Another essay in the series. Pat Devine and/or Adaman are planning to inject as well. I think this kind of discussion and debate… though traditionally considered utopian by “orthodox” Marxists and even other mainstream leftists (or elitist and anti-democratic), is absolutely vital intellectually for radicals and also *politically necessary*. Even an “alternative” as shoddy as central-planning captivated the imagination of millions and forced the ruling class to concede some real reforms. Besides for *After Capitalism* my hatred for the utopian-scheming of Parecon kept me away from reading some of the other radical economists, but Devine and Adaman's work seem a bit more "empirical" than others, so I'd recommend it.
I’ll quote our dear friend Milton Friedman from the preface to the 1980 reprint of “Freedom and Capitalism” (in a quote that Naomi Klein ripped out of context):
“There is enormous inertia, a tyranny of the status quo in private and especially governmental arrangements. Only a crisis actual or perceived produces real change. When that crisis occurs, the actions that are taken depend on the ideas that are lying around. That, I believe, is our basic function: to develop alternatives to existing policies, to keep them alive and available until the politically impossible becomes politically inevitable.” **
Ignoring the fact that crisis without an established left-opposition movement is a great formula for reaction, these are fine sentiments.