INTERNATIONAL POLITICS-VENEZUELA:

A FIFTH INTERNATIONAL????:

A little while ago the Peron-wannabe dictator of Venezuela offered up to the world his idea of a "Fifth International" whereby everyone who opposed to the US Empire would unite in some sort of new socialist international. it has been many decades since the last 'International' was founded. The anarchosyndicalist international, a collection of unions, traces its origin back to 1923. The Second International of social democratic parties still exists in a bureaucratic never-never land. This international is nothing more than a collection of social democratic political parties. Maybe they are good, or maybe they are bad, but that is what they are.

Chavez of Venezuela, true to his own megalomania, however proposes yet another "international". In terms of "voting rights" one wonders is his good friends in the North Korean government will be allowed to "vote" as per their communist party membership and if starving peasants will be allowed to vote-secretly. Similarly one wonders how the votes of Chavez's good friend Iran will be allocated. Will any votes be allocated to people who have a different vision of Islam and who are in opposition to the present regime or will the voting be according to government appointees in Iran.

Let's lay it out as plainly as we can. Z Communications is very much an attempt to recover libertarian initiatives for traditional leftism. This traditional leftism is what has led Z Communications to be apologists for the regime in Venezuela. All their great intellectual power, which I will admit, floundered on a moral shoal of apologetics for dictatorship. If I were to sum it up I would say that that the theory of the "coordinator class" that Parecon has borrowed without acknowledgement from other socialists and anarchists hasn't yet penetrated to the core of their practical proposals. Whether it is "critical support" ala a Trotskyist formula for voting for the Democratic party or tailing third world dictatorships the people around Z-Net have made their choices very clear., via much more morally degenerate choices ala Venezuela.

Quite frankly I am not annoyed with the opinions of Z-Net. As a Canadian I have been very much acquainted with left social democratic proposals, and I can easily situate same in my own political culture, as "radical" as this may seem in the USA. What I am appalled by is the attempt, perhaps only possible in the USA, to say that a "vague leftism" is equivalent to anarchism. To be fair the people around Z-Net have never styled themselves as as 'anarchists", and thus it is not unexpected that they, as good vague leftists, would think that the proposals of the would-be dictator of Venezuela deserve notice. The way that Z-net gravitates to this dictatorial proposal is the same way that left social democrats would gravitate to such a thing in my experience.

In my opinion this sort of thing is both futile and immoral, especial;y as it tends to bury real socialism under a layer of bureaucratic socialist "bullshit". OK, judge for yourself. Here's the item from Z-Net. As an ex-social democrat I am very aware of what social democracy is, both in its good and its bad aspects. To say the least this sort of thing is one of the bad aspects of the left wing of social democracy. But, I'll let you judge for yourself. Here's the article from Z-Net.

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Fifth International?!

By Michael Albert

To be a contender, "21st Century Socialist" vision needs elaboration, advocacy, and a program. To improve focus and increase power, worldwide anti-capitalist organizations, projects, and movements need shared coherence and mutual solidarity.

To fulfill these needs, Venezuela's President Chavez recently announced to widespread support and also some critical response that a gathering in Caracas this April would establish a new International. But what might this new International look like? What might it accomplish? How might people, such as those reading this essay, and particularly people in grassroots movements around the world, relate to it?

Not Our Predecessor's

A new International is an excellent venue for debate but has no practical component, or, worse, is a gathering place for big egos who mostly preen at long, aimless meetings(Uh- can I say that bureaucratic "socialists" in power are a far greater threat than "egos", whatever the American point of view-Molly )Or suppose a new International intelligently addresses programs and ideas, but is a vehicle for a small group to issue instructions from above. Or suppose a new International's focus, structure, or operational procedures are conceptually rooted in past flawed macho, racist, authoritarian or otherwise oppressive practices( leaving aside the way that the "left" has al;ways tried to govern other peoples' lives of course which is not an "ism"-Molly).

Even if it grew large, such a new International, built with the intellectual bricks, social mortar, programmatic inclinations, and personal habits and ideas of the old world, would not likely help us attain a new world. Liberation will not stand well on old foundations. We must plant the seeds of the future, as best we can, in our present endeavors.

Most politically sophisticated people of today's movements would not sign up with an old-style International. Even considering the relatively few eager souls who would sign up, most would not remain inspired for long. Predictably, support would not grow strong enough to win major change.

We can't win a new world without attaining wide and deep support, and we can't attract wide and deep support offering structures and methods embodying the core ills of the past.

Thus, lesson one, already familiar to most: If a new International marches to the beat of past drumming, no matter what its members might want, and no matter how courageously its members might seek their worthy dreams, the support they gain will be too limited and their efforts will be too compromised by past destructive residues to generate desirable 21st century outcomes.

The Focus of a New International Issue Focus

The "subject matter" of a new international should and will inevitably address all concerns which go into and are part of developing and sustaining a liberated society and world but there is no reason to think all sensible and caring people would or should agree about all such matters.

Much will have to be worked out in practice. Much will differ from country to country. Maybe there is a best position - but we don't yet know it. Maybe most people think they know a best position, but a few people differ, and perhaps the few will prove right later. This indicates that regarding unity we ought to settle only on a minimalist but profoundly important set of principles and commitments that would characterize a new International.

What minimal commitments would a new International need to adopt to do its job well? Those who agree with essential inviolable commitments, could join. Those who don't agree with them, might want to join, but couldn't.

Few would doubt that a new International should be centrally concerned with economics, gender and kinship, culture and community, politics, international relations, and ecology(anything else you want to throw into the stew-Molly).

Further, however, there is no need for, and we have learned in recent decades there is also no point trying to elevate any one of these focuses above the rest. They are all centrally important and powerfully entwined. Thus, it should be the case that a group in a new International might in some country, or at some time, or for some purpose, be primarily focused on one or another of these focuses, but to be part of the new International it would also have to acknowledge that their priority was just one among many, and that other priorities should inform their work as well as be informed by their work.

Surely, at least these six areas of struggle must be elevated by any organization trying to create a new world because:

(a) all these six central domains will critically affect the character of a new world,

(b) each of these six domains is capable of manifesting influences that would subvert efforts to reach a new world, and

(c) the constituencies most involved in and affects by each of these six domains would be intensely alienated if their prime concerns were relegated to secondary importance. But what minimalist political focus and commitment might a new International have regarding each of theses six broad areas of concern? What would it initially need to universally agree about each area to gain the wherewithal to really change that area and legitimately appeal to and empower constituencies most concerned about that area?

Some possibilities for general agreement are that:
economic production, consumption, and allocation should be classless

- which of course includes equitable access for all to quality and accessible education, health care and the requisites of health like food, water, and sanitation, housing, meaningful and dignified work, and the instruments and conditions of personal fulfillment gender/kinship, sexual, and family relations should not privilege by age, sexual preference, or gender any one group above others - which of course includes ending all forms of oppression of women, providing daycare, recreation, health care, etc.culture and community relations among races, ethnic groups, religions, and other cultural communities should protect the rights and identity of each community up to equally respecting those of all other communities as well

- which of course includes an end to racist, ethnocentric, and otherwise bigoted structures as well as securing the prosperity and rights of indigenous people political decision making, adjudication of disputes and implementation of shared programs should deliver people's power in ways that do not elevate any one sector or constituency to power above others

- which of course includes participation and justice for all international trade, communication, and other interactions should attain and protect peace and justice while dismantling all vestiges of colonialism and imperialism

- which of course includes canceling the debt of nations of the global south and reconstructing international norms and relations to move toward an equitable and just community of equally endowed nations ecological choices should not only be sustainable, but should care for the environment in accord with our highest aspirations for ourselves and our world

- which of course includes climate justice and energy renovation.

Which, "of course"!, is about one of the best statements of vague leftism in a North American context that I have ever seen-Molly. Whether this right or wrong or, more importantly, the basis for a political movement I will leave to the readers' judgement.
Is there room for difference and debate in what exactly each of the above points means, much less about more specific details? Of course there is. But having room for debate is good in an International that means to be a massive bloc of diverse projects each of which retain their own history and agenda. The International becomes the greatest sum of all its parts. It embodies differences as a source of strength. It avoids the temptation to become just a coalition attached only to universally agreed but least common denominator claims, or to homogenize all views into one narrow pattern.

Underlying Values

What about underlying values? Surely a new International would elevate solidarity as part of its ethos. An International is, after all, about aligning worldwide movements and projects into mutual aid and collective benefit.

A new International should also certainly elevate diversity as a core value, both due to the obvious ecological necessity of doing so, and due to the observation that in any undertaking minority views can become majority, or what is thought to be crazy today can lead to what is brilliant tomorrow. (And most importantly vice versa without disguise-Molly)

A new International will no doubt also adopt equity as one of its core values, even if it retains contradictory "certainties" about just what constitutes equity. More, over time, presumably members will reach increased clarity about just what equity entails and requires. One possibility is, for example, that it means every person who can work gets a share of income based on his or her duration, intensity, and onerousness of socially valued labor, but not based on property, or power, or even output, while those who can't work get special needs addressed and, beyond that, average income.Peace with justice and ecological sustainability and wisdom would surely also be guiding values. Serious movements would have no problems with that.

Finally a new International will of course have to have an attitude about decisions, participation, and power. At a minimum a new International would presumably commit to the value called "democracy." For myself, however, I would hope it would reach further to a more inspiring conception of "people's power," or "participatory democracy," or "self management." And that it will seriously assess the kinds of structural changes and innovations essential to ensure informed, confident, participation by all citizens in political, economic, and social life - perhaps also including, for example, changes in the way labor is divided and carried out, the way education is conceived and implemented, and of course the way preferences are debated, explored, resolved, and implemented.

