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Michael Albert’s “Parecon” and Reformist Strategy
I have previously discussed the reformist strategy of Robin Hahnel (2005), the other co-founder of Parecon (Price, 2005). But Albert states (2006) that the two of them have become estranged (as if Marx and Engels were to split up!). We cannot assume that what Hahnel says is what Albert believes. Albert has not written much about tactics and strategy for reaching Parecon, as compared to his writing on how a pareconist society might work. One work which did focus on strategy was a little book, The Trajectory of Change: Activist Strategies for Social Transformation (2002). His approach for a movement is stated summarily: “Short term, we raise social costs until elites agree to implement our demands or end policies we oppose. Longer term, we accumulate support and develop movement infrastructure and alternative institutions, while working toward transforming society’s defining relations.” (2002; p. x) That is, we cannot force the state to end a particular war or to grant universal health care, but it may do it if the rulers fear that there will be a spread of radicalization among the people; if there is increased militancy among workers, youth, soldiers, and People of Color; if society becomes increasingly polarized and ungovernable. This is precisely what happened in the 60s and which led to the end of legal racial segregation and of the Vietnam war. So far, so good. A revolutionary anarchist would completely agree with this orientation. As opposed to the liberal strategy of permeating the centers of power and making changes from above, it proposes to pressure the state and capitalists from outside and below. It demonstrates why a revolutionary perspective is relevant even in non-revolutionary periods (which are most of the time): the more militant and disrespectful a movement is (that is, the more revolutionary it is), the more likely it is even to win reforms. But is Albert for revolution? In this book he discusses the role of “revolutionaries.” He writes of “our commitment to ultimately revolutionize all aspects of life….This country needs a revolution…” (2002; pp. 119, 122). In his memoir (2006) he makes it clear that he regards himself as a revolutionary. What he means by revolutionary, however, is someone who advocates a totally new society, which he does. As I have argued before (Price, 2006), this is based on a misconception which confuses the difference between liberalism and socialism with the difference beween reformist socialism and revolutionary socialism (including anarchism). Liberalism wishes to keep capitalist society but to make improvements; socialism aims for a new kind of society. But there have been differences between those socialists who hoped to reach a new society by gradual, peaceful, and legal changes, and those who believed that eventually there would have to be a confrontation with the capitalist state, its overthrow and dismantling. Historically, most reformist socialists claimed to be for an eventual new society, as opposed to the liberals. Today this is easily forgotten, when the various Social Democratic, Labor, and Communist parties have abandoned all claim to be for a different type of social system. To be a revolutionary is to advocate a revolution. It is to point out that the state will not permit peaceful, gradual, legal, changes to a better social system. It is to WARN the people that when the economy gets worse, the capitalists will take back the reforms they have given in the past—as they have begun to do. At some point, when the capitalists feel threatened enough, they will whip up racist and sexual hysteria. They will abandon bourgeois democracy, cancel elections, organize fascist gangs, smash unions, murder leftists, and arrange a military coup. Working people need to prepare to defend ourselves, to strengthen unions, and to engage in general (city-wide) strikes. We need to popularize the idea of workers’ and community councils, for replacing the state, and of an armed working class, for replacing the specialized police and military. None of this is in Albert’s work. He wants a drastic change in society, but he does not expect it to need a revolution (what most people would mean by revolution, on the order of the U.S., French, or Russian revolutions). He does not warn of the dangers of counterrevolutionary, fascist, repression. He believes in building a militant mass movement, but he believes that one way this can be done is through electoralism. Not only does he support third-party capitalist candidates (Nader, the Green party) but he supported Jesse Jackson’s campaign inside the capitalist, racist, pro-war, imperialist, Democratic party (Albert, 1994). He seemed surprised when the so-called Rainbow Coalition turned from movement-building to supporting Jackson’s deal-making. Working with capitalist parties is not only naïve but it crosses the class line. He does not warn the workers that Parecon cannot be voted in, the capitalist state is designed to prevent that. Even if Pareconists won an election, the result would be something like when Lincoln won the 1860 election; the slaveowners refused to accept their defeat, taking the leading military officers and organized to overthrow the government and break up the country in a bloody counterrevolution. Like Hahnel, Albert believes in building alternate institutions in the present to demonstrate how Parecon might work. Such institutions (coops, collectives, democratic publishing groups, etc.) would face not only the state, but the forces of the marketplace, where capitalism is dominant. Many such attempts fail. Others succeed, only to be integrated into the capitalist economy. These organizations are good in themselves, but cannot play a major role