you're going to quote or dish other sources, have the honesty to read them.

One can admire the writings of certain Marxist economists while still rejecting aspects of Marxism. Albert's main problem with Marxism is that he believes that Marx's economic reductionism is simply wrong. Many years ago he wrote the book "Unorthodox Marxism" to try to salvage something from the tradition of Marxism, but he's lost interest in trying to reform Marxism over the years.


2) It's all theoretical, like a Republican preaching family values. When I can buy Albert's books on a "pay what you wish" basis (which is how I distribute my own books, BTW) I'll believe him.Albert organized South End Press along the lines of how a business would run in parecon --they had a balanced job complex and all that. Since "Parecon" was published by Verso, maybe you should take up the issue of its price with them. Even South End Press charged a standard price for their books, but it was a business after all (people still need to be able to pay rent and eat, especially if all they're doing is publishing leftist literature).


3) Like Z. Magazine, it's a racket that happens to be a progressive racket, and a thoroughly hierarchical and authoritarian one.How is it hierarchical and authoritarian?

[Hoipolloi Cassidy]

yaddayaddayadda

There's an African American expression that says it all:


They act like their shit don't smell.Not a smart move, if you're planning to change things. Of course, if you're really not interested in changing things, it's perfect.

[black magick hustla]

parecon is what people with phds do when they get bored with sims and civilization iv btw

[black magick hustla]

im so stoked about the communist revolution because their education credentials will be worth toiletpaper

[Die Neue Zeit]

Point taken.

About the above, I think parecon in the abstract might be a conceptual framework which the revolutionary movement could take a lot of strong hints and ideas from, BUT, it is totally divorced from class-struggle and idealist. Naturally it is totally side-stepped what kind of a workers' politics could establish such organizational schemata for production, distribution, and consumption. I think this is a problem with most of those out there peddling "frameworks" -- too divorced from real politics [i.e., Cockshott and Cottrell]. They may have good ideas but they need to be concretely attached to "prefigurative" realities -- today's organizational forms, today's struggles, today's society, and a materialistic historical approach to them.

Um, you said just a few weeks ago you enjoyed reading Cockshott-Cottrell, Devine, Laibman, Albert-Hahnel, etc. :confused:

Crap: Never mind. I read your response to Paul. :(

Re. the intermediate goals and relationship with market-socialist models: I think those were based on the Weimar and NEP contexts (Michal Kalecki and Oskar Lange). However, in today's context there needs to be a special emphasis on a fully socialized labour market (Minsky's proposal and my mere popularization of that anonymous other government employer proposal).

[Tim Finnegan]

im so stoked about the communist revolution because their education credentials will be worth toiletpaper
You don't think that there will be a demand for verified technical expertise in a post-revolutionary period? :confused:

[Gorilla]

Interesting. Is there a link to the party's website? I was wondering when Michael Albert would finally form a party.

I honestly don't understand the hostility so many people on this forum have for Michael Albert or Parecon, when it's essentially just a detailed explanation of the very same sort of decentralized economic planning those very people endorse. Further, Mike Albert has contributed the majority of his life fighting on behalf of leftist causes and providing some level of economic coherence to socialist economic alternatives to capital. I know that he and Chomsky reject Leninism, but they're libertarian socialists after all. Maybe it's the fact that both Chomsky and Albert reject Marx's economic reductionism that pisses people off?

Some reasons why people may react badly to Michael Albert and/or parecon:

1. Neologisms send certain readers into conniptions. See for example the wailing and gnashing of teeth here every time DNZ makes even the most innocuous post about anything on any subject at all. Albert's writing is full of them: parecon, parpolity, coordinatorism, etc. It's like bringing peanuts to a class full of tots from Park Slope.

2. Many are creeped out by old hippies. It is a deep-seated aversion akin to colourophobia so there is no real sense arguing with it.

3. Utopian literature (which Life after Capitalism certainly is) has the libidinal quality of wish-fulfillment fantasy and as such is prone to inspire disgust as much as evoke prurient interest. It doesn't bother me if Albert gets off on Debby Reynolds over a church altar with a case of Reddi-Wip but I don't want to read about it, and similarly not his filthy thoughts about ensuring radical transparency vis-a-vis the Facilitation Board.

4. Some left politics is flexible and non-dogmatic but also grey and boring (e.g. Chomsky's) while some is doctrinaire but has a tinge of excitement and romance to it (your various Leninisms, anarcho-syndicalism, etc.) but parecon is both highly prescriptive and utterly, utterly dull at the same time.