Perhaps that will prove possible, too!

At any rate, given its place and time of origin, suppose a new International adopts a name like Participatory Socialist International (PSI), where "participatory" connotes that it isn't our forebears' International, but is really new. Suppose also that it commits to prioritizing at least economics, gender, race, power, peace, and ecology, and commits to solidarity, diversity, equity, peace with justice, ecological wisdom, and people's power or self management. These commitments would certainly go a long way toward providing a new foundation for a new International.

But what about all the many clashing views that various members would hold beyond the minimal views they would universally share?

How might different positions exist in a new International in mutual respect? (Uh, can I suggest that they won't and can't-Molly)

How might they engage in mutual careful and creative consideration?

Currents in a New International

How can a new International be true to its core commitments, yet also a vehicle for constant growth and development?

How can a new International prioritize shared core views, yet also practice diversity and prioritize innovation?

One possibility is to include and celebrate(Molly warning-leftist buzzword expressed here) "currents" that serve as vehicles for contending views. There might be a current composed of various member organizations, projects, and/or movements who share a particular contested economic goal (such as participatory economics or market socialism, etc.), or a certain contested strategic orientation (such as electoralism or nonviolence, etc.). The International's various currents would not be seen as a weakness undermining unity but as a strength warding off sectarianism and guaranteeing constant growth.

The respectfully contending positions would all be part of the International, together interactively exploring their disagreements in hopes of reaching new insights. To establish a congenial, productive context, currents would take for granted that the intentions of other currents were good, that differences were about substance and not motive( oh yeah, I'm sure that a "Bolibougeois" making money from the present government of Venezuela would be "agreeable" to anything but fashion statements from others outside of the country ), and that they were subject to substantive debate which would be a serious part of the whole project.

The International would thus welcome different currents affording each ample visibility and means to engage with all others to try to advance new insights bearing on policy and program. Currents would not have hidden agendas(as if any government doesn't have such-Molly) or think everyone else is a fool because only their own views have merit.

Rather, currents would take for granted that even ideas they think odd, strange, or counterproductive, might prove useful in time, so that all views held inside the International should be respected and substantively explored without defensiveness and without doubting the motives of other International members. In short, in this formulation, as long as any particular current accepted the basic tenets of the International and operated in accord with its norms and methods, respectful dissent would be considered a strength preventing knee-jerk agreement and constantly pushing the envelope of beliefs toward new insights. In debates about policy and program, for example, currents would always be heard.

Minority positions would, to the extent possible, be given space not only to argue, but if they don't prevail, to continue developing their views and trying to establish their merit or to discover their inadequacies. The idea of a political or programmatic line that everyone follows would be foreign to the culture and process of this type new International.

Members and Decisions in a New International

What permits one to be in the new International? Well, the International would presumably include movements, parties, organizations, and even projects - but a strong possibility is that individuals would not join as at-large members, belonging instead only by way of their group affiliations. What kind of group could belong? I would think any group that convinced some agreed percentage - let's say, hypothetically, 75% - of the existing membership that it sincerely accepted the defining norms of the International could belong.

This could be political parties, movements, organizations, or even projects - so, for example, it could be the PSUV from Venezuela, or the Landless Workers Movement (MST) from Brazil, or the Rosa Luxembourg foundation from Germany, or even media organizations like ZCom, say, from the U.S. Members, employees, staff, etc., of each new International member organization would in turn gain membership in the International by virtue of their collective organizational membership. Individuals who want to be members of the International, therefore, but who have no member group that they belong too, would have to hook up with one.

An at-large membership wouldn't exist, at least in this conception. The benefit of this approach would be that the legitimacy of a person as a member need not be assessed by the international - but only by the member organization of the international that the person is part of.

There would be no "paper" members and no mass of unattached and therefore essentially unknown members.

What kinds of decisions might an International make? Every member group would have its own agenda for its own separate operations which would be inviolable. At the same time, each member group would presumably be strongly urged to make its own operations consistent with the norm, practices, and shared programmatic agendas of the International. There would be solidarity among member organizations, but, regarding their separate operations, there would also be autonomy. The International would have shared program, policies, norms, and rules to continually decide on, as well as having to decide on gatherings to hold, campaigns to support or undertake, and perhaps much else.

How might such decisions be made? Membership groups would have wildly different sizes, no doubt - so in the future there could be a group with a handful of members in the International, and another group with thousands, or even millions of members. But since the International's decisions would not bind those groups other than regarding the collective International agenda, a good way to arrive at decisions might be serious discussion and exploration, followed by polls of the whole International membership to see peoples' leanings, followed by refinements of proposals to seek even greater support and to allow dissidents from minority viewpoints to make their case, culminating in final votes of the membership seeking to convey self managing participatory influence to all parties.

The little group with five participants could have at most their five votes unless they were more heavily affected by some decision than others were. A big group with ten thousand or a million participants could have at most that number of votes - again, unless they were more affected by some choice - but member votes would not be delivered in bulk, by group, but rather one by one, each being counted individually.

Online, this is no longer a technically daunting matter. Are there other possibilities? Of course. This is just one hypothetical, but desirable, possibility.

Possible Program in a New International

What might a new International do? A new International might call for international events and days of dissent. It might support campaigns for existing struggles by member organizations. It might support member organizations against repression. It might undertake widespread debates and campaigns to advance understanding and mutual knowledge. More ambitiously, an International might also decide on campaigns and projects of its own, financed via its membership. It might settle, for example, on a massive international focus on immigration, on ending a war, on shortening the work week all over the planet, and/or on averting climatic catastrophe. There might then be materials to prepare, education to convey, activist campaigns to carry out, boycotts to initiate and sustain, support for local efforts to engender, and even efforts to provide material aid and participants for events occurring across borders.

All such general programs, would be up to member organizations to decide how to relate to, yet there would be considerable collective momentum for each member organization to participate and contribute as best it can. Thus, program decided by the International would either be about the International's own actions or would be very strong advisories to members, or perhaps calls to them and to the broader world - not legally binding, so to speak, but powerful and effective nonetheless. Finally, regarding program, clearly one reason to have an International is to help organizations, movements, and projects escape single issue loneliness by becoming part of a larger process encompassing diverse focuses and united by agreements on various major shared endeavors.

Dream, or Reality?

The above is one possible rough picture. It isn't complete and it isn't unique. It could adapt, bend, mature, enlarge, or be refined in all manner of ways, whether before April in preparation, or after April, as an International develops. Is it only a dream that worldwide parties, movements, organizations, and projects could operate with intellectual and programmatic respect and mutual aid, with deep diversity and sharp focus, with strong solidarity and equally strong autonomy, with profound coherence and commitment and also with material and social equity and overarching self management? Yes, today this is a dream, or a wish, or a hope. But tomorrow, and literally, this April, it could become a reality. Wouldn't that be a huge and historic step forward?

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Whatever the utopian planning of the above it is undercut by the apparent agreement of the author that it can be initiated by an authoritarian government ie that of Venezuela, and carried through with the asgreement of both them and their friends. To say the least this is a rather ornate example of "leftist illusion". It is particularily stunning coming from one of those who has taken up the idea of a "managerial class" (they call it the "coordinator class") and who has, at least in this instance decided to abandon all discussion of the influence of said class in favour of a "united front" of absolutely irreconsilable parts. To say the least no real socialist should be willing to touch such a thing with aten foot pole. It's a frecipe for statist manipulation if I ever have seen one. Albert, of course, is of another opinion, and he has had the vast majority of the space here. What I can say is that flocking to this sort of scam would be an equal betrayal of anarchism as that when anarchists became Communits after the so-called success of the Russuian Revolution. I doubt that the consequences would be as brutal to the ordinary people as communist mass murder, but the consequences to anarchism would be equally disasterous.

AMERICAN POLITICS:

MORE ON THE MEANING OF THE OBAMA VICTORY:

The debate about what the Obama victory means has begun amongst the left and its anarchist subsections. One caveat here, the emperor has been acclaimed, but he hasn't yet been crowned, whatever the cartoon from Latuff above may imply. Yes, the outgoing emperor is trying to bask in reflected glory by being as accommodating as he can. One can only imagine what his true feelings are. I'm inclined to give John McCain the benefit of the doubt when he silences his ill tempered supporters on election night as he concedes defeat, but Bush's entire history leads one to suppose that pure hypocrisy is behind his recent good graces. McCain has at least a smidgen of honour, and one can excuse him by saying that he fell into bad company and is now reverting to his better self. I have to doubt that George Bush has a better side. The United States of America, however, has more nuts per square foot than any other piece of real estate on Earth, and one hopes that Obama won't come to a tragic end before his coronation.

Speaking of nuts, as I predicted the shady side of American anarchism is beginning to spout their nonsense, peppered with laudatory reports of silly vandalism done around the elections. Then it shades into such whoppers as claiming that "popular movements can't influence government". This, of course, is silly and very much self defeating as it leaves little to be done besides proclaiming one's superiority. But that is what such people are interested in anyways. The majority of the American movement, however, are realistically struggling to come to terms with what the recent electoral events mean, and the nuts are a minor current. Molly has recently been reading a very interesting back and forth over at the Anarchist Black Cat discussion board on 'President Obama', and she can recommend it highly for intelligent presentation of different views.

