I've numbered my responses to Stephen, John, Antti, Edgar, Elliott, and Jordon, and made some general comments as well...

1. Stephen: I think this is a fantastic idea. It is what several of us in New York, Michigan, and a few other parts of the country are trying to establish - that is, a nationwide revolutionary organization unified around complementary holism (the method of social analysis outlined in "Liberating Theory" by Michael Albert, et. al.), participatory socialist vision, and several core strategic concepts (i.e., the importance of building a multifaceted, counter-hegemonic bloc with its own network of organizations and institutions capable of uniting millions of people around a shared vision of a new society and launching a protracted struggle against the authoritarian state, capitalism, white supremacy, patriarchy, and heterosexism).

Regarding the convocation of a conference in the near future, I believe it is of great importance for the objectives, rules, and procedures of this conference to be firmly established in advance. This gives participants adequate time to prepare accordingly and avoids the pitfalls of a free-for-all. I strongly urge you to discard your hesitation and to take the next step by offering concrete proposals so that ZMI graduates, as well as folks from Z Communications, local PPS groups (in Austin, Dallas-Fort Worth, etc.), Autonomy Alliance, OFS, and other organizations and projects can provide concrete feedback, as well as make their own suggestions regarding the agenda for such a conference.

I'm unsure what you mean by a "strategic international Left bloc," but if by this you mean the formation of an international federation of national revolutionary organizations unified around a shared method of analysis, vision, and strategy, as well as specific organizational principles, conditions of membership, and programmatic points, then I wholeheartedly agree. Let's get to it!


2. John: I must disagree with your suggestion to "focus a lot on local issues that regular people not too familiar with leftist politics care about, and then educate people along the way about [participatory socialism]." I don't disagree with your emphasis on local issues or educating people along the way - rather, it is your prioritization of short-term reform struggles above the task of unifying revolutionaries (there are more of us than we sometimes realize!) into a common organization. While an extreme minority, there are revolutionaries dispersed across the country and internationally who are already exploring (or would explore if exposed to) the idea of building a new type of revolutionary organization unified around the vision of participatory, self-managed society. It is true that people are unfamiliar with the "participatory repertoire," but this is because we must intensify our efforts to popularize and generalize our analysis, vision, strategy, and program.

The advantage of a revolutionary organization is that the collectively shared vision of the group directly informs and gives deeper meaning to the day-to-day work of a grassroots organizer. People are already struggling around "local issues" (wages, rent, transportation, domestic violence, climate change, healthcare, education, war, police brutality, etc.), but in a scattered and oftentimes short-sighted way. I believe Stephen is correct in stating that the revolutionary process should be "reciprocal" in the sense that our vision informs our strategy, our strategy informs our practice, and the results of our practice inform our vision and strategy and so on and so forth.


3. Antti: Your plans for creating a project in Finland sound fantastic. However, I would strongly urge you to consider utilizing a name broader than "Parecon Finland" so as not to give undue privilege to our economic vision, even if your political work in the opening phase consists primarily of advocating the vision of a classless, participatory economy.

Also, your comment regarding PPS-UK's strategy of local groups (presumably affiliated to PPS-UK) evolving into political and economic councils seems right on. I agree that this is the wrong approach for participatory socialists. I believe historical experience (especially Germany 1918-1923) reveals the importance of revolutionaries maintaining their organizational autonomy. Councils should be grassroots organizations bringing together the oppressed and exploited regardless of one's political allegiance - the emphasis of the councils should be on participatory self-management (that is, the masses of people actually taking control of political and economic life). Members of a revolutionary organization should participate as members of these councils, but they should not conflate the role of grassroots organizations and institutions with the role of a revolutionary organization.

Furthermore, it is reductionist to assume that the revolutionary organization's objectives have been completed once the political and economic councils have been established. First of all, the councils could be crushed by the forces of the state and capitalism, or the members of the councils could have drastically different ideas regarding the reorganization of the polity and economy (i.e., not being fully unified around a market abolitionist program). Furthermore, even assuming the victory of the political and economic councils, our task as revolutionaries is not only the creation of participatory polity and economy, but to smash racism, patriarchy, and heterosexism, and to struggle for intercommunalism, women's liberation, and sexual liberation.


4. Edgar: Please don't assume that geographical differences would prevent you from participating in such an initiative! For example, I believe that producing literature and other media that can be used to popularize and generalize our politics is extremely important during this initial phase, and access to the internet is the only prerequisite for this task. There's still plenty of work for you to do before a revolutionary organization takes root in Latvia!

5. Elliott: I unfortunately think the roots of the problem you mention (that is, visionary groups being few in number) is a result of the fact that: 1.) many advocates of participatory economics lack grassroots organizing experience (this is an assumption based on numerous conversations and could be incorrect), and 2.) we lack an organizational framework for individuals dispersed across the country to jump into. I think it is less an underestimation of the impact a revolutionary vision would have on our day-to-day organizing than it is a clear plan for building a revolutionary organization and strategy for integrating visionary politics into our daily practice. Furthermore, a vision (i.e., participatory economics) is just a good idea until thousands (and eventually millions) of people struggle for its victory, and an organization is a necessary element in facilitating this. We should be audacious in our declaration of war against all forms of oppression and exploitation, and proclaim loudly and clearly that we are of the Left.


