[lbo-talk] Parecon Discussion...

[Kelley]

At 07:01 PM 9/23/03 -0400, Doug Henwood wrote:
>Chuck0 wrote:
>
>>On a more immediate level, it would be interesting to see how the ideas 
>>of Parecon could be applied by radical organizations in a capitalist 
>>society. Are any co-ops using the Parecon model?
>
>That's an interesting question. Michael hasn't had much to say about the 
>how to get there question, but one way might be to think of new 
>institutions that could be devised within actually existing k'ism, or the 
>demands that could be made on existing institutions. A problem is that 
>it's not enough to have the internal organization correspond to a parecon 
>model while having to compete in a capitalist market.

but, in my own experience, it might just be more competitive. Marx 
addresses this issue at one point, arguing in the Paris Commune and 
Critique of the Gotha Programme that the point was to build new 
institutions within capitalism, for these would be the womb to the birth of 
revolutionary insurgency (because marx was a dreaded "workerist" arguing 
that people found their humanity in their labor and in Praxis broadly 
understood) and the shell of the institutions that would give birth to and 
then be transformed during insurgency and later as we make our way toward a 
stable post-revo society.

as I mentioned earlier, though I'm not sure the post made it to the list, I 
don't understand why Marx's work here--as underdeveloped as it is--hasn't 
been consciously taken up and elaborated by people who would seem to be, 
otherwise, politically aligned with this sort of model of social change.

Kelley