>The Social Forums seem more like chatshops than instruments of political
>action. The nonhierarchical pluralism is welcome in a conference, but I'm
>not sure you can affect the outside world much with such an appropach.
>Maybe I'm wrong - I'm very open to hearing more, which is why I forwarded
>the piece.
A chat-shop/think tank kind of thing for the global "Left" at large isn't a bad thing, although, given it's open-ness and hostility to "Old Left" concepts (and I would really like to know what they mean by that. Real Stalinist and Kimist-types? Or just any group that's not as fixated on "non-hierarchy" as the organizers like), I'd imagine one would find lots of petit bourgeois nonsense (like the kind of "small is beautiful" crowd you mentioned, Doug, in After the New Economy, the anti-modernism lot) mixed in with the good stuff.
Could a "melding" of this type of pluralism at one level and a more practical carrying out of policy at a more hierarchical level work? It'd be nice to see "hierarchs" and pluralists work together somewhat in that manner. Is there some precedent like that to draw on for ideas?
Todd (My, a new housecoat and lumberjack shirt does make me chatty . . . .)
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