Michael Lebowitz - The Socialist Alternative: Real Human Development

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The Socialist Alternative

Real Human Development

by Michael A. Lebowitz

Copyright 2010 by Monthly Review Press
All rights reserved

Lebowitz, Michael A.

The socialist alternative : real human development / by Michael Lebowitz.

p. cm.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN 978-1-58367-215-0 ISBN 978-1-58367-214-3 (pbk.)

1. Socialism. I. Title.

HX73.L4167 2010

335dc22

2010019380

Monthly Review Press
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For those who must struggle for a society in which wealth does not appear as an immense collection of commodities and where the original sources of all wealth, human beings and nature, are not destroyed.

A specter is haunting the worldthe specter of barbarism. Of course, that prospect has always been latent in capitalism because nothing matters for capital but profits; however, the drive for quantitative expansion that is inherent in capitalism has now generated an ecological crisis. And, as the limits of Earth become apparent, there inevitably arises the question of who is entitled to command increasingly limited resources. To whom will go the oil, the metals, the food, the water? The currently rich countries of capitalism, those that have been able to develop because others have not? The impoverished producers in the world? Following the capitalist path, we can be certain that force will decideimperialism and barbarism.

The purpose of this book is to point to an alternative path. A path focused not upon quantitative growth but on the full development of human potential, not a path of barbarism but one of socialism. And the premise is that we desperately need a vision of that alternative. Because if we dont know where we want to go, no path will take us there.

To clarify and develop that vision, a number of concepts are explored in The Socialist Alternative: socialism as a process rather than a stage; human development as the core of socialism; the key link of human development and practice (which has as its implication the necessity for worker and community management); the understanding of the means of production as a social heritage that belongs properly to no subset of humanity; expansion of the commons in the construction of a solidarian society; socialist conditionality; socialist accountancy; and the socialist mode of regulation.

Where did these ideas come from? Well, certainly a major source is Marx. Indeed, much here extends my discussion of the political economy of the working class set out in Beyond CAPITAL: Marxs Political Economy of the Working Class (1992, 2003). Further, Marxs Grundrisse is especially important for insights into socialism itselfboth because of its concept of an organic system and the distinction between the becoming and the being of such a system, and also because its discussion of self-interest versus communality is an essential link between Marxs earlier and later thoughts on this question.

Another source of ideas for this book comes from the years I spent teaching comparative economic systems. Some of my reflections on the experience of twentieth-century socialist efforts appear in a 1991 article, The Socialist Fetter: A Cautionary Tale, where the concept of a socialist mode of regulation first surfaced (although not named as such until the following year). Indeed, the original conception of this book included a section on the real socialism of the USSR and Eastern Europe and one on the Yugoslav model; however, as I began to write about the question of real socialism, the section expanded from two chapters to five and was still growing! So, I decided to shift the analysis of these and other experiences to a separate project, Studies in the Development of Socialism. Nevertheless, readers will see clearly that the concept of socialism developed here is an alternative to both the real socialism of the Soviet model and the market self-management system of Yugoslavia.

I was surprised, though, to recognize how much here is the product of my personal experiences and activity. Certainly, there is the echo of my time in the Students for a Democratic Society with its slogan that decisions be made by those who are affected by them. Further, my activity in the New Democratic Party (NDP) of Canada (an education into the limits of social democracy) is reflected in strategies posed here for struggle within capitalism. Greatly influenced by the Institute for Workers Control in the United Kingdom, I developed policies for the British Columbia NDP (where I served as economic policy chair and policy chair in the early 1970s) for opening the books of corporations to government and workers and nationalizing firms unwilling to accept these new ground rules for a good corporate citizena definite precursor of the concept of socialist conditionality discussed in this book. Similarly, some themes here return to my work on free buses and neighborhood government for the 1972 NDP electoral efforts in Vancouver and my involvement in community organizing.

However, as will be seen, my experience in Venezuela has been most significant in shaping this volume. Not only the privilege of being present to learn from the exciting developments that have put socialism for the twenty-first century on the world agenda but also for the opportunity to participate in various ways, beginning in 2004, when I became advisor to the then-Ministry for the Social Economy. Some of my talks in Venezuela and reflections on the process there were included in Build It Now: Socialism for the 21st Century.

Although Venezuela is unique in many ways because of its rentist economy and culture, many of the problems that have emerged in the context of trying to build socialism are not. And we need to go beyond the particulars of that case to prepare ourselves for struggle everywhere. Accordingly, The Socialist Alternative draws upon the Venezuelan experiment to develop a general vision of socialism and concrete directions for struggle. Although some specific ideas here (such as the elements of the elementary triangle of socialism) emanate from position papers and my work with Centro Internacional Miranda in Caracas, this is not a book about the Bolivarian process in Venezuela. Yes, that process has definitely revealed the specter of socialism for the twenty-first century, but is that particular specter real? This question will be explored in Studies in the Development of Socialism.

Finally, this book would not have been written were it not for the encouragement and comradeship of Marta Harnecker. Her optimism, intelligence, and dedication to building socialism are a constant inspiration; and her work in Venezuela on participation, communal councils, and communes is an essential contribution to building socialism everywhere (as is her work on the political instrument in