Jim,
Thanks for the citations. I'll try not to be so loose with terminology in
the future. Still, I'm not sure Robin & Hahnel's LOOKING FORWARD is in quite
the same camp as Bellamy's LOOKING BACKWARD, as was originally charged by
Louis. There is quite a bit more political substance to participatory
economics than setting up model communities. Parecon, as they say in
newspeak, merely tackles a subset of issues involving questions of hierarchy
& power in the workplace, be it in a market or socialist/state capitalist
setting.
cheers,
joe
>According to Hal Draper's multi-volume KARL MARX'S THEORY OF REVOLUTION (a
>systematic collection of quotes from Marx and Engels on politics), Karl and
>Fred weren't against utopian speculation. They saw such speculation as part
>of the self-education of the working class. They opposed the utopian style
>of political action, i.e., setting up model communities (typically with a
>utopian leader as dictator -- see the comment on Owen by Engels in the
>third thesis on Feuerbach). Or as Ruth Levitas says in her book THE CONCEPT
>OF UTOPIA, "The real dispute between Marx and Engels and the utopian
>socialists is not about the merit of goals or of images of the future but
>about the process of transformation, and particularly the belief that
>propaganda alone would result in the realization of socialism" (p. 35).
>
>Jim Devine [EMAIL PROTECTED] & http://bellarmine.lmu.edu/~jdevine
