Anarchism / Marxism debates

Doug Henwood dhenwood at panix.com
Tue Aug 17 07:57:42 PDT 1999


Brett Knowlton wrote:


>Currently I'd support a democratic plan a la Albert and Hahnel.

I'm a bit mystified by all these utopian blueprints. It's not like there's going to be a revolution in the U.S. or any other OECD country where everything will be changed overnight. (Anyone who thinks there is, please provide an imaginable scenario.) Seems to me you push where you can - more unionization, more worker control of the workplace, more socialization of consumption and investment (free day care, education, health care, etc.), more democratic forms of land use planning, regulatory and other constraints on corporate power, what Diane Elson calls "socialization of the market" (opening up corporate pricing and other strategies, attacks on intellectual property rights, popularly controlled financial institutions), attacks on the discipline of money (minimum incomes, etc.).... The point would be not only to improve people's lives, but to give them more confidence and capacity to improve them in the future. After a few generations of that, who knows where we'd end up?

Doug



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