A couple of commentators on this board, amongst them Larry Gambone of the Porkupine Blog, have mentioned the "emotional" implications of the Obama victory. Yes, indeed he will "govern from the right" and "speak from the left", but his victory does indeed open up an optimistic time that has opportunities available for those capable of seizing them. One of my favourite observations was made by Mr Beer N' Hockey over at his blog. Beer's blog is a wonderful, playful antidote to those sickened by political correctness, and it is one of the few that Molly always finds worth reading for the sheer entertainment value. What Beer observed was that the "party" is front of the White House was a spontaneous outpouring, very unlike the setup event in Chicago where they "sold tickets" for God's sake. Media reports described the crowd calling/yelling for the immediate eviction of the present denizen of the White House. This is a mass movement unlike any seen in the past few decades in the USA, and it is indeed spontaneous, uncreated by the plotters of the left or the social democrats of the Democratic Party. There are a lot of IOUs out there, and there is a possibility of collecting on at least some of them. Once more, as I have expressed here before "revolutions are not created by revolutionists". They happen, and the proper course is not to try and create them but to understand and influence them.

But, as I said, I intend to present some intelligent libertarian comment on the recent election. Here from Z Communications are three such essays. If you want the full nitty gritty subscribe to their news service.

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Doubtful about Presidents; Optimistic about Us:

By Peters, Cynthia

Cynthia Peters's ZSpace Page

Writing for Time Magazine on November 5th, Joe Klein called Barack Obama's victory a sign that our country is a "younger, more optimistic, less cynical" place. "It is a country that retains its ability to startle the world -- and in a good way, with our freedom." The Boston Globe editorialized that the new president will usher in "a decisively different direction" for the United States.

What is it that liberal elites are celebrating exactly? I suspect they are more or less happy with the core values of the U.S. political and economic system, and they are just relieved that it's dressed in nicer clothes, comes in a multicultural wrapping, and will continue its forward march in a more congenial, multi-lateral manner.

Many of the liberal elite are excited about Obama's victory today because of the more palatable manner in which he will forward the elite's agenda.

But even left-of-liberal Michael Moore writes about crying tears of joy and relief. Progressive friends all over town are waving enthusiastically and giving me the thumbs up. I smile back. It's not that it's hard to muster the smile. I understand people feeling uplifted by Obama's historic election win. For all the reasons that many progressives have recited - the important symbolism of having an African American in the nation's top office, the repudiation of the Bush/Cheney agenda, the populist-leaning domestic agenda, etc. - I agree the outcome of the election is as positive as it could be given the constraints of the current electoral system.

But I wonder: is there something wrong with me? Must I insist on seeing the massive structural injustices in Obama's agenda? Must I focus on his hawkish foreign policy? Must I go around reminding everyone that his victory will only be as meaningful as we make it? That it's unlikely he'll enter office as a centrist reformer and emerge as a leader who is willing to address structural injustice?

Many people I talk to are impatient with this line of thinking. They think it is pessimistic.

They think I'll die young if I keep thinking such negative thoughts. They think I should un-furrow my brow and revel in this great American moment. They think it's okay to believe in Obama. One person said something exactly like that: "Oh let me feel happy about this. It feels so good to have someone to believe in."

But wait. It's not that I don't have someone to believe in. I do. I believe in the power of movements. I believe in all of us.

When I was in Brazil in 2002, and Lula of the Workers Party, was on the brink of winning the presidency, I had the privilege of talking with members of the Landless Workers Movement. They said they would be happy if Lula won, but they had no illusions that it would change the essential nature of their work. On the contrary, Lula would be pressured by the banks and by international financial institutions to carry out their agenda. Only a sustained grassroots movement would keep him from succumbing to those pressures. They were hopeful that the Workers Party would win, but they wouldn't put their faith in what Lula would do once he was in office. (NB!!!!!-Molly)Instead, they were investing their hope and energy in movement building, knowing that strong movements would be the only way to ensure what Lula would do once he was in office.

I remember seeing Howard Zinn speak to an audience in Cambridge some months before the Iraq war started. An audience member asked, "What do we do if Bush invades Iraq?" "That's not the question to ask," Zinn pointed out. "The question to ask is: what are we going to do to make sure he doesn't invade Iraq?"

That's ultimately an optimistic stance. It sees grassroots power as a match against corporate and imperial power. It's a harder row to hoe. It takes longer than an election cycle. It involves mobilizing a truly democratic base to become powerful enough to actually determine what institutions look like. Most importantly, it's a stance that projects the possibility of real change over the long term and does not settle for nicer versions of rotten institutions. To the person who is desperate for something to feel good about: Why do you need Obama for that? History shows over and over again that reform happens when people at the grassroots organize together, take risks, and refuse to obey. You could have been feeling good about that all along. You could have been believing in yourself. I do.Cynthia Peters is the editor of The Change Agent.
View online here, sustainers can comment: http://www.zcommunications.org/zspace/commentaries/3673

Obama Mania?

By Albert, Michael

lMichael Albert's ZSpace Page

Some things are obvious. Electing a first African American President is world historic. The electorate bending toward sanity, eloquence, and dignity, rather than a death spiral into moronic depravity is positive, too, even if mostly because the alternative is a condition of abject horror.

Realignment of various voting sectors and undercutting market mania are very positive, too.The fact that Obama's campaign was unprecedentedly efficient and effective is certainly worth learning from. An electoral facility is not, however, a progressive credential - more or less like being a prisoner of war for bombing defenseless peasants isn't a credential for wisdom or civility.The fact that Obama's support, particularly among young people, creates an incredibly hopeful opportunity to be boldly progressive, or even radical, is also good, but not conclusive. Put differently, the potential in Obama's victory does not imply there will be great actualization in its aftermath. We will almost certainly see reforms reflecting the catastrophic need to escape economic woes by regulating markets and dealing with health care, but that could be the end rather than beginning of Obama's positive agenda.

If we rely on Obama to actualize the larger hopes of the election, most likely he will not. Indeed, the only positive signs that he will are that he has the competence, confidence, and chutzpah, as well as a sufficiently large organized base of support. In contrast, the negative indicators that he won't are that nothing beyond vague rhetorical flourishes indicates that Obama has seriously progressive views, commitments, connections, or inclinations, and that the systemic pressures on him and aggressive channeling of his time and thought will be enormous.My guess is, sadly, that within one week, literally one week, Obama's staff and cabinet choices will make decisively evident that without mass activism forcing new outcomes, change will stop at the surface.

I fervently hope I am wrong.Our task is in any event to press Obama mightily, starting immediately. For the moment, when folks who support him are interviewed and connect Obama to the civil rights heritage and even let their rhetoric expand in their understandable glee establishing expectations that would require a serious left shift and struggle, it pushes prospects well. But I don't think that will be remotely enough if Obama appoints traditionally oriented folks to his staff, revealing not boldness in pursuit of change, but aloof disregard for the passions he has aroused in pursuit of business as usual, thereby quickly undercutting euphoria.

Part of the Way with BHO? Maybe we can have that much, at best. But ironically, if that slogan does against the odds make some sense in coming weeks and months, there will still be a strong analogy to the "Part of the Way with LBJ" formulation of decades back. It was LBJ's populist inclinations around civil rights and modest redistribution that engendered the slogan in the first place. It was LBJ's pursuit of annihilation in Indochina, however, that blew the slogan's sentiment to shreds. Imagine Obama expanding war in Afghanistan or reneging on getting out of Iraq, even assuming he is, personally, truly inclined to populist domestic change, and you can see a road to repression and resistance.

But, one other thing about our response to Obama and the election seems pretty clear, and I think quite important to note, even if my worst fears about the limits of Obama come true. Leftists of all kinds need to avoid acting as though this election was run of the mill, or especially that those who voted for Obama were deceived or naive, or that those who are elated by seeing him in office are fools. This election was not run of the mill. This election was, in fact, historic as no other election I have ever encountered, regarding black people's and other minority's hopes and aspirations, regarding the electoral map, regarding escaping Republican nightmares that could have gotten infinitely worse, regarding the possible emergence of young people as an active political and social force, and regarding the coming struggle over whether cynicism will continue to drain activist prospects, or, instead, inspired by rhetoric and excitement and then angered by rejection, masses of people ironically intoning "yes we can" will persevere even against Obama Administration opposition to win what we had hoped to more easily gain.

The election isn't, however, as best I can now see, a new society or even remotely a road to one - instead, we will have to work for that likely without Oval Office aid - but the fact that this election wasn't everything, or even what some people hoped, doesn't mean it was nothing. And now comes the truly hard question - racism. What does having a Black President mean about racism? Again, some things seem relatively obvious. The impact on young people's self image, hopes, and images of others, will be enormous and even taken all alone this one gain is worthy of the joyful tears many are shedding. To not understand that fact, or to deny that fact out of some odd inability to acknowledge progress, is blockheaded and extremely callous.

Barack Obama is a very unusual and inspiring orator/candidate - but he is not Martin Luther King Jr. Yet the idea of King running for President forty years ago was absolutely unthinkable. So we have progressed. And that is no small thing. Jesse Jackson wasn't modestly standing in the park in Chicago and weeping for no reason or because he is deluded. Denying progress is utterly ridiculous both in its divorce from reality and in that it shoots ourselves in the head - after all, where did the progress come from if not social movements? Does that mean there is no racism anymore? No. But it does mean that the ideological trappings of racism and many of the structural supports, as well, have been over years and years, seriously undermined and in some instances even obliterated.