in changing capitalism. I live in a self-administered housing coop, run by the tenants without even a professional manager. It provides good housing but is not a threat to the bourgeoisie. In 1978, writing with Robin Hahnel, he sketched out how a “socialist revolution” might be carried out. There would be a “revolutionary councilist organization” or “party.” In workplaces and neighborhoods, the revolutionaries would organize people to fight back over economic, racial, gender. and other issues. They would seek to build popular councils of workers and oppressed people, to replace state functions in the communities and to challenge the managers in factories and workplaces. Workers’ councils would take over the worksites. Neighborhood councils would take over the communities. The councils would federate. The revolutionary organization would dissolve into the councils. This would be the contest for power against the state and capitalism, to be followed by building a new society. As the councilist movement spread and solidified, there would be an increasing danger of state repression. The authors’ main response to this is the need to avoid “adventurism” or “premature strikes.” They had previously mentioned the need for “people’s patrols” but that is only “to deal with juvenile delinquency and mugging” (p. 336). They refer to mass struggles “all without and also often with militant self-defense” (p. 337), which is rather vague. They wrote that readers may interpret this sketch to imply “an essentially non-violent dynamic” (p. 352)—which seems reasonable to me--but they deny this. “…There is considerable violence likely during the whole preparatory series of struggles leading up to the actual final seizure of power. But the seizure itself and the following period of construction will likely be relatively peaceful” (p. 352). They expect to have won over most of the ranks of the military as well as the big majority of the population by the time of a seizure of power. The prediction of repression and considerable violence during the preparatory period of struggles has dropped out of Albert’s writings, as has the concept of a “final seizure of power.” Programmatically, he has abandoned talk of a need for people’s patrols and miltant self-defense. But he still believes in a mostly non-violent change. This may be so. However, the U.S. has a large middle class (including what pareconists call the “coordinator class”) and widespread racist, superpatriotic, and superstitious beliefs among many workers. A large propostion of the population may be on the side of the counterrevolution during a revolutionary upheaval. It is really impossible to predict, especially since we are so far from any actual revolution. To be so sure that “the seizure [of power] itself and the following period of construction will likely be relatively peaceful” is to disarm the workers and oppressed ahead of time. For reasons of space, I have not discussed other aspects of Michael Albert’s program, such as his concept of “non-reformist reforms,” his view of the working class, his odd belief that the managerial “coordinators” are not a pro-capitalist class, or his odder admiration for Ho Chi Minh and Che Guevera (who were hardly antistatist Marxists). Like me, Albert comes out of the councilist, antistatist, tradition of socialist anarchism and libertarian Marxism (although he no longer calls himself a socialist). Like us, he aims for an economy which is neither centrally planned nor market-oriented. He believes that a movement needs a vision of a better world (although I do not think it needs to be as detailed as his Parecon blueprint). He also agrees with us about building a democratic movement from below, which challenges the centers of capitalist power by threatening them from outside. There are many areas where we revolutionary anarchists can work with Albert and others who advocate Parecon. However, there are fundamental weaknesses in his program for achieving a new society (as in the thinking of Robin Hahnel, that is, of both of the founders of Parecon). He does not warn of counterrevolutionary violence. He disarms the working class and oppressed by predicting that the change to pareconism can be done peacefully. He has advocated participating in elections, in support of capitalist parties, which crosses the class line. Subjectively he regards himself as a revolutionary, but his practice is really reformist and nonrevolutionary (or at least “centrist,” revolutionary in rhetoric but reformist in practice). With all respect for his contributions to the anti-capitalist movement, Albert’s program is fatally flawed. References Albert, Michael (2003). Parecon: Life after capitalism. London/NY: Verso. Albert, Michael (2002). The trajectory of change: Activist strategies for social transformation. Cambridge MA: South End Press. Albert, Michael (1994). Stop the killing train; Radical visions for radical change. Boston: South End Press. Albert, Michael, & Hahnel, Robin (1978). Unorthodox Marxism: An essay on capitalism, socialism, and revolution. Boston: South End Press. Hahnel, Robin (2005). Economic justice and democracy: From competition to cooperation. NY: Routledge. Price, Wayne (2006). An anarchist review of Change the World by Not Taking Power by John Holloway. Price, Wayne (2005). Parecon and the nature of reformism> |
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Who the hell is this Price
Who the hell is this Price character to criticize anyone? As far as I can tell all he has done for the last few years is tell lies about anarchists. And here are some more lies. Mentioning the US, French and Russian revolutions without mentioning Spain is lying by omission. Marxists do this everyday when they talk about revolution and always leave out the greatest revolution of all time.
