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REALLY_NOWHERE
April 1, 2013
September 11-30, 2013
October 4, 2013
There is a book out there in the
world, by a Erik Olin Wright,
titled "Envisioning Real Utopias", [link]
published in 2010.
John Holbo of Crooked Timber comments on
it accusing it of being "Scattershot".
UTOPIAN_SPLIT
Wright's main examples of real utopianism are
(as Holbo describes them):
o wikipedia
o "participatory city budgeting in Brazil"
o "Mondragon worker-owned cooperatives in Spain"
o "a guaranteed basic income."
The last of the 4 is a different
logical category: it hasn't
happened yet, but Wright wants to This book is remarkably
argue it's a realistic possibility. similar to "Nowtopia"
(2008) by Chris Carlsson,
There's a certain "and then a miracle where Carlsson has a
happens" leap there... three things "grabbag" of his own,
have happened that you wouldn't have intended to show that
believed were possible, therefore... there are things you can
do right now to improve
IMPOSSIBLE the world, without waiting
for The Revolution:
Holbo comments: "Outlaw bicycling, urban
permaculture, biofuels, free
"Nothing wrong with a grab-bag of software, even the Burning
examples, but inductive proof of Man festival, are windows
the viability of socialism in a into a scarcely visible
more general sense this ain’t." social transformation ...
In myriad ways, people are
If that's all you wanted, wouldn't you taking back their time and
point to a socialist democracy in technological know-how from
Northern Europe? Sweden used to be a the market and in small
popular example (though one wonders why under-the-radar ways, are
they're letting themselves be used as a making life better right now."
tool against Julian Assange...).
[link]
So evidentally, Wright means
something more extreme by Carlsson is right up there
"socialism", and some place with Wright in the Marxist
like Sweden doesn't qualify. intellectual/rhetorical
framing as well, but Carlsson
Watching an April has the advantage in numbers
2010 lecture by Wright of real world examples. (But
(an online video), I then I haven't gone through
see that Wright is all of Wright's book, he may
proud of demanding have some additional stocking
that people go stuffers.)
*beyond* Sweden.
[link]
He insists that people look
at their best examples and
ask themselves how to improve
them, as opposed to just
taking whatever exists as And yet, that's precisely the
the only menu of possibilities. approach that makes his book
of interest, isn't it?
He criticizes the "policy analyst"
approach, where you look at the full
spectrum of existing cases, and
try to choose the best one.
But it's not clear what's supposed to
be wrong with that approach (except
it's not "nowhere" enough for him).
Wright talks about his
fellow intellectuals:
"Basically, they were saying we
should all be like Sweden." And
he adds that "the challenge I But actually: isn't "what's wrong with
gave them is 'what's wrong with Sweden" the point that Wright needs to
Sweden?'"; "what reforms wouild establish? You don't just go beyond
you suggest for the very best to go beyond, you do it because what
case that you see?" you have doesn't seem adequate.
Wright calls these
Wright uses a "three ways of (Can we infer that he feels
taxonomy of organizing power there are other kinds of
organizational over the economy". organization for things that
mechanisms: are not "the economy"?)
o statism: force of law,
government edict. But Wright (unusually so, for him)
uses a conventional meaning for
o capitalism: markets statism, referring to command and
regulated by profit control economies (the Soviet Union,
seeking, self-interest Maoist China, perhaps Nazi Germany).
o socialism: cooperative
voluntary activity of
civil society One notices immediately that
this is an odd definition of
He likes the slogan socialism that matches common
"putting the social usage only very loosely.
back in socialism".
Perhaps it explains why he doesn't
Is any social regard any actual socialist
activity then governments as good enough for him
socialist? (too statist): for him socialism
would seem to be what I would
Love is socialism. expect to see called "anarchism",
(When it isn't or "anarcho-syndicalism" (though
capitalism.) it's entirely understandable why
one might look for other terms).
Wright goes on to make ANARCHY
it clear that his
trinity is not intended
to be mutally exclusive Really though, a place like
categories. Hybrids are "Sweden" is a poor fit for any of
possible, in fact these his three categories, right? You
three elements might be couldn't call it "statist", and
thought of as "variables". while it no doubt has some of the
voluntary activity Wright likes
I think this is what to call "socialist" that isn't
confused me about why the rest of us call Sweden a
Wright at the "socialist" country. Given
outset: one might Wright's trinity, would you just
start with the regard Sweden as a "capitalist"
present-day US and country, and stick it in the same
argue, say, that category as the US?