What mainly remains are three things. First, residual largely material deprivations that owe their origin to the past but that are reproduced simply due to their existing, even without any racist sentiment or laws coercing the outcome. Second, I suspect there remain some basic underlying institutional features which tend to regenerate racial hierarchies still. And third, and now, at last, least consequential and likely to further decline, admittedly, still many people who retain racist personal inclinations, particularly in the South, but not alone there by any means.

Look at the maps showing the change in vote level for the Democrat between 2004 and 2008, virtually all over the country, and the trend is pretty clear.What has happened, in other words, is that the massive courageous and intense efforts of Blacks in struggle, plus their allies, have undermined many people's racist beliefs to a very considerable extent - though not completely.

Those struggles have also eliminated at least a considerable part of the laws and other structures, overt and covert, that daily reinforced horrible racist hierarchies. Those struggles have, however, not gotten, I suspect, to the deepest institutional heart of racial hierarchy, nor have they eliminated all the bad views and habits from all people's personalities, either, of course, nor eliminated all the residual disparities in income, wealth, and position.

But, still, the change that has occurred is enormous and if efforts persist, calmly but steadfastly, and if they go from past logics built on symptoms to finally addressing the deepest underlying structures and relations, whether in families, community definitions, or whatever else, the scourge of racism may be all but eliminated as a powerful drag on people's lives in the years ahead. I would never have said anything like the above forty, thirty, or even just twenty years ago, nothing like that, short of seeing revolution on the horizon - but the simple fact is, you can't have a society that has a black president who polled better among whites than his opponent in most states and better then any white Democrat in decades in virtually all states, and still claim it is the days of fiercest virulent racism.

It just isn't...though yes, until we eliminate the most basic underlying causes, those horrible days could return.Am I in fantasy land either regarding my doubts (despite my hopes) about short term presidential agenda or my hopes about longer term electoral and racial implications?

I don't think so. Here is a letter a friend of mine received from a public school teacher in Boston...

I know I can get down in the dumps about my job, but not today.

Today was a great day to be a teacher.After staying up into the deepest hours of the night, agonizing, waiting and celebrating, I had to drag myself out of bed this morning. My early morning drive to school today was a little fuzzier than usual... so fuzzy that I decided to stop on the way for a cup of coffee and ditch my usual green tea start to the day(ICH says Molly, what an unwitting confession of one's class and cultural position).

Little did I know that I would need no amount of caffeine to get me through the day.The excitement started as soon as I entered my building.� It turns out that a small group of students were in the building before school even started to decorate our hallways with Obama posters. They had made photo copies of Barack Obama's face under which they wrote one word: "President".

By the time the rest of the student body had arrived our whole school had been plastered with these signs. At 7:14 am, the hallways at my school looked very familiar: crowded, hectic and loud. Only this morning, students weren't ignoring their teacher's requests to get to their homerooms because they were too busy gossiping about shoes or TV last night or each other. Instead, students were simply too busy to get to class on time because they were all talking politics with their friends.

It was stunning to overhear conversations between 8th graders that included words like: electoral votes, democracy and ballot. And it wasn't just a few kids - it was all of them.

Felix, the loudest, tallest and coolest 8th grade boy in homeroom 8F came into our room with 6 Obama buttons on his sweatshirt. And as if this wasn't enough, he set the school trend for wearing the Obama posters that were once hanging all over the hallways. One minute he was asking to borrow some tape and the next minute the Obama print outs are all over his (and then all the other boys') torsos.

Meanwhile I looked around my homeroom and had a shocking realization: this is a room filled with 13 year olds and all of them are in a good mood. But knowing how much their moods fluctuate during the course of a day, I was sure that by last block the excitement would have subsided.

I was wrong.I picked up 8C from lunch and on the way back to class I had to remind Lexxi that it wasn't appropriate hallway behavior to chant, "Obama, Obama, Obama" as loudly as she could. Now I knew my lesson on chemical formulas would be a hard sell for such an over-stimulated and over-tired afternoon crew so I decided to make them a deal.

"If we get all our work done this afternoon, we will spend the last 20 minutes of the day watching Obama's victory speech. However, if we don't work efficiently we won't have enough time."

When else would this be a successful incentive for adolescent children: if you work hard, i'll let you listen silently to a grown-up give a long speech about our political process. I couldn't believe it worked, but it did. The class only got off track a couple of times and I was easily able to re-focus them by providing one simple reminder: "President Obama would want us to get our work done." (OH MY GOD-Molly)

As promised, at the end of the period we closed our chemistry books and tuned in to hear our next President give his victory speech. It didn't seem to matter that it was the last 15 minutes of the day ... the first bell even rang and no one even packed up their things. Not only did they listen to Obama's speech intently, but a few times they began cheering so loud I had to pause the speech and remind them that a class was taking place next door.

You remember this part of Obama's speech last night: "This victory is not my victory. It's your's." To this, Vianca (one of my most chatty and challenging girls) said out loud: "Yeah, it's my victory!" I looked around at the room of my 28 students - all of whom are people of color - and I saw the future teachers, doctors, artists and Presidents of this country. I almost started crying all over again.�
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Looking Under the Hood of an Obama Administration :

By Joshua Frank

Joshua Frank's ZSpace Page

Tuesday's celebration hangovers have finally started to wear off, and the pieces are beginning to fall into place. Change will be coming to Washington in January, but it is difficult to decipher what form it will take.

Early clues, however, suggest that Barack Obama's administration will prove unlikely to alter the fundamental political machinery that has led us into war and economic turmoil. Below is a brief summary of Obama's potential choices for a few key roles in his administration.

***Chief of Staff

Obama's key White House position will go to Rep. Rahm Emanuel of Illinois. While Emanuel knows his way around the corridors of Washington, qualifying him in the traditional sense, this alone doesn't mean he's the guy you want drawing up Obama's policy papers day after day. For starters, Emanuel is a shameless neoliberal with close ties to the Democratic Leadership Council (DLC), even co-authoring a strategy book with DLC president Bruce Reed. Without Emanuel, Bill Clinton would not have been able to thrust NAFTA down the throats of environmentalists and labor in the mid-1990s. Over the course of his career, Emanuel's made it a point to cozy up to big business, making him one of the most effective corporate fundraisers in the Democratic Party. He's also a staunch advocate of Israel's occupation of Palestinian territories. Emanuel's shinning moment came in 2006 as he helped funnel money and poured ground support into the offices of dozens of conservative Democrats, expanding his party's control of the House of Representatives.

Emanuel, who supports the War on Terror, and expanding our presence in Afghanistan, worked hard to ensure that a Democratic House majority would not alter the course of US military objectives in the Middle East.In short, Rahm Emanuel is not only a poor choice for Obama's Chief of Staff; he's one of the least progressive picks he could have made. While he may have decent views on abortion, tax policy, and social security, Emanuel's broader vision is more of the same: war and corporate dominance.

***Treasury Secretary

For arguably the most important position Obama will be appointing, the President-Elect may pick well-regarded economist Paul Volcker, former chairman of the Federal Reserve under Jimmy Carter and Ronald Reagan. Volker is one of Obama's closest economic advisors and is thought to be the top-choice for the position of Treasury Secretary.

During the late 1970s and early 1980s, Volker, in an attempt to cut inflation, dramatically raised interest rates, which helped the elite maintain value in their assets but strangled the working class as credit dried up. In his book, A Brief History of Neoliberalism, David Harvey writes that Volker personified one of the key facets of the neoliberal era.

"[Volker] engineered a draconian shift in U.S. monetary policy. The long-standing commitment in the U.S. liberal democratic state to the principles of the New Deal, which meant broadly Keynesian fiscal and monetary policies with full employment as a key objective, was abandoned in favour of a policy designed to quell inflation no matter what the consequences might be for employment. The real rate of interest, which had often been negative during the double-digit inflationary surge of the 1970s, was rendered positive by fiat of the Federal Reserve. The nominal rate of interest was raised overnight ... Thus began 'a long deep recession that would empty factories and break unions in the U.S. and drive detour countries to the brink of insolvency, beginning a long-era of structural insolvency'. The Volker shock, as it has since come to be known, has to be interpreted as a necessary but not sufficient condition of neoliberalism."

In supporting Henry Paulson's bailout package, Volker would not re-regulate the banks nor provide more power to shareholders, he's simply carry on one facet of neoliberalism:

* tightening federal budgets which inevitably will put great budgetary pressure on federal agencies.

Another potential pick for the post is Robert Rubin, who served under Clinton in the same position and is currently Director and Senior Counselor of Citigroup. Rubin played a key role in abetting another neoliberal objective: deregulation. Where Volker was hung up on economic austerity, Rubin pushed for more deregulatory policies that ended up shifting jobs, and entire industries, overseas. Rubin even pushed for Clinton's dismantling of Glass-Steagall, testifying that deregulating the banking industry would be good for capital gains, as well as Main Street.

"[The] banking industry is fundamentally different from what it was two decades ago, let alone in 1933," Rubin testified before the House Committee on Banking and Financial Services in May of 1995.

"[Glass-Steagall could] conceivably impede safety and soundness by limiting revenue diversification," Rubin argued.

While the industry saw much deregulation over the years preceding these events, the Gramm-Leach-Biley Act of 1999, which eliminated Glass-Steagall, extended and ratified changes that had been enacted with previous legislation. Ultimately, the repeal of the New Deal era protection allowed commercial lenders like Rubin's Citigroup to underwrite and trade instruments like mortgage backed securities along with collateralized debt and established structured investment vehicles (SIVs), which purchased these securities.