Then theres crossing the class line. What fucking class line? Get two Marxists talking about class and you'll get at least three definitions - none of them reliable. No Marxist has any business telling us anarchists how to make revolutions or fight for reforms. The track record of Marxism is red-fascism from 1918 on. 90 years of mass-murders starting with mass murders of anarchists in April 1918 by the CHEKA. Go and preach ' libertarian-Marxism' to those who fucking need it Price and leave us the hell alone. Stop trolling us for yr pathetic flame wars you spamming Marxist arsehole.
pro2rat@yahoo.etc
class is the most potent of
class is the most potent of the illusions of social control, the most widespread, and the most damaging (save domestication itself, the basis for all of this), thats how i'd look at it. there are no genetically born bourgeois or proletariats these are ways people are raised. just about everyone in this society, of course, has it drilled into their heads to be a capitalist, which is going to be the case since ages of colonial looting (the bad kind of looting (-;) has left a giant surplus to dangle as the carrot to the officers stick here in the "developed world" (and let the "developing world" eat barely any depleted grains!), though the current economic situation is perhaps threatening a return to the robber baron days or feudalism if we don't start putting our feet down on this number (ah, but we are busy humanizing social relationships and like, yeah, green cars, green cities for bikes and health food stores mannnnnnnnn!).
anyway, even the bourgeois is a kind of slave, the most contemptible kind: for their drug fix of power over others they must become one with a giant technological infrastructure which furthers their power, all hail conquering lord robot!
-lord rambler
Price is a stodgy old man
Price is a stodgy old man who needs to accept his own irrelevance. Picking easy targets with whom to engage in spurious debates just makes him look all the more like an ideological douchebag.
The rhetoric here is
The rhetoric here is undeserved.
Whether we like it or not, Anarchism and Marxism has similarities in terms of our critiques of capitalism etc etc. Bakunin was very similar to Marx on certain ideas. What is completely different — and rightly so — is the methods we choose to use, such as fereralism, workers collectives, community struggle, ecology etc etc. I agree we would do well to stay clear of Marxist dialogue, but we can't ignore the fact that class does exist, and is a reality for a great majority of people. Luckily, Anarchists realise that the working class should not be the primary focus of our theory, and take into account other, wider factors — but class and class ideas do constitue a large part of our history, especially in non-western cultures.
The above posts are completely off topic, as Price's text seems to make some good points on Parecon, not of its ideas, but it's implementation. There is no critique of Synthesis Anarchist Federation, or pushing an Anarchist Platformist agenda. If there was, then we have every right to debate it. But to lower yourself to petty insults does nothing to further our ideas — also, to dismiss class ignores a large aspect of the modern world.
Cheers
Jared
i don't mean to say class
i don't mean to say class doesn't exist, yes, it is very real...it is an illusion made material based on ages upon ages of domestication and the roles that have kept civilization growing from the beginning (the division of labor to bring about the administration of a culture based on surpluses rather than the land) is what it is. when i said it was the most damaging illusion i meant that in "real material existence" it rears its ugly head more than anything else save the domination of nature and in conjunction with things like racism and sexism it is force multiplier. the problem i have is some people talk like there are two separate species of humanity: the bourgeois and the proletariat...but its all socialization taking on material forms and material forms conditioning socialization or you could also flip that around and it would mean the same. peoples backgrounds, in other words, are not predestiny, they are the accident of where someone was plopped out into the world. that being said, as a generality, i think the most resistance is going to come from those who get exploited the most in the present order cause this just makes down to earth sense: when desires are thwarted one is left with either apathy or anger...let wrath consume this whole fucked up society.
