what you get here

This is not a blog which opines on current events. It rather uses incidents, books (old and new), links and papers to muse about our social endeavours.
So old posts are as good as new! And lots of useful links!

The Bucegi mountains - the range I see from the front balcony of my mountain house - are almost 120 kms from Bucharest and cannot normally be seen from the capital but some extraordinary weather conditions allowed this pic to be taken from the top of the Intercontinental Hotel in late Feb 2020
Showing posts with label Envisioning Real Utopias. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Envisioning Real Utopias. Show all posts

Friday, September 20, 2019

Another World is Possible

I increasingly marvel at the miracle of my laptop – an instrument that allows me to access the work of the world’s best brains even when their bodies are dead.
The last two posts reflect what has been a frenetic process of interrogating some hundred or so writers about what they think of the prospects for “a better world”….

It all started with my alighting on a piece entitled “How to be an anti-capitalist today” - written by Erik Olin-Wright in the radical American journal Jacobin which you will be able to read only by entering the “Jacobin” site and inserting Olin-Wright’s name in their search engine. It’s a cunning obstacle they’ve created to prevent people like me sharing the article widely….
I was impressed with the clear typology he laid out in the article which he expanded into a later paper on the “strategic logics of anti-capitalism” – namely “smashing capitalism, dismantling capitalism, taming capitalism, resisting capitalism, and escaping capitalism”. Some of this language may offend my readers’ tender ears but, whether they like it or not, each represents a distinctive option in the wider portfolio of choices of dealing with a nasty system…

I realised I had perhaps been too dismissive in my reaction to his Envisioning Real Utopias (2009) when I had come across it on the internet a few years ago – and had written it off largely on the basis of it devoting only a few pages to the amazing phenomenon of the Mondragon cooperatives. But there were also some aspects of the sociological lingo (referred to in a withering review at the timewhich I found off-putting He does, however, admit in the Preface (the entire book is available just by clicking on the title) that it is almost impossible to satisfy both the general and the academic reader. Here he is on the structure of the book -

This framework is built around three tasks: diagnosis and critique; formulating alternatives; and elaborating strategies of transformation. These three tasks define the agendas of the three main parts of the book.
Part I of the book (Chapter 3) presents the basic diagnosis and critique of capitalism that animates the search for real utopian alternatives.

Part II then discusses the problem of alternatives. Chapter 4 reviews the traditional Marxist approach to thinking about alternatives and shows why this approach is unsatisfactory.
Chapter 5 elaborates an alternative strategy of analysis, anchored in the idea that socialism, as an alternative to capitalism, should be understood as a process of increasing social empowerment over state and economy.
Chapters 6 and 7 explore a range of concrete proposals for institutional design in terms of this concept of social empowerment, the first of these chapters focusing on the problem of social empowerment and the state, and the second on the problem of social empowerment and the economy.

Part III of the book turns to the problem of transformation – how to understand the process by which these real utopian alternatives could be brought about.
Chapter 8 lays out the central elements of a theory of social transformation.
Chapters 9 through 11 then examine three different broad strategies of emancipatory transformation – rupture transformation (chapter 9), interstitial transformation (chapter 10), and symbiotic transformation (chapter 11). The book concludes in Chapter 12 which distills the core arguments of the book into seven key lessons.

Olin-Wright devoted his life to trying to understand the capitalist system and how it might be tamed. His university keeps a full range of his papers accessible here – and they are a real treasure trove for the serious researcher – and activist.
Associations and Democracy; J Cohen and J Rogers (1995), for example, was the first of a series of books he helped develop under the “Real Utopias Project” banner (the others can be accessed on his site). And Taking the social in socialism seriously (2004) is a superb exposition which shows him testing out the ideas which went into “Envisioning Real Utopias” a few years later….

Sadly, he died in January of this year – with very touching tributes to his work as an inspiring teacher (see resource at end). But, before his untimely recent death, Wright went on to write a booklet (of 70 pages) with the rather curious title “How to be an anti-capitalist for the 21st Century” (2018) which you can read in its entirety by clicking the title. An expanded version is now available as a book and was nicely reviewed in The Guardian only last month.
He took copious notes at his presentations and discussion – and gave a lot of thought to the process of change as is evident in Pathways to a cooperative market economy (2015). Curiously, however, for a self-avowed Marxist, he did not venture into the field of economics or other disciplines....