In short, as the lines were blurred among investment banks, commercial banks and insurance companies, when one industry fell, others could too. Robert Rubin is in part responsible for supporting the policies that pushed us to the brink of a great recession. When the subprime mortgage crisis hit, instability and collapse spread across numerous industries.

Another name that is in the hunt for the top spot is Lawrence Summers, who served during the last 18 months of the Clinton administration. Summers is greatly responsible for expanding Rubinomics and is credited by many for the collapse in the derivatives market, which later imploded the housing market.

***Defense Secretary

While Obama's choice for this important role is speculative, quite a few fingers are pointing to Richard Holbrooke. After Gerald Ford's loss and Jimmy Carter's ascendance into the White House in 1976, Indonesia, which invaded East Timor and slaughtered 200,000 indigenous Timorese years earlier, requested additional arms to continue its brutal occupation, even though there was a supposed ban on arms trades to Suharto's government. It was Carter's appointee to the Department of State's Bureau of East Asian and Pacific Affairs, Richard Holbrooke, who authorized additional arms shipments to Indonesia during this supposed blockade.

Many scholars have noted that this was the period when the Indonesian suppression of the Timorese reached genocidal levels.During his testimony before Congress in February 1978, Benedict Anderson of Cornell University cited a report that proved there never was a United States arms ban, and that during the period of the alleged ban; the US initiated new offers of military weaponry to the Indonesians at Holbrooke's request.

Over the years Holbrooke, who is philosophically aligned with Paul Wolfowitz and other neoconservatives, has worked vigorously to keep his bloody campaign silent. Holbrooke described the motivations behind his support of Indonesia's genocidal actions:

"The situation in East Timor is one of the number of very important concerns of the United States in Indonesia. Indonesia, with a population of 150 million people, is the fifth largest nation in the world, is a moderate member of the Non-Aligned Movement, is an important oil producer -- which plays a moderate role within OPEC -- and occupies a strategic position astride the sea lanes between the Pacific and Indian Oceans ... We highly value our cooperative relationship with Indonesia."

Other foreign policy advisors may also include the likes of Madeline Albright, the great supporter of Iraq sanctions, which killed hundreds of thousands of innocent people. Madeline Albright, when asked by Leslie Stahl of 60 Minutes about the deaths caused by U.N. sanctions, infamously condoned the deaths.

"I think this is a very hard choice," she said. "But the price--we think the price is worth it."

Samantha Power, that great cheerleader for humanitarian intervention, also has Obama's ear and may even entice him to put U.S. forces in Darfur.

"With very few exceptions, the Save Darfur campaign has drawn a single lesson from Rwanda: the problem was the US failure to intervene to stop the genocide. Rwanda is the guilt that America must expiate, and to do so it must be ready to intervene, for good and against evil, even globally. That lesson is inscribed at the heart of Samantha of Power's book, A Problem from Hell: America and the Age of Genocide.

But it is the wrong lesson," writes author Mahmood Mamdani in the London Review of Books. As Mamdani continues:

"What the humanitarian intervention lobby fails to see is that the US did intervene in Rwanda, through a proxy ... Instead of using its resources and influence to bring about a political solution to the civil war, and then strengthen it, the US signalled to one of the parties that it could pursue victory with impunity. This unilateralism was part of what led to the disaster, and that is the real lesson of Rwanda ... Applied to Darfur and Sudan, it is sobering. It means recognising that Darfur is not yet another Rwanda. Nurturing hopes of an external military intervention among those in the insurgency who aspire to victory and reinforcing the fears of those in the counter-insurgency who see it as a prelude to defeat are precisely the ways to ensure that it becomes a Rwanda."

Other names in the running include John Kerry, who as many know, ran an antiwar campaign for president in 2004. A full supporter of the War on Terror, with a hard-line on Iran, will certainly not alter the U.S. relationship in the Middle East. Regarding the Department of Defense, it looks as if Robert Gates will still control the top spot, with no alterations made to the DoD or its inflated budget.

***The Next Step

While the election of Barack Obama is a blow to George W. Bush-Republicanism and a gain for racial equality in this country, it is in many ways only a symbolic victory. The future of the U.S.'s foreign and economic agenda will continue to be saturated with ideologies and individuals that are directly responsible for our current predicament, both in the Middle East and domestically. Celebrating the end of the ugly Bush era is one thing. Celebrating the continuation of their policies with a different administration in the White House is quite another.

With these prospective appointments, Obama seems to be moving backwards to Clinton time. This may be sufficient change for some, but it far from a progressive push toward social, economic, and environmental justice.For significant change to happen, the kind that is needed in order to mend the wounds of the Bush years, we have to put down our Obama signs and force Congress and the new administration to end the wars in the Middle East, and push for regulating the financial industry while providing true universal health-care and economic safety-nets for all Americans.

Given the make up of his potential advisors, we're in for a long uphill battle. So let's drop our illusions and start organizing, beginning with a discussion of what "organizing" even means in today's political climate.

Joshua Frank is co-editor of Dissident Voice and author of Left Out! How Liberals Helped Reelect George W. Bush (Common Courage Press, 2005), and along with Jeffrey St. Clair, the editor of the brand new book Red State Rebels: Tales of Grassroots Resistance in the Heartland, published by AK Press in July 2008. He can be reached at:

brickburner@gmail.com
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http://www.zcommunications.org/znet/viewArticle/19380

ANARCHIST THEORY:

PARECON AND ANARCHIST COMMUNISM-ALBERT REPLIES TO PRICE:

The following article was originally published at the Z Communications site. As this site, and this essay in particular, is mostly available only to subscribers somebody republished it on the Anarkismo site from which this version is taken. As I have mentioned before this debate began with an essay by Wayne Price of NEFAC on the Anarchist Black Cat discussion site. Seems likes it's bouncing all over the place. The following is Michael Albert's reply to Wayne Price. Molly adds her comments at the end.

.......................................
Albert's reply to this article:

Here is Albert's reply to the article in which he (to my mind) deals bit by bit with Wayne's points while clearly making his stances/intentions clear. I had to paste the article rather than do a link as Albert's reply was available to znet sustainers only (sorry)"

"Price starts by saying the Parecon is okay with him, or perhaps okay with him, but he doesn't want to talk about that. He wants to talk instead about "how to achieve this new society."

Fair enough.

But now we immediately enter a zone of confusion - or at least I do.

Price says, rightly, "Albert has not written much about tactics and strategy for reaching Parecon, as compared to his writing on how a pareconist society might work."

That is quite true. Why is it true?

Well, because it seems to me, as I have noted often, that going into some detail about how to reach a new society - in this case parecon plus parpolity, etc. - makes sense only if large numbers of people want to in fact reach that new society. So my not writing as much about strategy as about vision isn't a matter of thinking, "who cares, we need vision not strategy." Far from it. It is just a matter of taking things a step at a time. That said, I have written so much about vision, that even a lot less about strategy is still a lot about strategy. Price should have no trouble finding all kinds of material to assess, if it interests him.

Price continues: "One work which did focus on strategy was a little book, The Trajectory of Change: Activist Strategies for Social Transformation."' That is true, but so did, for example, the book Moving Forward, about economic program and strategy, and so have many many articles, and parts of other books, and debates with leninists, anarchists, etc. etc.

Still, taking from that short work, Price reports, Albert's "approach for a movement is stated summarily" and then Price quotes me writing: "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."

And already, we have the confusion I mentioned, which will simply escalate from here.

Price says I have a reformist strategy. But is the above statement that he quotes from me consistent with that?

Well, what is reformism?

Reformism is a mindset, an approach, and a practice which says, "I like this and that, but, I believe that the basic institutions of society are unalterable, at least in their defining features, so whatever my likes and dislikes are, I will pursue changes in context of assuming the persistence of those defining institutions." Reformism is when you seek to make people's lives better, or to otherwise alter social conditions, but you take for granted that underlying defining features of capitalism, the parliamentary government, patriarchy, and racist or otherwise hierarchic cultural relations will persist, though improvements can be made around the periphery of those defining structures.

While Price asserts I am reformist, he doesn't quote me having that view - not surprisingly, because I don't. Likewise, he doesn't quote me rejecting that view, not surprisingly, though I do reject it, repeatedly, because that would complicate his article with actual facts. What Price does quote me saying, however, ironically should make perfectly clear my attitude about this issue. That it doesn't, for him, is strange.

Thus, Price quotes me saying that in the short term we win changes - reforms - that improve people's lives and we do it by having movements that are sufficiently strong to raise social costs that compel elites to give in to the demands rather than continue suffering the costs. Longer term, however, we grow those movements and also develop the infrastructure and institutions of a new society, winning a trajectory of changes while developing our new structures, in sum both winning and building the new society's new defining relations. But this is the opposite of reformism. This says we seek short run improvements, yes, via one struggle after another, but we do it with an approach, a commitment, a rhetoric and especially while building organizations that are not solely about those immediate improvements, but, are also about attaining new defining institutions in society - which is, of course, a revolution.

Some people - let's say hypothetically someone name Cost, since I am not sure if this is Price or not - hear formulations like this and say, "oh, it is reformist, you see how Albert says he wants to win reforms. You see how he thinks that a movement should seek reforms? That shows he is reformist." But of course it doesn't show that at all.