5. Z Magazine.

6. Albert won't use the word "socialism," or describe himself or his movement as "socialist". That has been seen as crossing a class line.

7. Leftists like Albert and Hahnel who subscribe to a Weberian bureaucratic-collectivist (or coordinatorist in one of Albert-Hahnel's neologisms) model of historically-existing socialism have a history of going bull goose wingnut anticommunist to an extent that state-capitalism proponents interestingly don't. So that in itself raises suspicions. (I've seen "anarchists" cite James Burnham in support of parecon arguments. I shit you not.)

8. Yes, as you anticipated, parecon comes wrapped in "plurality of struggles" politics. It also comes with the hypothesis that when the nonviolent [whatever substitute word they find for revolution] comes, 1/3 of the population will be enthusiastically for it, 1/3 will be wavering, and 1/3 won't really care. The first proposition requires us to throw Marxism and every kind of class-struggle anarchism out the door, the second requires us to pound critical thought and any sort of historical perspective into a bleeding mass resembling bouillabaisse.

9. The enormous bureaucracy required for parecon alienates anti-authoritarians while the attempt to make that bureaucracy democratic alienates pro-authoritarians. Really it doesn't satisfy any traditional left kink except the one for system-building but that part has already been done for you so the fun is spoiled either way.

10. The emphasis on community councils ensures opposition from anyone who has petty-bourgeois assholes for neighbors, which is at least 90% of people. You get a neighborhood consumption council going and all they want to buy is Cheez Wiz and Sarah Palin commemorative plates so your life is pretty much ruined.

[black magick hustla]

You don't think that there will be a demand for verified technical expertise in a post-revolutionary period? :confused:
i dont think people with phds in "political economy" have technical expertise

[Jose Gracchus]

What Gorilla said. Reading it now, I can't get over that 80s self-hating need to wash itself in its politics. Okay, we get it it, left intellectuals were depressed in the 80s. Its nice that recently politics have seemed to start get less self-flagellating. Guess its getting harder to fall into a capitalist triumphalism now.

[Raubleaux]

I don't mean to dismiss the spotterliness of the OP. In that it has some interest. I just think in the overall place of things, it's not going to mean much, though it's possible a lot of naive high school kids follow Chomskey into this "party."

Fixed.

[Jose Gracchus]

Found it: http://www.zcommunications.org/towards-a-new-international-by-michael-albert

Sounds like just some letter passed around and signed by Chomsky, and then Pilger and others...meh, sounds like total shit though. Petty bourgeois rallying around the modern equivalent of a book club...this isn't class politics.

[Die Neue Zeit]

^^^ Last fad of theirs was the Participatory Socialist International. :(

[Jose Gracchus]

I dunno, I think some kind of organizing emerging from the working class must be in the driver's seat. Not these intellectual idealist 'projects'.

[Martin Blank]

Sounds like just some letter passed around and signed by Chomsky, and then Pilger and others...meh, sounds like total shit though. Petty bourgeois rallying around the modern equivalent of a book club...this isn't class politics.

Well, actually, it is class politics -- petty-bourgeois class politics.

[Thirsty Crow]

I don't understand why people get so upset when it comes to projects of "system building". Yes, they are an idealist endeavour in themselves, but they can in fact serve a good purpose when it comes to a purely ideological struggle. I've come across many workers who are ultimately dissatisfied with the basics of capitalism but cannot imagine a different social-economic organization. Now, I believe that presenting such ideas may play a role within the more broadly conceived class struggle and socialist/anarchist organizations intervening in it.

[The Idler]

http://www.worldsocialism.org/spgb/apr06/page10.html

[Die Neue Zeit]

I dunno, I think some kind of organizing emerging from the working class must be in the driver's seat. Not these intellectual idealist 'projects'.


Well, actually, it is class politics -- petty-bourgeois class politics.

That's why, comrades, I said it was a "fad."

[syndicat]

There isn't a proposal to form a party, but a poll as to who would support such a party. But it is defined with the emphasis entirely on "vision" -- that is, a set of principles, not strategic path. this is one of Michael Albert's weaknesses.

historically the ideas of worker self-management, of people having control over their lives, were developed by radical working class activists, especiealy revolutionary syndicalism. workers self-management was also pushed by the cooperative movement in the mid-19th century, but the ideas were developed further by syndicalism, where it is understood as following out struggles that are controlled by workers themselves.

thus the "vision" shouldn't really be separated from the path or strategy. but Albert & Hahnel tend to discuss self-management and "workers councils" in the abstract...as if it dropped from the sky.

