> I do think it's possible to think about post-capitalist
> futures at an appropriate level of abstraction, which would include the
> abstract negation of defining features of capitalism. The problem comes
> when these abstractions are taken as models to be realized, rather than
> as theoretical guides which are always at some distance from the
> practical contexts in which actual alternatives will be constructed.
>
I think the whole criticism based on the specificity of the models is totally misplaced. It misunderstands the purpose of the models. I don't think Cottrell/Cockshott or Michael Albert (neither of whose schemes appeal to me at all, by the way) are presenting their systems as models to be minutely facsimiled. They're presenting them for a different reason: To prove that they're feasible. They formulate the models in such detail not because it's imperative to them that every detail be followed, but so that they can answer anyone who accuses them of not having considered some vital point that would allegedly render the whole system impractical, and who would then adduced this as proof that the underlying, non-detailed principle of the models - a non-market economy - is unfeasible in principle.
> I do think there's something interesting, as a spur to abstract
> reflection, about attempting to imagine workable future economies in the
> way that Cockshott and Cottrell do; however, these are likely to reveal
> more about the the limitations of our current imagination, than the
> actual contours of future society. I think this is the most powerful
> element of Marx's critique of utopian socialism - not that the utopias
> are too fanciful, but that they're not nearly fanciful enough, and end
> up just being idealized versions of capitalism.
>
This is a view often encountered here and I find it completely misguided. It seems based on the belief that we should - as a point of principle, even - articulate goals with no reference whatsoever to whether or not they could possibly be realized. This is justified by the hazy notion that the socialist future is so sublimely unknowable, that transcending capitalism will produce a world so wondrous strange and unfathomable to us in the present, that we would do just as well to suppose pretty much anything we want about it.
Maybe the laws of gravity of won't apply! Maybe we'll all have photographic memories or we'll have grown twelve fingers on each hand! Who's to say? After all, just think how unimaginable *our* world would be to a 10th century peasant, or a neolithic ant! That's how unthinkable the paradise of future post-capitalism would be to us today. Trying to judge the feasibility of any of its features from our vantage point in the present would be like trying to visualize 12-dimensional space. Ridiculous!
Look, I don't believe the ultimate horizon of humanity is necessarily bounded by what we can imagine, or what makes sense for us to imagine, today. But if you're an intellectual whose contribution is supposedly based on having thought things through more thoroughly than other people, then I would say: If something is truly unimaginable to you today then it shouldn't be part of your politics today. It should be in your diary. Or maybe your fantasy fiction novel. It's insane to say simultaneously (1) "My political engagement is anti-capitalist" and (2) "Getting rid of capitalism means getting rid of the following features of society"; and (3) "Neither I nor anyone else can even begin to imagine a society without those features." If you can't imagine anything past social democracy, call yourself a social-democrat-with-possibilities. If you can imagine some kind of market socialism, call yourself a market-socialist-with-possibilities. But the article Doug posted puts its finger exactly on the problem: For a large portion of present-day radicals, what they're most passionately in favor of is _That-Which-Cannot-Be-Named_. That kind of politics is irretrievably fated to die before it ever gets past the marxist e-mail-list stage. Almost by definition.
I also think there's a misunderstanding of Marx in all this. Marx did envision what Ted talks about, a difficult-to-imagine world of free individuality and a transcending of the division of labor. But it seems to me that he looked on those as politico-philosophical ideas, not as his politics per se. When it came to hammering out a party program, he wrote in Critique of the Gotha Program that a practical policy must be crafted for building socialism in a world peopled by men still stamped by the capitalist society they came from. Only much later would the unimaginable stuff happen, and you can't write a party program for that. Marx made a mistake, though. He just assumed, ex nihilo, that creating a non-market economy *now* - in the imaginable near-future - was so straightforward it didn't even need much elaboration. He gave a carefully detailed enumeration of all the specific deductions that must be made from total production before consumption goods could be distributed to workers (depreciation, net investment, social overhead). But he didn't make the slightest effort to explain how the "consciously planned" economy could actually be consciously planned in the first place - because he didn't think it was problematic. Capitalism would do all the work for us.
It was only decades later, in the years close to WWI, that anyone started giving the slightest serious thought to this problem. No detailed models. And you can see the result.
SA