Cost would be wrong logically and in spirit, too. Logically, saying you want to win some reform - an end to a war, an end to the WTO, higher wages in an industry, affirmative action, a new law about emissions, a tax reform, a shorter work day, and on and on - does not say, nor even imply, that you don't want to win broader, more fundamental change. More, what is the alternative to saying you want to win various reforms? Would this hypothetical fellow named Cost say, "hey, I don't want an end to war or terminate the WTO or win higher wages or affirmative action? Is that how Cost would distinguish himself from a reformist advocate of those changes, by saying he doesn't want them? If so, then Cost would immediately reveal himself to be a callous idiot - to be very blunt. Callous, because to not want those changes says one doesn't give a damn about the pain that people now suffer. Idiot, because there is no way to create a movement able to overcome existing obstacles and construct new social relations without having fought and won diverse struggles along the way.

Okay, I hope we have dispensed with the idea that wanting to win a reform makes one reformist and I hope we have replaced that noxious view with clarity that what makes one reformist is wanting to win ONLY reforms and fighting for them with the assumption that that will be the maximum that can be hoped for. And I hope we have also dispensed with the idea that what makes someone revolutionary is decrying reforms as horrible things and have replaced that noxious view with clarity that what makes someone revolutionary is seeking fundamental change as an overarching goal, including while trying to win short run gains in the present.



Returning to Price, he looks at the brief passage that he quoted - which, remember, said we raise social costs until elites agree to implement our demands or end policies we oppose and we accumulate support and develop movement infrastructure and alternative institutions, toward transforming society's defining relations, and he follows up with this summary of what he hears in those words: "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."

My only reaction is that Price seems to be confused about the word "force." What is one doing other than forcing it to act thusly if one amasses sufficient movement activism that the state relents and does what it otherwise had zero desire to do? Price may think, I don't know how else to understand this if we take the words at face value, that to force the state means for an armed group to point their rifles at the state and say, do this or else. Apparently, for a massive movement to point its activism at the state and say, do this or else - doesn't count as forcing, for some reason. Or maybe taking his words at face value and this is just careless writing and we agree on this point.



Then Price says, "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."

Well, this is strange. Price rightly reads into the one brief quote that I believe in pushing on centers of power from without, and below, and that I believe the more powerful a movement and the more it threatens basic relations, not just policies, the more likely it is to win even just regarding short term policies. You might think that with this considerable agreement, Price would then perhaps doubt some inclination or other I have, but you surely wouldn't think at this point that he would decide I am reformist, overall. But then Price continues: "But is Albert for revolution?"

Well, if I were to answer, I would have to know what does Price mean by his question? If Price means, as I would mean if I asked that question to him or someone else - does the person want to see the basic institutions of society fundamentally transformed and does the person believe that such transformation is possible so that efforts at social change, even in the present, should be oriented not only to short term gains but also to those long term goals - then I think Price has already indicated that he agrees that Albert is for revolution. Since Price is going to give the opposite negative answer, however, he must mean something else by the question. Here is what I think Price means: "Does Albert believe in revolutionary processes that I, Price, find convincing?" And to that question, Price answers no, which would be fair enough, of course, except for his deciding if he disagrees with me then I must not be for revolution at all.

Price says, in the same short book, Albert writes of "our commitment to ultimately revolutionize all aspects of life....This country needs a revolution..." He says in my memoir Albert 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." Well, yes, but a little more.

For example, a person could say, I love parecon, parpolity, etc. etc. - or some other vision - but then add, "but I don't think they are attainable. Instead, I think the best we can hope for is to ameliorate current ills via reforms." In other words, a person could be reformist even though the person would like, if he or she thought it was possible, a new society. But that isn't me. And the books Price mentions and many others, and piles of articles, debates, interviews, etc., and my choices over decades, etc., all make it very apparent. So why can't Price see this obvious point. Well, on the other hand, I am also not Price - as in, I don't see social change quite as he does. Is it the case, that like a lot of commentators Price confuses his own revolutionary view with the only possible revolutionary view?



Now comes the heart of the matter for Price, though not for me. Price says "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."

The first thing to point out is that anyone remotely sane, and also leftist, would hope one could reach a new society with a minimum of conflict and violence. That seems obvious, unless one has a secret yearning for blood. As to a confrontation with the state - well that happens all the time. So anyone remotely in touch with reality knows that conflict is part and parcel of social change of any kind, all the time. As to my own aims, since they include the still very rough political vision called parpolity, which is about as different from current states as parecon is different from capitalism, clearly my revolutionary aims include, in the end, not even just overthrowing or dismantling the current state - but replacing it with a truly desirable new polity.



 Price says: "To be a revolutionary is to advocate a revolution."

Actually, there are tons of people, through history, who are advocates of revolution, but not revolutionary. What is the difference? Assume another fictitious character, Sam Lookatme. Sam says, "I am for parecon, parpolity, etc. I am for revolution." So far so good. If we take Same at his word, and there is no reason not to, then he advocates revolution. But suppose that's all Sam does. If you ask him, he wants the new society, yes, but beyond that, he does nothing to attain it. For me, to be a revolutionary, whether in tumultuous or in tied-down times, means to makes choices in your life in light of the desire to contribute to winning a new society. Now you might do this in a way that is silly, or in a way that is futile, or even in a way that is counterproductive, or you might do it in a way, against great odds, that yields wonderful success. Effectivity is not the criteria, however, trying is.

For Price, however, to be revolutionary 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."

All this projection of reactions is possible, though not inevitable, case by case. But more to the point, the idea that being a revolutionary means proclaiming these things, as if these are the key insights of winning change, is absurd, at least in my eyes. Do I myself in my writings and talks and conversations point out, as a kind of background given, the vile inclinations of centers of power. Sure. I do that over and over, particularly when asked about such matters. So what is our difference on this issue? I think it may be that for Price, fighting the state is the heart of the matter. State power, and amassing military might sufficient to challenge it are the core of Price's notions of revolution of what he thinks is revolutionary. On the other hand, I think amassing sufficient movement organization and commitment to push the state toward relenting to movement demands in case after case, and, as well, to undermine its military might by organizing its police and military to resist orders and change allegiances, so that then a new polity takes over, along with a new economy, etc., is not only possible, but essential.

The state has soldiers, police, etc., and it has rulers willing to send out pretty much any order to retain power. So far, we agree. Indeed, is there anyone on the left who doesn't know this? And given that everyone knows this, is it really the pinnacle of revolutionary achievement to trumpet it?

Well, Price might think - and this would be consistent, at any rate - that it makes sense to begin working toward creating an army of liberation that can stand, toe to toe, or tank to tank, or jet to jet, however far in the future, with the U.S. military, or even the Chicago police force, and back them all down, marching into the White House due to the power that springs from the barrel of a gun. I, in contrast, have to say that I find it hard to imagine this is anything other than juvenile delusion of the highest order, or perhaps silly posturing for appearance sake, or maybe most likely a holdover of Leninist or Trotskyist identity, but in any case, nothing serious. To put it succinctly, there is no such thing as a movement in an industrialized society that will militarily defeat the army, or even police forces found there. What there, is, instead, is the possibility and even the likelihood of massive organizing by massive movements reducing the power of the state to a tiny fraction of its initial level, due to amassing huge popular support and participation while simultaneously undermining obedience by police and military for the rule of elites.

So, supposing we were quite a lot closer to tumultuous times, Price might advocate - I don't know what he thinks, of course, but it would at least be consistent if he urged this - giving talks and writing tracts claiming the state is the enemy and that everyone needs to buy guns and be prepared to barricade themselves against incursions, while forming a highly disciplined and powerful military machine to win the day. He might then suggest that the revolutionary armed forces he has worked so hard to organize should start aggressive struggle with the army and police. Let's take an example. If Price's scenario went broadly like Cuba, Price might suggest that he takes a group of a couple of hundred or so like minded advocates of violently overcoming the organized might of the state into the Appalachians. It is a big country, so he would presumably suggest another column in the Catskills, one in the Rockies, etc. And maybe he thinks there could be urban warfare too, so he organizes a column in Manhattan, Chicago, LA, etc. Then he would think, these groups could, continuing the analogy to Cuba, assault local police stations and military bases, gathering arms as they went about their assaults and intimidating the repressive forces, engaging in long marches through the mountains or from home to home of allies in the city, to stay ahead of forces in pursuit, etc. If this isn't what he advcoates, fine, what is?

However, if the above is even remotely his vision - and it is central to why and how he thinks we differ - I suggest that Price send a note to Castro inquiring of someone who actually did all this, and who succeeded, whether he thinks (a) this could be done, in this day and age, anywhere in the world, and (b) whether it could be done in the U.S. or any other developed society. I would bet that Castro would doubt the approach for anywhere at all, now - and I am confident he would say that in the U.S. such an effort would last not years, months, or even weeks, but maybe days, and more likely hours after the first aggressive action was taken before it was entirely dismantled. Che himself, would also laugh at the idea, I am quite certain. And they, and anyone serious about revolution, would then try to think, okay, if that military style strategy won't work in that win much of anything, not to mention yielding a paranoid and hyper militarized and centralized mess of a movement, what can we do that will work?

In this same vein, when I am out giving a talk or chatting with folks, either in the U.S. or abroad, and someone suggests grave concerns about the armed might of the state, I always have basically the same recommendation - organize or find a way to contribute to organizing movements, with commitment, clarity, program, etc. That is the key task, regardless of the state's capacities. However, if you have a hankering to get started, even now, at more directly addressing the might of the state, fine, join the army, or the police, and do your organizing there.

Price says, "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."