-lord rambler
Yep well said, I agree,
Yep well said, I agree, especially with regard to being socialised.
Jared D
"it is an illusion made
"it is an illusion made material based on ages upon ages of domestication and the roles that have kept civilization growing from the beginning" This is a really poorly thought out understanding of the way the world works. Class is a material relationship based on the ownership or non-ownership of capital. Class consciousness derives from this relationship, and the vast ideological apparatus of the state strives to attack this consciousness.
Furthermore, the point is not that the capitalist class and the working class are different species, but that they have different material interests and thus will always find themselves in conflict in some form. To explain: workers are interested in doing less work and getting more money, the capitalists are interested in getting more work done and paying less money for it. If you earn a living by selling your labour, you are a worker, if you live off the profit of another's labour, you are a capitalist.
How could an illusion become material, could I think myself into owning a bank? It is also ridiculous to think (as Jared does) that class has more historical reality outside of the Western world - it was the bloody Western world where capitalism developed! And of course there's no such thing as a working class today; now that people can buy IPods with their wages they obviously aren't workers...
i agree with and already
i agree with and already understood what you said above about the nature of class society, that's a basic knowledge for most anarchists. socialization does exist though and all the roles we play are not born, they are made through it...and socialization is formed by the context of material relationships and that is exactly what i meant. it is also said socialization that reproduces the material relationships which themselves reproduce socialization. moral and material relationships compliment each other as part of a whole and both these aspects of the dominant society need to be destroyed. domestication, to clear up, would be the material (and moral) relationships of the civilized to the planet that began the division of labor in surplus agricultural society which has resulted in many different forms of exploitation including capitalism. i feel it is incomplete to destroy capitalism without also destroying civilization. to speak of illusions like i did is a way of saying these roles are not real outside of such systems of control (and can also, for that reason, be rejected by individuals), by the way (ie: classes, as and for that matter race and gender, are not part of some fictitious human nature), i admit my early post could have been better written. hopefully this is more clear but i am fucking tired so if not more at some point later on i suppose if i am still not being too clear.
-lord rambler
I was refering to the 'third
I was refering to the 'third world', in respect to the oppression encountered there, and to their unique divisions of class. I didn't say that it had MORE relevance to the western world's class division. I brought it up merely to emphasise that, (although industrial capitalism may have developed in the western world) three quaters of the global population is situated outside of the west — an exploited global population which in many ways, developed and adhered to anarchism more dominantly than in the west: precisely because of those class divisions. I should have been a little clearer, sorry.
Jared D
via colonialism, yes, this
via colonialism, yes, this is the way it is. capitalism has is just another way of doing what civilization has always done though i would say it is probably the most damaging form of civilization as its aim is to maximize profits above all else. under colonial expansion certain concessions could be made within capitalism: shorter work days, higher wages, paid time off, OSHA standards, rules about discrimination (though you can still be fired for the boss not liking the way you look or something, of course), expanded consumption and leisure options (the better to manage that time off in socially acceptable ways) etc...because of course it is more profitable to make people who are being exploited more comfortable so they are more willing to work for you, especially since they know what will the alternative is. meanwhile the robber baron style exploitation we were once familiar with here migrates (for the most part) to maintain this "post-industrial" system of control...as it will, of course, come back full circle if the capitalists have their way when this shit finally collapses, as it will one way or another, seeing as how it looks much like the growth process of a cancerous cell.
-lord rambler
I just read the series of
I just read the series of "responses" (if they can be called that) to my essay on the strategy of Michael Albert, co-founder of the program of Parecon. There seems to be at least one anonymous person who dislikes me very much, for reasons he cannot express, but which have nothing to do with my article. Jared, however, raises serious issues.
In my opinion, class is a reality, a social relation in the process of production. In our society it refers to the capital/labor relationship. In certain ways it is central to the functioning of capitalism as a system. However there are other systems of oppression which overlap with and interact with class relations: gender, nationality, race, sexual orientation, etc., and other issues such as war and ecology. These all have to be opposed, in an interactive way.
