Realizing Hope: Life Beyond Capitalism

by Michael Albert

Something is profoundly wrong with capitalist globalization, as neo-liberal policies continue to vastly increase the disparity between rich and poor. 'What is the alternative?' is a question challenging activists around the world. Michael Albert has wrestled with this question for many years, and his answer has captured the imagination of many in both North and South. 'Participatory Economics' - 'Parecon' for short - is Albert's proposal for an economic system which offers a real alternative to capitalism, built on familiar values including solidarity, equity, diversity. In this ambitious new book, Albert goes further. Realising Hope offers a vision of how whole areas of life might be transformed in a post-capitalist society. Whether exploring the way we work, our relationship to the earth, or the transformation of global financial institutions, communities rather than profit are always firmly at the centre.

'Realizing Hope extends to just about every major domain of human concern and mode of human interaction, and investigates with care and insight how, in these domains, parecon-like principles could lead to a far more desirable society than anything that exists, and also how these goals can be constructively approached. It is another very valuable and provocative contribution to the quest for a world of much greater freedom and justice.' - Noam Chomsky, USA

'Realizing Hope opens many doors for social vision and strategy. At a moment when Africa needs an alternative to nationalist politics, Realizing Hope is amazingly timely. Pan-Africanists and Black Marxists alike will find much in this book to enrich and expand our politics.' - Mandisi Majavu, South Africa

'A better world is indeed possible and not just a Utopia. Michael Albert points the way towards a society based on participation and justice. Utopia is somewhere that does not exist yet. This book can help turn a dream into reality.' - Vittorio Agnoletto, Italy

'Albert captures the best of the spirit of the new global social movements. He combines close empirical insights with a magisterial conceptual grasp. We will be arguing about this work for years.' Andrej Grubacic, Serbia

'Realizing Hope mulls over the better society that we may create after capitalism, provoking much thought and offering a generous, hopeful vision of the future. Albert's prescriptions for action in the present are modest and wise; his suggestions for building the future are ambitious and humane.' - Milan Rai, Britain

'Millions across the world are coming together in hitherto unprecedented networks of solidarity to struggle against poverty, inequality, discrimination, and war. These fighters proclaim that a better world is possible. Realizing Hope challenges us to imagine how.' - Sudhanva Deshpande, India

'Realizing Hope goes beyond the primarily economic framework of participatory economics to open the crucial but too rarely posed questions of how to coordinate economic change with the changes we need in other spheres of life.' - Jeremy Brecher, USA

'Michael Albert passionately argues for a different future where equity, diversity, justice, and self-management are more than just distant dreams. Realizing Hope does not shy away from the awesome complexity of human issues, nor does it reek of the stultifying dogmatism of so many left-wing tracts. One can disagree at places, but it forces the reader to think and be conscious of choices.' - Pervez Hoodbhoy, Pakistan.

'Anyone disgusted with existing society - which is to say, just about everyone - who wants to know if there are any alternatives will find Realizing Hope informative, provocative, creative, engaging, and, yes, full of hope.' - Stephen R. Shalom, USA

Genres: Politics, Economics, Nonfiction

208 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 2006

About the author

Librarian Note: There is more than one author in the Goodreads' database with this name. See this thread for more information.

American activist, speaker, and writer. He is co-editor of ZNet, and co-editor and co-founder of Z Magazine. He also co-founded South End Press and has written numerous books and articles. He developed along with Robin Hahnel the economic vision called participatory economics.

Albert identifies himself as a market abolitionist and favors democratic participatory planning as an alternative.

During the 1960s, Albert was a member of Students for a Democratic Society, and was active in the anti-Vietnam War movement.

Albert's memoir, Remembering Tomorrow: From SDS to Life After Capitalism (ISBN 1583227423), was published in 2007 by Seven Stories Press.

Reviews

[Billie Pritchett · Rating 3 out of 5]

Michael Albert's Realizing Hope illustrates different ways in which in a post-capitalist future people could work to promote a world that values, as the mantra goes, solidarity, equity, diversity, and self-management. This book is sort of a sequel to Parecon and continues that logic. The basic idea of Parecon is that there is an alternative to a capitalist economy and that is a democratically controlled economy: a participatory economy, or "parecon." People would decide in councils and councils of councils the ways in which they would like to organize their economy regarding the kind of work they would like to do and the kinds of products they would like to produce and consume. Realizing Hope extends this view of an economy to an ideal political system; kinship and communal relations; international arrangements; the environment; issues related to science and technology, education, and art; and a few others.

Albert's book implies that in a world with a democratically controlled economy, a political system will be organized similar to the economy in different councils will vote on public policy and only insofar as those councils would be affected by the public policy. Kinship and communal relations would be diverse and freedom for a variety of different ways of living would be promoted. Internationally "parecons" would be charitable but wise in its giving of loans and support and trade with other parecons and non-parecons, although the issue isn't quite worked out. And in general, Albert tries to establish, this basic change in orientation of the economy and political system toward a promotion of solidarity, equity, diversity, and self-management would make for a more just world.

As I said about the book Parecon, I am skeptical of grand theories regarding how a political system or economy ought to be organized since it might be that any political or economic system implemented from scratch will eventually turn out not to have properly encountered for all the different things that could go wrong or may change as a system takes its course. And at any rate, it is probably better to try to make one's economy or society or political system or what have you better and more just piecemeal regarding key issues and problems that one seeks to rectify. Lord knows there's enough problems to be addressed.