As far as the councils go, and unions and so on, we agree, at least broadly. As far as telling working people they need to be prepared to defend themselves against their brothers and sisters and neighbors - literally - in the army and police, I recommend a slightly different stance. First, it would help if working people believed something better was possible and that fighting to win it had merit. Second, it would help if they spent time talking to and organizing their brothers and sisters and neighbors in the police and army. Third, there is no need to tell anyone in the U.S. to go buy a gun, and not much point to it, anyhow. Fourth, as far as replacing the police and military, as in, they are exterminated? - it is silly, honestly. If it means, constructing new ways of dealing with the functions that these groups perform that would be preserved, sure, that is one part of a revolution, I agree, though hardly the heart of soul of it.



Price says, "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."

The confusion persists. Note, if I want parecon, etc., then I want a revolution. That is simply a matter of the meaning of the words. Revolution doesn't mean a confrontation of the sort Price has in mind, whatever that is. It means a process, with whatever features, which transforms defining institutions. More, if I work hard to try to figure out real actions I can take, or help others take, that contribute to an on-going process that attains revolutionary aims, then I am trying to be a revolutionary. However, for Price, if I don't do what he himself wants, if I don't see revolution as he himself sees it - as primarily some kind of armed confrontation and battle in which military type concerns are paramount, then, well, I am reformist.



Price says "Albert believes in building a militant mass movement, but he believes that one way this can be done is through electoralism."

What Price thinks I believe seems to me to owe little to what Albert actually writes, says, or does. In fact, I think that in some contexts electoral campaigns can contribute, yes, though I don't think in forty years of writings Price will find anywhere where I say this is primarily how you build a militant mass movement. I don't think elections or electoral activity are the heart of the matter - indeed, they are or need to be a subordinate part of a much broader process - though I would be very happy if someone proved me wrong and got a new world through a simple election. In contrast, Price somehow knows that elections can never be anything but detrimental, it seems, not even, relatively positive in a limited context. Okay, great, then he should ignore them, and not partake, etc. The fact is, for the most part, I agree. Thus, I have never partaken of any electoral activity myself other than supporting Mel King, a mayoral candidate in Boston, some decades back, and watching some other people doing things, now and then. I have only voted in one national election - for Nader, despite all my criticisms of his endeavors. But I would never say to someone, you voted for some candidate, or you worked for some candidate, so therefore you are reformist. That is way beyond what the evidence of having cast a vote would warrant. It is, in my view, indeed, a kind of silly purism, sectarianism, and arrogance, to make that type of assertion.

Price says, "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)."

This just seems silly, honestly.

Did I hope and try to contribute to good results coming from both those efforts? Yes, I did. Reading the pieces I wrote at the time will also show, however, my disdain for the electoral system, Democratic Party, etc. etc., not to mention my trying to prevent the ills Price mentions. Let's take it further. On election night, this year, is Price going to be praying that Obama wins? If not, then I am sorry, but Price is horribly divorced from reality. Which doesn't mean I think Obama is a tribune of the people - very very very far from it. It just means I think if the country elects McCain, over Obama, it will be markedly worse. And if Price is rooting for Obama, or even votes for him, or even works for him, it would in no way in and of itself mean Price is reformist, nor that he supports Obama as some kind of tribune of the people. It could mean that, or it could just mean, instead, that in a horrendously restricted context, Price can see that one outcome is better than another and is willing to try to make it occur. The same applies to me.

Price writes: Albert "seemed surprised when the so-called Rainbow Coalition turned from movement-building to supporting Jackson's deal-making." hmmm, I don't remember having Price as a dinner guest to hear my reaction when I heard about the turn - which, I actually knew about rather early on. Actually, no, I wasn't surprised, but I did discuss the behavior of the Rainbow, and critique it, and try to show the origins and lessons that arise - unlike just dismissing people with epithets. In fact, if I remember right, I was warning against the dangers, well in advance of their occurring, trying to point out changes that would diminish the debits and increase the benefits of the endeavor.

Then Price says, "Working with capitalist parties is not only naïve but it crosses the class line."

I don't know Price. But this type juxtaposition of words is to my eyes the first step on a sectarian slippery slope. I am now not just reformist, but I am a willful class enemy, no less. Ignore for a moment, that I didn't in fact work with the Democratic Party, because, of course, many other people did who are not, due to that, class enemies, not least, oh, say, millions upon millions of working people. The assertion would be horribly misplaced even if I worked tooth and nail for a mainstream Democrat, say Obama.

To understand why, consider this. Suppose I said that due to the crisis and military type orientation that Price has, I think his approach, if it were writ large would, contrary to his stated wishes, lead not to a bottom up truely participatory and self managing new society, but, instead, to a top down society, run by what I call the coordinator class and, in particular, run by the militarily central elements of the movement that Price advocates. So far, the claim would be perfectly fair - a statement of my view. But suppose I then said that this means Price is personally crossing the class line, and is an advocate of coordinatorism not classlessness. I hope you see the problem. I might say, legitimately, that I think the implications of Price's approach would bring on coordinatorism. But to say that coordinatorism is what he wants, that would not be fair.

Price says: Albert "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." Price has published in an anarchist web site - but I have to say, the whole tone and direction of his comments doesn't seem particularly anarchistic to me - rather it seems far more Trotskyist and Leninist. That doesn't make him wrong, of course, but it is surprising.

That said, I only wish that advocates of parecon were in a position where people's attitudes about voting in parecon, or parpolity, or whatever else, were issues of pressing concern. Regrettably, however, there is a prior step: having large numbers of people remotely interested in attaining parecon by whatever route may prove possible. 

Price says: "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."

I actually, agree with this and have said so repeatedly. Building alternative institutions, the seeds of the future in the present, both to learn about and test and revise our aims, and also to provide models and inspire, isn't alone sufficient - both because of the difficulties, as Price indicates, and due to the potential for insularity/isolation, but mostly because the ultimate battle ground of transforming society is the workplaces and neighborhoods of the whole society, and so those locales must be the locus of a second part of strategy, building movements, winning changes, amassing organizational might, etc.



Price writes: "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."

While quoting might have been better, as some nuance is lost, so for example I think the aim is not to fight back against repression, but to fight for positive changes, all in all, fair enough. But does it sound like reformism?



Price writes: "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."

These fragments, with such partial quoting, from thirty years ago, are somehow meant to be a basis for evaluating my views? Odd. Is what Price quotes vague? Yes, and in fact, I plead guilty to then being vague about strategy more broadly. Indeed, thirty years later I remain vague, unlike Price, I guess, about what will and what won't work to galvanize a movement of roughly 100 million people in the U.S. to win a new society. I am pretty confident the way to disarm the state, in a given context, is to create a condition in which the use of its capacity for violence to snuff out dissent would, in fact, produce more dissent. If a strike is adventurist, it means it is going beyond what the carefully organized context permits, and leaving itself open to being repressed successfully. If a strike is sensible, it is fighting for worthy ends, with mass support, in a manner such that were the state, or the corporation, to use military repression against it, the result would be not its dissolution, but its growth. But this is the trivial part of strategy - not the heart of it, the core and hard part of it. That is reaching people, inspiring people, organizing people, motivating people. That's the part we all need to key on.

Price writes: "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."

I am not sure what we said thirty years ago, given this five word reference, and I am less sure, even, what Price is saying. A U.S. revolution, occurring over a period of years or decades, can't be non violent, not least because daily life in the U.S. is incredibly violent even without a growing struggle intensifying all social interactions. But a revolutionary process can try to minimize violence turning to it only when forced to do so, if at all.

A revolutionary process could, and perhaps this is what Price has in mind, see military confrontation with the state as the central locus of winning a new society, as I think Price does, wrongly, and as Che and Fidel did, in a very very different setting, with considerable success. Alternatively, a revolutionary process could instead see amassing informed, passionate, committed, participation and leadership from immense numbers of working people as the locus of winning a new society - with the state effectively disarmed, over time, due to that organizing reaching into its innards. The two orientations are very different, I agree. But I wouldn't say Price isn't revolutionary because he sees things in a military way that I think is incredibly naive, deluded, or perhaps just habituated by ideology. I would just say he is, instead, in my view, wrong.

Price quotes us saying: "...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). And then Price himself adds that "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."

Actually, my guess would be about a third of the population would be aggressively pro revolution, about a third doubtful, and about a third paying little attention, at the time when the balance of power would shift, but it is just a guess, nothing more. As to the army and police, however, Price is right. I believe that movements for change will be constructing a new society from positions of being able to themselves define (and not just demand) innovations only after the military and police are no longer willing to crush opposition, but are instead won over to our cause.



Price writes: "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."

Actually, none of that is the case. I have no doubt about and routinely at talks indicate that there will be violence, in fact that there already is violence, and I also talk about what will be necessary, as compared to what will be counter productive, in dealing with it. But I admit, I do not see this as the main thing to spend time on, and so mostly only do it when asked. The idea of a "final seizure of power" is of little importance to me, I also admit, though absolutely central, I suspect, for Price. to me it is just one thing that happens along the way, and we may not even be able to pinpoint when it occurred. To me, instead, the really historic moment will be when there are sufficiently massive, participatory, committed movements that we can say with utter confidence that victory and transformation is now just a matter of time. If the issue is as Price seemingly thinks, mainly a kind of military battle, then yes, the battle becomes the focus, the lynchpin. If the issue is, instead, as I tend to think, a multifaceted development of infrastructure and movement while bettering people's lives, then the shift from fighting against a prior elite that still holds the state by seeking to win demands, to fighting for even greater innovation but with the movement literally defining outcomes, not making demands but ourselves enacting programs, is a consequential change, yes, but not the heart of the matter. The difference is, do you organize with an eye on numbers of guns and bullets - jails and escape routes, or something like that, with the movement's military command virtually inevitably centralizing power and developing a very instrumentalist view of change and society? Or do you organize with an eye on the growth of mass participation and leadership, grass roots definition, etc., with the institutions of the base becoming the infrastructure of the new society?



