Not content with asking the sort of big questions we lefties don't like answering, you write:
>on doug's question, i think that's a cue for rob to give lazy people
>like me a run down on Albert & Hahnel -- it sits there on my shelf
>largely unread i'm ashamed to say. maybe rob can inspire me to pick it
>up.
As I shall spend the weekend immersed in the tedium of forced labour (that affirmeth me not, but doth deny me; bringeth me not contentment, but bringeth rather unhappiness; developeth me not, but rather doth mortify my body and ruin my mind) - ie. my !#* thesis - I'd better content myself for the moment with proffering this Q&A website on Albert and Hahnel's ideas:
http://www.parecon.org/writings/faq.htm
I think Kelley and Doug are crucially right in stressing the importance of the resource allocation/democratic socialism question ('twould be too kind to call it a 'debate', alas) - and, whilst Michael and Carrol are right to stress the danger of abstract planning-of-planning exercises - it's certainly a weakness in lefties' rhetoric that we cannot convincingly evince an awareness (never mind a transcendence) of the technical, and consequently socio-political, problems faced by 'actually existing socialisms'.
M&A are great at pointing out what needs to be thought about, I reckon. Whilst I go the extra yard and happily take from them ideas as to how to think about them, you need not do so to cop some real benefit.
Anyway, back to mine enemy. Rob.