[WS:] I made a specific reference to what I believe might work (Oskar Lange, his Economic Theory of Socialism to be more specific,) so read the fucking book before you start criticizing, man.
FYI, what I find in Lange's ideas attractive and what I believe will work after (or perhaps if) the world recovers from the ravages of neoliberalism is the marriage of socialist planning and market pricing. To make a long story short, all investments will be planned and publicly financed according to policy preferences but the use of goods produced by these investments will be regulated by pricing mechanisms and the prices will set though an empirical process to obtain the desired effect on uses. We had this conversation before on this list in connection with investments in- and uses of- transit systems.
I believe it is a reasonable idea first because it has already been tried on a national level with some success so there are historical precedents from which one can learn and improve on, I do not believe there is any historical precedent of an anarchistic society, however (grouplets, maybe, but grouplets are not societies - and this has been already answered by Marx.) Second, I think that Luddite fantasies of small artisanal communes are not just pipe dreams, and reactionary at their heart on the top of it (which may explain their popularity in the petite bourgeois American culture) - but also dangerous, as they imply genocide. There is no way this mode production will produce enough to provide decent living to 7+ billion - so proposing it is either insane or criminal (as the empirical consequence of it is genocide.) Chomsky believes that too, in case I need to prop my argument with names dropping.
Wojtek
On Mon, Oct 17, 2011 at 6:14 PM, Alan Rudy <alan.rudy at gmail.com> wrote:
> Woj,
> Since you've poo-pooed every movement, effort, trajectory, tendency or
> proposal put forward here on the list, I wonder is there anything you have
> in mind that you wouldn't label a pipe dream?
> A
>
> On Mon, Oct 17, 2011 at 3:47 PM, Max Sawicky <sawicky at verizon.net> wrote:
>
>> Anarchism is pretty diverse. If it wasn't, it wouldn't be anarchist.
>>
>> Of Lange, what specifically?
>>
>>
>> On Mon, Oct 17, 2011 at 3:37 PM, Wojtek S <wsoko52 at gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>> > Both seem to be pipe dreams. Try Oskar Lange for a change.
>> >
>> > Wojtek
>> >
>> >
>> > On Mon, Oct 17, 2011 at 3:28 PM, Max Sawicky <sawicky at verizon.net>
>> wrote:
>> > > I read State and Revolution, 40 years ago or so. A few shorter things I
>> > > don't remember at all. I take Leninism to be the idea of a centralized
>> > > vanguard party that foments a socialist revolution in the U.S. by force
>> > of
>> > > arms. In other words, a pipe dream. I do think industrial action --
>> > mass
>> > > strikes -- can force significant changes. Seems to me anarchist ideas
>> in
>> > > all their diversity are more interesting as radical possibilities.
>> None
>> > of
>> > > this dismisses the relevance of Marx, IMO. Anarchists can be marxists.
>> > >
>> > >
>> > >
>> > >
>> > > On Mon, Oct 17, 2011 at 3:05 PM, Julio Huato <juliohuato at gmail.com>
>> > wrote:
>> > >
>> > >> Max wrote:
>> > >>
>> > >> > Leninism is a dry hole, AFAIAC
>> > >>
>> > >> Leninism perhaps, but Lenin is a completely different thing. The bulk
>> > >> of his work is online now at marxists.org. One interesting way to
>> > >> read the guy is from his (main) latest to his (main) earliest works.
>> > >> Of course, no time to read his complete works -- which a small group
>> > >> of us at the U of Havana did, and discussed at length, in the 1980s,
>> > >> as the tomes were being published in Spanish by Progress Publishers,
>> > >> and how glad I am I did such a thing! -- but there are a lot of small
>> > >> documents worth reading and studying carefully.
>> > >> ___________________________________
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>> > >>
>> > > ___________________________________
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>> > >
>> >
>> > ___________________________________
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>> >
>> ___________________________________
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>
>
>
> --
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