> First of all, production decisions in a capitalist system are _not_
> anarchic (in the sense of being compatible with anarchist principles).
i agree. i was parodying a certain strain of marxism which likes to talk like this. should have used citation marks.
> I think you mean chaotic.
no, i don't think it's chaotic either. i mean that planning cannot be counterposed to (ok) chaos, where the latter is seen as specific to capitalism. hence, in order to overcome capitalism/chaos -- so the story goes -- you plan it/life/the economy (better). nb: i don't agree with this.
Anyway, capitalist institutions are bad, but not
> because of the invisible hand (people doing their own thing with
little
> outside direction). They are bad because they lead to outcomes like
wealth
> and income inequality, which lead to social division and corrupt the
> political process, even if it is nominally democratic. They are bad
> because they are rife with externalities, ususally reinforcing selfish
and
> anti-social behavior by under estimating the costs of goods and
services
> which are consumed by individuals, and over estimating the costs of
public
> goods. And so on.
well, now you're confusing me. the 'invisible hand of the market' is a good thing? and what are these 'externalities'?
> The whole point of Albert/Hahnel (and perhaps other) blueprints is to
> devise institutions which will _prevent_ these kinds of perverse
> outcomes.
which will regulate the market you mean?
> Finally, there is this insistence on calling these kinds of blueprints
> "utopian." Why are they utopian? Because they haven't been
> implemented yet?
no, utopian in the sense that marx spoke of: as projections into the future of an idealised present. ie., the problem with utopianism is not that it hasn't been implemented, but that, paradoxically, it has. any kind of blueprint will be pretty much like what science fiction writers do: they try and situate today's conflicts in an imagined future (babylon 5) or poses the future as the resolution of today's conflicts (star trek). in either case, 'today' hasn't been overcome; it serves as the horizon beyond which our imaginations can't go. as sci fi it might be boring or interesting (i personally like a lot of sci fi, but preferably ones which aren't posited as the end of humanist history, like star trek); but as a politics which seeks to be put into practice and to serve as a vision of a radically different future, it means we already pre-set the limits of that future as a version of the present. so, it's not radically different; it's just repetition. and, it's a dangerous kind of repetiton precisely when it's posed as a radically different future. what happens when, as has happened, this or that blueprint is achieved? anyone who wants to go further or someplace else is denounced as a counter-revolutionary, because, after all, with the realisation of the blueprint, socialism has arrived.
_IF_ it is possible to have a socialist society, how can
> theorizing about what it might look like be utopian a priori?
because you're theorising with theories which are past and present would be the shortest answer i can give. you can't imagine something you've never experienced or heard of.
Angela _________