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21 of 22 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
strategy for revolution, May 17, 2002
This review is from: The Trajectory of Change (Paperback)
In The Trajectory of Change, Michael Albert offers his criticisms and suggestions for the left, a movement that has yet to live up to its potential. He begins from the assumption that mass mobilization is the only way to force fundamental social change. Elites and other privileged groups don't respond to well-reasoned calls for equality, only to popular and militant demands for change -- as seen in the struggles for labor rights, civil rights, women's rights, and against the Vietnam war. Yet activists frequently forget the need to mobilize and concentrate instead on refining their own tactics, distancing themselves from the people they need to actually win change. If we accept the need to organize ever greater numbers of people with ever greater militancy, where do go then? According to Albert we first have to reach out beyond social barriers like race and class (leftist university students need to talk to people in sports bars), and then we have to give a lot of thought to the "stickiness problem". That is, why do so few people stick with left activism after being exposed to it? The two key issues Albert brings up are a lack of vision and a culture of personal criticism. If the movement can offer incisive critiques of social inequality but has no idea what institutions it wants to put in place, isn't activism literally pointless? And if interpersonal relations in the left have more to do with castigating activists who eat at McDonald's, wear Nikes, or watch TV than with making friends and partying, who would want to stay? Running through each of Albert's arguments is the idea that we have to start paying attention to class. The left is now highly sensitive to race and gender inequality, both within and without the movement. So why is class inequality ignored in society and reproduced in our organizations? Albert has his own highly original explanation for why attention to class, once the preeminent target, virtually disappeared from the left (pp. 87-103), but the ultimate point is that classlessness needs to become a priority again -- both because the left opposes oppression and because working people won't find the left attractive until it stops reproducing the hierarchical forms of organization they suffer from every day in their work lives. In all, this is a vital book for anyone working for social change. And it's short enough that even the busy activist can read it in a couple days.
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1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
not communism, March 12, 2006
This review is from: The Trajectory of Change (Paperback)
This is an excellent book by a well read, thoughtful activist who is, by the way, not a communist. Many of Albert's other works, along with Robin Hahnel, describe an alternative economic system to both capitalism and communism called a participatory economy - parecon for short. The Trajectory of Change is written to point out tools and activities that we can use so that we will some day achieve it.
Contrary to what the other reviewer says, this alternative system would not destroy incentive, take away peoples dreams, place everyone under State rule or take away anything from the vast majority of people. Albert and Hahnel describe a system that would give people real incentive by compensating everyone for their effort and sacrifice; that would empower people's dreams through eliminating the limitations of a system based in private ownership of productive property, corporate hierarchies, disempowering jobs and an unfair, inefficient market; that would eliminate the State as we've known it by replacing it with a bottom-up federation of democratic councils in which everyone would participate at the base; and in which no one, rather than the State or capitalists, would own the productive property, thus allowing everyone to benefit from it. As well, less than 20% of the population owns these things now and subsequently use them to exploit the other 80 plus percent. The only people that need fear parecon are the corporate CEOs and VPs, Presidents, Prime Ministers, and the rest of the ruling elite.
Check out:
Parecon by Michael Albert
Economic Justice and Democracy by Robin Hahnel
www.zmag.org
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5 of 29 people found the following review helpful:
1.0 out of 5 stars
Communism, March 1, 2005
This review is from: The Trajectory of Change (Paperback)
This Michael Albert is a Communist. Period! The problem with his logic is there is no logic. A system which destroys the incentive to go beyond others and excel is a system of medieval lunacy. The world economies over the last 250 years are based on men and women pursuing their dreams. Socialism takes this away from people who want more in life. To place everyone under State Rule would be disastrous for all on earth.
Again these left wing people can't see beyond their front yard.
They fail to see the consequences of their actions.They are simply communist and thieves who want to take away from you and me and give to the state to be distributed equally. Now tell me why work hard if their is no reward. These people should scare everyone.
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