Price says: "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."

Here we sort of agree. That is, we don't know what the future will be. But the idea that what Price says now or what I say now or what anyone says now is going to arm or disarm working people is worse than silly, I think. On the other hand, our ability, now, to inspire and galvanize large numbers of people - and we are sadly wanting on this front too - to desire a new type society, which they can describe and more importantly even define, and to fight for gains in the present with an eye toward building toward that future, is not at all silly.



Price says: "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)."

Well, the concept of non reformist reforms is precisely what distinguishes someone who seeks reforms from reformism. To say that the coordinator class is pro capitalist, now, is true enough - but then again, Price would have to admit that whatever evidence he is using to say that, for example their day to day actions, their voting patterns, etc., would entail his also saying that the working class is pro capitalist. Of course, the point is, the working class can, and we hope will, develop anti capitalist views and indeed, pro change views, perhaps pro parecon views, we will see. Likewise, the coordinator class can develop anticapitalist but pro coordinatorism views - which I think often takes the form of Leninism, but that is a whole additional matter.

Price says, "Like me, Albert comes out of the councilist, antistatist, tradition of socialist anarchism and libertarian Marxism (although he no longer calls himself a socialist)."

I am going to go way out on a limb and say, perhaps unwisely, perhaps unfairly, but honestly since it is my reaction - I bet we did not in fact come out of similar traditions. My bet would be that Price came out of a Trotskyist tradition - it just sounds a lot like that to me. Doesn't matter much, but I am a bit curious.

Price says: "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."

Despite all this, I am a class enemy? Interesting. Apparently, to escape that designation requires quite a lot of agreement with Price. As to Parecon being a blueprint, of course it isn't. It is, in fact, a broad specification of just four key institutional features and their interconnections - self managing councils, balanced job complexes, remuneration for duration, intensity, and onerousness of socially valued labor, and participatory planning. What about that list is too much, too detailed, in Price's view, I wonder? 



Price says: "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)."

Here I could not agree more strongly. That is, I think my understanding of how to win a new society is very problematic, at best. Of course I also think that that is true for Price and others, too. Surely, the evidence that we don't know how to make fundamental change is all around us...in our relative lack of progress. For me, however, I admit, the issue of how to win a better society depends on having a degree of agreement about what the better society includes. This is because for me, strategy isn't primarily about overcoming a military power, it is primarily about developing participation and commitment to new relations and a willingness to fight to win those new relations in a huge and steadily growing number of people, and, as a result, our understanding of those new relations matters greatly to specifying strategy.

Price then levels his ultimate criticism: Albert "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."

Pretty incredible. The first claim is false, I routinely talk about the violent inclinations of the state, to the point of making utterly clear that the only solution to it is to disarm it, not overcome it with a bigger power. But mainly, I just don't agree with Price, or many others, that the power of the state, or corporations, or the media, is the biggest obstacle to our winning change and therefore what we should constantly focus on. Of course they are real and matter, but the biggest obstacle, and particularly the one we can address, is our own lack of coherence and workable methodology for overcoming reticence, building solidarity, creating lasting structure, etc. That is where we can improve, and must.

Despite Price's assertion, I don't predict a peaceful change, only that the final steps get relatively less violent, and as to me disarming anyone, well, is that serious?

And yes, I think elections can perhaps be a positive part of social struggle, at times, though there are many obstacles. And yes, despite that I virtually never do it, I think voting is no more a crime against humanity than putting your money in a capitalist bank. It is better, at times, than not doing so. If Price uses a bank, or, say, the roads that the state maintains, is he then, as a result, a class enemy? His is sad and sectarian reasoning, at least to my eyes."

...........................

It's hard for Molly to say where she stands on all this. I'm reminded of the singer of 'The Orange and the Green' (the product of an Irish mixed marriage) who tells of how the relatives of each of his parents accidently came over at the same time. The relevant stanzas go:

"We tried to smooth things over,

But they all began to fight,

and me, bein' strictly neutral I bashed everyone in sight"

The above essay seems very reasonable, and I'd guess I'd generally agree except for a few points where I think Albert is being disingenous. One is a polemical style wherein he "implies" that Price holds positions that he very obviously does not, couched in language that gives him "plausible deniability" but leaving the full emotional force of the implications intact. That's one thing, but there is also the true howler where Albert claims to "go way out on a limb" and "bet" that Price "came out of a Trotsyist tradition". Full fucking stop here. Molly will now also go way out on a limb and bet that Albert knows and has known for a considerable time that Price used to be a Trot. This isn't the first time that Price has written on Parecon, criticizing it, and I'd be shocked, even if by some miracle that Albert was innocent of this knowledge until recently, that he didn't bother to "look up" his opponent before launching his polemic. My own opinion is that Albert is far too intelligent and skilled to be so remiss. It is,however, very conducive to building a reputation as a "seer" to seem to "discover" such a thing from the writings of an individual. To Molly's eyes, however, this looks like slight of hand, stage magic.

All of this,however, is neither here nor there in terms of Albert's central contentions which are generally correct in my opinion (see my previous disagreements with what Price wrote). Albert, however, does a poor job of ducking some of Price's accusations. The above essay demonstrates more than a little residual sympathy with the authors of the Cuban dictatorship. If Price suffers from "residual Trotskyism" then perhaps Albert suffers from "residual vague American leftism and Third Worldism". One wonders why Albert dodged the accusation of sympathy sympathy for Che Guevara-which he amply demonstrates above- but also for other even less savoury characters such as Ho Chi Minh ?

Then we come to perhaps the crux of the matter, electoral politics and its connection to class conflict. For someone who claims to have formulated a theory of the "coordinator class" (though it was formulated long ago by people that Albert has never acknowledge to my knowledge) Albert has always seemed more than a little blind to what this means in day to day politics. Albert's main activity is not the oushing fo paper, nor any conspiratorial organization building. It is in writing and speaking in favour of certain ideas. Can we say 99% ? The meaning of the leftist term "support" has always been overplayed, as another 99% of such cases of "support" have no actual effect on the causes that they claim as their own. When Albert "writes in sympathy with or speaks in sympathy with" certain mainstream political actors or events in his own country-such as the centrist social democratic 'Rainbow Coalition' or the right wing social democratic-if it even gets to be social democratic- Obama campaign he is very much "supporting them" in the way that his usual political action does- by his words. Weave and dodge as he might this is the reality. How does this square with his criticism of some "coordinator class" ? The answer is that it doesn't.

There are Trots and then there are Trots. As an ex-social democrat I, and pretty well all party members oif my generation, became quite familiar with Trots of a different sort than what Price came from. Entrists. "Win the NDP to socialism". "Critical support". I heard this decades ago. It continues today in my own country, and it is just as silly now as it was then. No doubt Albert is right when he says that some political outcomes are more desirable than others, but it is a fact that his "support", let alone Prices or my "support" makes little difference in the real world today. If Albert convinces some rare wavering leftists to either vote for Nader or to vote for Obama now he knows just as well as I do that this will be meaningless in terms of the actual outcome. If Price acts like a left wing Trotskyist then Albert's justifications for his pronouncements of sympathy for politicalk actors in his country who are far less worthy of support than our Canadian NDP reminds me very much of right wing Trotskyism.

There's a squiggling loittle mouse of a point here that I intend to put my paw on and not let escape. Albert is very much the realist. He has just as much the jaundiced eye as I do for the self-important proclamations of "revolutionists" when their proclamations mean nothing because they are so tiny. I disagree with his rather individualist idea that a "revolutionist" becomes a "revolutionary" simply by "trying". One doesn't become a pilot by "trying". In the abscense of a plane to fly you are still a wannabe. There are NO revolutionists in a non-revolutionary situation.

So how do you get to the influence that both Albert and I desire ? I would suggest that a position of "intransigence" whereby you are visibly seen to be incorruptible is a necessary component of building towards such a situation. I would further suggest that persistently offering sympathy to the electoral goals of one set of rulers over another (remember the "coordinator class"!) shows very simply and plainly that you are not incorruptible. I would further suggest that this incorruptibility be not merely apparent, as was the case with various Communist parties- but real. Reality is always better than illusion. Not that you should spend a great amount of time in things like anti-electoral campaigns or, worse, trying to create tiny riots outside of political party conventions. If you are worried about what the politicians will do, well then understand that some of them will simply follow your own non-political actions for motives both good and ill. I don't think that we should abandon what is one of the few strengths of libertarian socialism to purchase some illusionary influence over either the politicians or those who support them. At its bluntest- support Obama and people think, perhaps rightly, that you are just as mendacious and corrupt as he is.

All of this doesn't detract from my personal admiration for Albert, and I still stand by a statement I made years ago that drew some flac from the "anarcho-nut" crowd that the Parecon people are more intelligent than the average anarchist. But so are the people gathered around NEFAC. My own goals are practicality, rather than showing off, and I think that both groups are szteps along the way. I disagree with both on many points, but, gradualist that I am, I think that both are good and proper advances and that both have great potential.