6. Jordan: I agree that a network of participatory institutions (cooperative workplaces, for example) is a fantastic idea (as is the idea of a directory of such institutions), and a necessary component of a revolutionary bloc in the U.S., Canada, and globally. But let's not forget that our struggle is against the totality of oppressions, and with regards to the economy in particular, alternative institutions alone won't cut it. We need vehicles of struggle - not only institutions that prefigure the features of the new society, but organizations capable of waging a struggle for power. As Rosa Luxemburg once said, "...in this last class struggle of history for the highest aims of humanity our motto toward the enemy is: 'Hand on the throat, knee on the breast!' ". The beneficiaries of class society will throw everything they have at the working-class, and we will need to utilize a variety of tools in our fight for liberation.


7. Regarding my own experiences with the Organization for a Free Society (OFS), I believe it may be of use to revolutionaries in the U.S. and internationally for us to provide a summation of our successes and failures thus far. Furthermore, I strongly encourage Stephen and others (nationally and internationally) to contact OFS directly to discuss possibilities for collaboration: info@afreesociety.org

In general, we need to follow the example set by people like Mark Evans and Michael Albert who have diligently attempted to establish firm links between various projects internationally, with the long-term intention of building an organization of revolutionaries on a global scale. Unfortunately, many of us (including members of OFS) have thus far failed to participate actively in these conversations. Stephen, I admire you for daring to take another step forward with this proposal!

I'm just outside of Chicago.  I will definitely be starting something along the lines of a PPS group.  I only worry that it would be tough to find a lot of people who are already familiar with Parecon, Parsoc, etc.  I think it might be better to still start it as a PPS-USA idea, but focus a lot on local issues that regular people not too familiar with leftist politics care about, and then educate people along the way about Parecon, Parsoc, Parpolity, etc.  To put it another way, I think it might be counter intuitive to start off by having too heavy of an emphasis on learning the whole Participatory repertoire.  I think it would be good to start off with the basic outline of a participatory society where everyone has a say, work on local issues, socialize, and also teach people about possible alternatives, and experiment with them along the way.  

That is my long way of saying, I'm in.

 

Steve,

Your post seems very timely and sensible.  I have been thinking almost nonstop since Woods Hole about what I can do to help with the seemingly overwhelming problems around me.  (I find reading "The Washington Connection and Third-World Fascism," by Chomsky and Herman, and "Killing Hope: The CIA and U.S. Military Interventions Since WWII," by William Blum, to be simultaneously starkly illuminating and numbingly depressing.)

I was particularly interested in seeing the UK website you referenced.  As you say, why not simply start with what they have and go from there -- it seems to be exactly tailored to what we are looking for and would be a HUGE savings in time and energy.

I will help (or "participate", I should say) as best I can.  We all have time constraints, but my more particular constraint is that I am a complete neophyte when it comes to the whole concept of PARECON and Participatory Society in general that appears to have been thought out in such remarkable detail by Michael, Stephen Shalom, and others.  So I need to be studying all of this before I will have much, if anything, to contribute. 

On note of hope, here's something I read in David Dellinger's memoirs, "From Yale to Jail" that I liked and that applies here:  "As I once heard a wise person say, 'If you tell me that what I propose will take a thousand years to accomplish, that's all the more reason for starting this afternoon.'"

Kemp Scales

Well, first of all, I believe it is a great idea and, in fact, an obvious one. I mean, you are right that the ZMI needs (was) to be more than just a friendly gathering -- it is a platform that helps us, to borrow Michael Albert's words, plant the seeds of the future society (though not exclusively, of course). So what I can say then is -- let's go for it!

On a more practical and personal note, however, I should say that I cannot really join this very initative due to geographical differences. I am, nevertheless, making a tiny progress towards starting up something similar in my home country Latvia.

So good luck and let's hope this works for both you and I.

E.

Yes, I agree.  I have to admit that I don't know how to progress right now, except through ways that don't seem to be working (maybe they will later). 

For me the first step was to contact people who were in political clubs at my school, or as well as to try and connect with former classmates who might be interested.  So far I don't think many people are interested.

Part of it is undoubtedly the typical catch-22, where people won't join until there are more people in the group, but there is another odd problem I think I've noticed.

It seems odd that Znet is such a popular website, but that groups organized around participatory economics are comparatively few. 

I think it is because people underestimate how much parecon can contribute to organizing.  I think the underestimation comes from an irrational fear of appearing 'overly left'.  There are more than a few politically interested people I've met who seem to have this fear.  I think it is probably something that just comes from the standard propoganda, and if people analyzed it consciously they would not be so fearful.  Stay tuned for an exciting and inspiring blog on this topic.  Not sure who is going to write it though.