Wayne Price
. . but . . yeah . .
. . but . . yeah . . class.
Wayne (put a price on) Price (love)
i don't get it, i have
i don't get it, i have spelled out my position a number of times and people still seem to think i am saying class itself doesn't exist. i am that unclear? it exists and is very material, its repercussions can be felt throughout society, though it is yet another social role so it is ultimately an illusion we need to kill, you know, by overthrowing society in both its material and moral actions/outlooks. when i call something illusion it is to say it is a social fiction created through how we have materially (and not just morally, you know in some vacuum) been relating to the planet for the past 10,000 or so odd years as a rule: it is not saying one can snap their fingers and wish it away but it also didn't A). have to happen B). isn't a law of nature like those in favor of historical materialism like to pretend in order to give moral force to their own development agendas. also, why would i be a critic of something i think didn't matter, last time i check one critiques based on what matters to one, no? the main reason for this is too many views of the overthrow of capitalism still cast us all as workers...a self managed worker is still as self managed slave to production. this the reasoning for pointing out the ultimately illusory nature of even so potent a system of control as class.
in other words i would like to put to bed once and for all the notion that there is something noble about work and being a worker, something we should be proud of. no, everything we do in production is a sign of our slavery as well as our alienation from the natural world around us. we have built ultimately unworkable lives for ourselves that currently operates on the imperatives of making profits for the capitalist class and maintaining a sizable enough (but hardly total) middle class thoroughly conditioned to guard this way of life with its life, as well as the illusion that if some can rise out of their social status based on a combination of sweat and luck so can anyone. anyway, i highly doubt these fabricated ways of living will suddenly become pure if capitalism was removed, in fact i think as long as mass society remains so will some system of domination. so the class war is meant to destroy class to me but also civilization which is what gives birth to class in the first place. calling something illusion in this context is to say it is not an immutable reality (nor is this to say its defeat is guranteed cause it isn't without peoples effort, which is kinda my point...), as for the illusions effects on reality through happening to be the way we live our lives everyday the reality of these can be denied only by fools.
-lord rambler
so what if class is the
so what if class is the central narrative . . so what if it is one among many . . what good are any of these narratives if oppressed people refuse to listen to them? Narratives are all good and dandy, but only as bedtime stories -- in the day we have to wake up to a really complex reality that can not be embedded in ANY narrative (economic, or any of your pseudo-plural perspectives [i am speaking to wayne pricecode).
Contrary to lord rambler: I am saying that class DOESN'T matter. now what? mock me? tell me i'm wrong because I don't like your little bedtime story. try to convince me? impose your perspective onto mine?
"Contrary to lord rambler: I
"Contrary to lord rambler: I am saying that class DOESN'T matter. now what? mock me?
You mock yourself by getting defensive before anyone has even said anything to you. Maybe you should jerk off and release some of that pent-up libidinal energy.
-postnihilist
postnihilist, I mock myself?
postnihilist, I mock myself? wtf are you talking about? If I don't feel mocked, how can you tell me that I do?
I was responding to price, not to your lord and savior -- and wannabe new friend -- lord rambler (it's obvious that you've been trying to tag his ass for a while . . you started with the wombat and you've found new flesh). I am merely trying to point out that a truly radical position is not to say that class is equally as valid as all other oppressions (a multicultural society of oppressions) but that, for many people, class isn't an oppression at all. I may be poor but I feel my poverty most in lonliness.
So tell lord rambler, wayne (the) price (is too high), and yourself, to stop trying to jerk me off so that I can actually go and jerk myself off!
actually part of why i am
actually part of why i am even mentioning all this is i don't see class or any other narrative as a central narrative. if i were going to picture a central narrative i would give it to domestication or normalcy itself and i would contain class within these...but i have better things to do than create pie charts to piegonhole things so i digress. we don't need any damn central narratives, we need to take our fucking lives back if we can find some way(s) to...so how is what you are saying contrary to what i am saying? that being said such narratives are actually very important, not in terms of following them but in terms of understanding how they work and what perpetuates such morality through material conditions as well, in turn, as how that morality creates and maintains material conditions through our actions under its illusions. it is hard to fight things you don't understand.
-lord rambler