I think that is one of the reasons that a lot of leftists...marxists and anarchists...misunderstand them.

But their efforts have been an attempt to grapple with real problems of the construction of self-managed socialism, as indicated by historical failures.

participatory planning is in fact an attempt to avoid the bureaucratic tendencies that have shown up in really existing "socialism". by de-centering decision-making to local neighborhood assemblies, local workplace assemblies, regional delegate conferences and so on, it empowers the average person to make the decisions.

But it's not a form of "market socialism." It's market abolitionist. Pariticpatory planning is intended as a replacement for the market.

altho i'm sympathetic to participatory planning and re-integration of skill & expertise with physical doing of work (what Albert calls "balanced jobs"), i find that I have to translate the terminology and situate the discussion historically to avoid the sorts of knee-jerk reactions Albert & Hahnel tend to get.

[Jose Gracchus]

I thought your synthesis of many of these principles in plain language, with the kind of dual governance advocated by the CNT, was quite good.

I think another weakness is Albert-and-Hahnel tend to support popular fads in the left that superficially look like stuff they advocate, and that are generally beyond the bale of the libertarian left - in this book I've got sitting right here, Socialism Today and Tomorrow from the early 80s, they gush over Castro's Poder Popular system, and the Shanghai People's Commune and other direct workers' control efforts in the "Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution" - and today over Chavez's "communes" and "communal councils". I think that kind of opportunism and superficiality puts people off. Especially when "council" communists and social anarchists today who would generally dismiss the above as bullshit, quashed proto-revolutionary struggles, and top-down reforms by a bourgeois state, respectively. They talk about it as if the governments were seriously considering legislating self-management, which is a., absurd, b., impossible. I suppose it might be their New Left origins, who knows.

[syndicat]

I think another weakness is Albert-and-Hahnel tend to support popular fads in the left that superficially look like stuff they advocate, and that are generally beyond the bale of the libertarian left - in this book I've got sitting right here, Socialism Today and Tomorrow from the early 80s, they gush over Castro's Poder Popular system, and the Shanghai People's Commune and other direct workers' control efforts in the "Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution" - and today over Chavez's "communes" and "communal councils".

yeah, i think you're right about that. but it's an example of how a pure emphasis on vision leads to mstaken judgements.

[Die Neue Zeit]

I thought your synthesis of many of these principles in plain language, with the kind of dual governance advocated by the CNT, was quite good.

I think another weakness is Albert-and-Hahnel tend to support popular fads in the left that superficially look like stuff they advocate, and that are generally beyond the bale of the libertarian left - in this book I've got sitting right here, Socialism Today and Tomorrow from the early 80s, they gush over Castro's Poder Popular system, and the Shanghai People's Commune and other direct workers' control efforts in the "Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution" - and today over Chavez's "communes" and "communal councils". I think that kind of opportunism and superficiality puts people off. Especially when "council" communists and social anarchists today who would generally dismiss the above as bullshit, quashed proto-revolutionary struggles, and top-down reforms by a bourgeois state, respectively. They talk about it as if the governments were seriously considering legislating self-management, which is a., absurd, b., impossible. I suppose it might be their New Left origins, who knows.

So what do you make of my approach re. "full communal power" and the warning not to make fetishes out of such? There I mentioned it in relation to proletarian demographic majorities struggling against bourgeois federalism.

[Paul Cockshott]

what peopple are saying about albert and hahnel may have some grounding, but I dont know enought of their political history to comment.

[The Idler]

I think David Harvey is onboard for the consultative committee according to an e-mail I just got.

[Martin Blank]

Shall I go ahead and call the Consortium of Useless Left Tendencies now to reserve their space, or did someone do that already? :D

[Rusty Shackleford]

is it me or does Parecon sound like some, Los Angeles based, evil all knowing military and communications corporation in some steampunk/terminatoresque dystopian future?

[wunderbar]

is it me or does Parecon sound like some, Los Angeles based, evil all knowing military and communications corporation in some steampunk/terminatoresque dystopian future?

To me, it sounds more like an acronym for an imaginary 60's-70's South American military junta.

[Paul Cockshott]

or perhaps the community council will prefer royal wedding commemorative mugs?