Nonsense on Stilts: Michael Albert's Parecon David Schweickart Loyola University Chicago January 16, 2006
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What are we to make of the "Parecon" phenomenon? Michael Albert's book made it to number thirteen on Amazon.com a few days after some on-line promotion.[1] Eight of the twelve Amazon.com reviewers (when I last checked) had given...
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What are we to make of the "Parecon" phenomenon? Michael Albert's book made it to number thirteen on Amazon.com a few days after some on-line promotion.[1] Eight of the twelve Amazon.com reviewers (when I last checked) had given the book five stars. It has been, or is being, translated into Arabic, Bengali, Telagu, Croatian, Czech, Finnish, French, German, Greek, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Spanish, Swedish and Turkish.[2] The book has been endorsed by Noam Chomsky, who says it "merits close attention, debate and action," by Arundhati Roy, who calls it "a brave argument for a much needed alternative economic vision," by Ben Bagdikian, who finds it "a compelling book for our times," and by Howard Zinn, who sees it as "a thoughtful, profound meditation on what a good society can be like."[3] Yet it is a terrible book. To be sure, there are lots of terrible books on politics and economics being written for popular audiences these days, but these are usually right-wing harangues beating up on liberals. They are not endorsed by the likes of the above, who are all very left and very smart. Albert himself is a smart guy. He has incredible energy. Z-Net, Z Magazine and South End Press, all of which he was instrumental in bringing into being, have been important to radical activists and intellectuals over the years, now more than ever. Many of his debates and discussions are insightful. I don't always agree with him, but his arguments are often subtle, not easy to counter, well worth pondering. Parecon is a different matter altogether. I’ve been reluctant to criticize this book so harshly in public, since it is written by someone who is part of the same global justice movement that commands my allegiance. I suspect I am not alone in my reticence. The Left has a bad history of destructive in-fighting. But Parecon has developed a certain following among younger activists. It now feels to me irresponsible to ignore the book. The intellectual (and moral) integrity of the movement requires that we debate key issues openly. If something is really bad, we should say so. Before reflecting further on the Parecon phenomenon, let me substantiate my claim that Parecon is a terrible book. It isn't "morally pernicious," (as are, say, the works of neo-con intellectuals and the print ravings of the Fox News and right-wing talk-radio crowd), but it can't be taken seriously on its own terms, intellectually. The book is an elaboration and defense of an economic model that is hopelessly, irredeemably flawed.
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Highlights:
Plan C would set consumption at $8.5 trillion, keep investment at $3 trillion, but raise the average workload to 36 hours.
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