Since I have such a personal and political dislike for Hahnel and Albert, and since I am trying to turn over a new leaf and be the most popular guy on the Internet, I have waited until the last minute to say a few words about "Parecon." But how can one not see how irrelevant it is at this point to the real world? For example, take Russia (spoken with a Henny Youngman inflection). The topic that the entire left is grappling with is how the Yeltsinite regime can be toppled and a more humane system put in its place. Zyuganov is calling for the renationalization of major industry, but stepping back from a full-blown planning approach. The people on the left, such as Kargalitsky, hope that a revivified socialism can re-emerge but are probably too weak to influence events. So where does something like Parecon fit in? Obviously, nowhere. In times of great stress, the tasks that have to be addressed are primarily political ones that overlap into conjunctural economic ones such as: --how to avoid rekindling of the cold war? --how to foster economic development while relinquishing the monopoly on foreign trade? --how to deal with the ultrarightists? --how to rebuild foreign economic relations after the collapse of the Soviet COMECON? With due respect for the differences between Russia and a country like the US, one of the reasons it is important to study Russia is that it also can illustrate the problems we will be facing when our own hard times begin. The Russian working-class, like the American working-class, was thoroughly depoliticized and atomized. It was cynical about the "system" and lived for its own material rewards. There was very little concern with social justice and as long as the system could "deliver" after a fashion, people remained apathetic. Now that they are being shaken to the core, the radicalization is beginning but it is uneven. One of the things that is occuring is that left-wing politics is taking on a vaguely anti-semitic cast, due in some part to the fact that most of Yeltsin's advisers are of Jewish descent. Zyuganov blames "cosmopolitans" for ruining the good character of the Russian homeland. The best you can say about the Z Magazine project is that it is the homebase of Edward Herman, Ward Churchill and Noam Chomsky, who the pedantic Marxists who give papers at the academic conferences can learn from. Now if Z Magazine could find a way to drop its sectarian hatred of Marxism, the left would be in a stronger position to move forward. I am not holding my breath. Louis Proyect (http://www.panix.com/~lnp3/marxism.html)