Update
Inevitably I no sooner post a table than I realise I have missed an important title. The Capitalism Papers – Fatal Flaws of an Obsolete System (2012) is a very readable but oddly neglected book by a great American journalist (and ecologist) who goes under the amazing name of Jerry Mander. Typically, however, he fails to mention Olin Wright – who I rather belatedly now realise was the foremost thinker of this genre…

Tributes

Tuesday, October 19, 2010

What was the question, again?


My bones are aching as I write this – after a day of sawing, gathering and storing the branches of the two remaining limbs of the corner tree which, with another, stands guard over the front of the house. A power saw (Druzhba „friend”in Romanian) is quite tiring to use for this sort of work – as you are using all sorts of angles and levels to get at the branches of the trunk as they lie in the grass. No need for dumb-bells and Ten Minute Body Exercises with this sort of work! Fortunately the brick soba in the bedroom is at almost sauna heat - after only a basket-full of logs during the day – and will retain the warmth in the room for 36 hours with no further logs needed. And the wood from the 2 trunks will probably be all I need over the winter months for the occasional visits. Talk about self-sufficiency!
I am being advised to cut the limbs of the remaining tree – but I quite like the leaves at the attic window and at our verandah! So I will probably keep that until next year (Insallah!). A young neighbour shinned up the ladder to put the foam in the window frame – and also brought down the 2 limbs for me. He is one of several quasi-slaves many of these villages have – someone with no real home but kept in a house for a measly wage. Both are pleasant individuals in their 30s with little education who do all the dirty work – and have absolutely no prospects. It is the guy’s aunt who employs him and he has some rights to what is his parent’s house if only he would pursue them. Tomorrow he will return to finish the window frames – and I am being advised to pay him no more than 10 euros. I could use him to lengthen two of our chimneys – but it isn’t easy to persuade his „owner” to release him – he could get ideas above his station!

Revenons aux moutons – namely the questions which should be the focus of any inquiry about social improvements . On further reflection, I think the questions need considerable adjustment. All the change literature - some of which is summarised at pages 47-50 of the annotated bibliography for change agents on my website - tells us that people have first to be convinced that something is wrong; only then are they ready to consider a particular programme – which has, ideally, to be developed with their positive engagement. My recent posts have taken an egocentric view (looking at the issue from someone who has been convinced from an early age that the system is rotten – a common fault of impatient and over-confident reformers). Succesful change-agents start not from their own perspectives but from that of the larger population who need to go through the following stages -
• Judging the situation unacceptable
• Wanting to make sense of it
• Distrusting the conventional wisdom
• Learning to trust some perceptions and advice
• Getting involved
• Refining their understanding, trust and judgement about appropriate next steps
So it looks as if a Tolstoyan triple whammy of questions is out! I note that Robert Quinn’s very interesting Change the World is not in that list – so I will need to update it.
While I am thinking about the most appropriate questions for this inquiry let me indicate the direction in which the previous questions took me
• I feel that an important question is phrased along the lines of - what programme elements (drawing partly on the famous diagram on my website) might actually help release and sustain people power in a way which will force the corruption of modern elites to make significant and lasting concessions? France has a long tradition of taking to the streets (witness the last few days) – and winning concessions. But patently this is too negative, piecemeal and exclusive (to French citizens). A more global alternative has been the subject of so many endeavours – for example Envisioning Real Utopias which seems to be a very rigorous exploration which includes a look at the Mondragon cooperatives. The book can actually be downloaded from the link I give.
• The second question – where do we find examples that can persuade a wide audience that there is an alternative – actually is part of the first question! It would therefore seem to need rephrasing along the following lines - What processes offer the best prospects for engaging a sigificant number of citizens in a new vision? The Social Forum (Porto Alegre) had a huge impact in its day but seems to have run out of steam - precisely when its vision was most needed! I have just started to read Paul Kingsnorth’s very well written, sympathetic 2004 treatment of the various parts of the anti-global movement
• Only the Greens (and particularly the Germans) have properly recognised and tried to deal with the problem of the corruption of leadership (the iron law of oligarchy) by circulating leadership positions (as do the Swiss). However, I understand that the German Greens have now scrapped this practice.