Re: [lbo-talk] Schweickart’s critique of Parecon, “Nonsense on Stilits.”

Doug Henwood dhenwood at panix.com
Fri Oct 20 09:45:56 PDT 2006


On Oct 20, 2006, at 11:13 AM, Andy F wrote:


> The complaint about the meetings (and yes, they suck) sounds like, "I
> want to have communal control over my destiny, but only if it's not
> too much trouble." Maybe that's just realism.

People want to delegate decisions and get on with their lives, not engage in endless dickering and bickering. You could never sell radical economic change if it meant more work. And that balanced job complexes stuff sounds hopelessly complex to negotiate.

As I say every time this comes up, I don't see how we can get from here to there. I do see how we can introduce more democracy and openness to market relations - to socialize the market, as Diane Elson put it. That means opening corporate books, introducing more worker control, regulating business practices, etc. But the sort of top-to-bottom transformation that Parecon represents, given present arrangements and consciousness, seems hopelessly utopian (in the bad sense).

Doug



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