"regulation should
be increased".
Does that mean you're So, another question:
turning up the
"statist" knob? Is this set of three
intended to be an
It seemed odd to me to exhaustive set? Are
have state power there other important
discussed in opposition "variables"?
to "capitalism".. that
sounded like the peculiar
understanding of the free
market libertarians (a
different variety of
utopians), and it has Wright's "statism" is the
little in the way of real extreme condition of total
world examples to justify government control of an
it (nearly any market economy (or industry?).
we're familiar with is a His "capitalism" implicitly
creature of contract law, contains a lot of government
and regulated by many control.
government agencies).
E.g. He understands that
capitalism is regulated in
many ways, making "ownership"
a complex concept (it's not
quite "you get to do whatever
you want with it").
On the other hand, his
definition of "socialism"
seems very expansive in
odd ways-- one way of
understanding markets is
that it's all about
voluntary agreements
between free individuals.
It is interesting that it
It's a general characteristic often doesn't *feel* all
of dealing with other human that "voluntary"... but
beings: you can only make a isn't that also true of
deal if the deal is offerred, life in "civil society"?
and often you won't get the
offers you want, and when the And a democratically
available deals seem poor, controlled state
then you're bound to feel might have state-run
coerced by circumstance, if by industries, but we
nothing else. would not normally
think of this as
"statism", correct?
Does democratic
control have enough
of a voluntary
character to fit in
the bucket Wright
labels "socialism"?
Wright grinds through his definitions
for pages on end, veering between the
tediously obvious, and completely
confused. He says things like this
very seriously:
"... only in capitalism is it the case that
economically based power plays the predominant
role to determine the use of economic resources."
Myself, I would think it's tautological that
whatever forces are controlling economic resources
are by definition economic powers. Wright's minor
paradox here is sensible only given his parade of
definitions, and one might take it as a hint that
there's a problem with them.
Wright admits:
"The idea of socialism rooted in
social power is not the conventional All the cool kids like
way of understanding socialism." socialism, but socialism
is a flop, ergo we must
So this is a new, made-up term re-define socialism as
that re-uses an old label. And something else.
yet, the meaning assigned to this
label is hardly new, is it? Preferably as something
that has not (yet) flopped
Old wine in an old bottle, (too badly).
but a *different* old bottle.
"The definition of socialism offered
here in terms of social ownership
and social power does not preclude
the possibility that markets could
play a substantial role ..."
Cool, but then, this muddies what
he means by "capitalism", doesn't
it? (Though, shortly after this,
he offers up the possibility of
hybrids between his three
elements... it might be that this
remark is foreshadowing of that point.)
Just to be clear, I don't think that
Wright is saying anything tremendously
stupid anywhere here. It is not clear to
me that he's saying anything at all.
Dissent, Winter 2011:
[link]
There's another review of "Envisioning Real
Utopias" by Russell Jacoby, Public Intellectual
(TM), that's amusing to read, but indulges in
so much hostile snark, it almost discredits
itself. Jacoby essentially complains that
Wright is full of himself, but that wouldn't
bother me if Wright were also full of something
worth hearing.
"Wright lives in a bubble of like-minded
sociologists and political theorists."
Well okay... but if the guys in the bubble really
had something, if their approach looked like it
might go somewhere, that could be okay.
Instead I keep getting the sense that he's
a cool kid trying to impress the other
cool kids using the same in-group jargon.
THE_ODEPIUS_WRECK
I must say, I think the constant
deployment of marxist jargon like
"ownership of the means of production"
is both irritating and obscures
what's really being talked about.
What's a means of production? Where
do they come from? Is there any
reason to distinguish between the
economic power that lets you own a
"means of production" or an "object of
consumption"?
For us knowledge worker-types in a
service-oriented economy, access to
education (and perhaps, business
contacts?) is a more critical issue
than does the boss own the computer or
do you have your own.
I haven't yet come across a
place where Wright shows any
understanding of the
importance of what's often
called, (arguably deceptively)
"intellectual property law".
There's a musty, 18th century
feel to his economic ideas.
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