Whatever the case, even if Albert were right and a democratically controlled economy would be the best form of economy, and if it would be true that a political system that is democratically controlled would be best, it would have been more interesting, to me at least, to have seen Albert spell out in this book what he thinks a real, concrete program could be with regard how in different areas of life people could begin to slowly but surely implement the systems. It seems to me, for instance, that regarding parenting and community, the best way to promote solidarity, equity, diversity, and self-management is to show those things. To be concrete, parents could mutually encourage cultural practices and rituals that make home life seem more sacred (solidarity), allow for an equal exchange of ideas and compensation for kindnesses toward one another through gifts or verbal appreciation (equity), let one another explore differences in lifestyles provided it is democratically agreed the differences would be more beneficial to the individual and the family and to seriously consider such issues (diversity), and let people decide for themselves and express their opinions unadulteratedly and manage their own lives, so long as they confer benefit on themselves and one another (self-management). I mean, I know this sounds saccharine but if someone really believes in these values then something like this is what a different family relationship would look like. Anyway...

[Phil Brett · Rating 3 out of 5]

After getting past the rather naff title there were elements of the book which I enjoyed and found thought provoking. Its basis is the setting out of an alternative economic model to capitalism - Parecom. The prime purpose of Parecom being for need rather than profit.

Albert feels that this is vital because he asserts that capitalism is a deeply flawed system which becasue it is based on competition has inequality, strife and crisis at its root. Here the book is at its strongest, going into some detail. For example, how law and order 'works' in the USA (rather apt, because as I write, there are riots in Ferguson, Missouri over a police shooting of an unarmed black man).

Secondly, he flags up the anti-capitalist/globalisation movements across the globe, which he says, concentrate on what is wrong with the present system, rather than what could replace it. Here too, he is interesting, outlining how a Parecom society would be structured and how it would affect areas as diverse as wages, athletics, art and gender. He adds that few people are 100% supporters of capitalism, with most taking a position that it is the least worst system. So he argues, it is important that we at leaat attempt to outline possible alterntive. So far I am with him.

Where my problem with the book (I have not read any other Albert books so I cannot say that he has done so elsewhere) is that he does not really explain the growth of capitalism, its dynamic, why it has remained despite frequent moments of crisis and how it affects us in even the most intimate areas of our lives. Here I feel he was at his least effective.

He writes at length attacking Marxism; seeing it as being solely concerned with class and economics. He sees socialism as being essentially oppressive, equating Trotskyism with Stalinism. Here I would disagree with him on all three counts. But okay, what does he say about how to remove capitalism? There it gets very vague, almost at times being merely a cheer-leader for various movements. But how they will actually challenge it, he does not really say. Capitalism will not go without a fight, no matter how well meaning or articulate the alternative is presented. How will the rich and powerful be convinced to stop being rich and powerful?

Also by not putting that struggle centre stage he misses out on how people can change themselves through the struggle itself. On how ideology is connected with the type of society we live in. Because of this, he does come out with some beliefs which I think, shall we say, are challengeable. For example, that musical/sporting ability is inherited (says who?); that a 'Good Society' might create a new 'Good' religion (really?) and that it would treat gay and straight 'cultures' equally. The latter position sounds worthy but it does suggest that a 'gay culture' is fixed, ahistorical and will remain. Why? Personally, I would have thought that such a truly equal and just society would drop such labels, just as there is no red-hair or hazel-eye culture in today's society.

But there are things to recomend in the book. I have given it three stars because I did find some of the ideas worthy of consideration and it does contribute to how we could get achieve a better society. Why it was not rated higher, and even possibly could have been lower, is because I think it misses out on what can change capitalism: How we could achieve a fairer more equal world.

[Gentleman-and-scholar · Rating 2 out of 5]

I really struggled with this book, even though it seemed promising at first.
To start with, the writer lays out the framework of his economic model, and the principles it's based on. A similar analysis follows with a model for polity. Even though these models seem to leave a lot of things unexplained or vague (how on earth do we measure effort, how do we cope with the reduction in productivity stemming from reduced rate of experience accumulation, how do we assign "empowering tasks" or "decision oriented tasks" to people that lack the relevant background etc.) the whole concept seems conceivable.
From there on, everything goes downhill. A series of very short chapters explain how everything will fall into place once capitalism is replaced with parecon- literally, everything will be improved, from cultural and gender relations to education, art production and environmental issues.
I wouldn't mind if the arguments on that were simply non-convincing- there is only so much you can say in 6-8 pages anyway. Sadly, the analysis on certain of these issues (gender/race relations) seems extremely shallow and gives the impression the author is not particularly familiar with the issues whereas the rhetoric on crime and education shows that the author has over-idealised his economic theory. The accusation towards Marxists that they overprioritise economy and ignore gender, race, sexuality, culture etc. adds the required dose of irony to the mix.
As Chomsky says in the foreword,it is important to provide a worthy and viable vision that can inspire and inform as an alternative to capitalism. Unfortunately, to inspire one needs to convince first.

[Lee Humphries · Rating 3 out of 5]

You need to read the other books you are told before reading this which a bit late after getting this one first. I felt like there were more questions than answers from reading this book so i'll need to read one of his other books like Moving Forward. The last two chapters on Marxism & Anarchism were odd. Albert suggested that Marxism struggles with things like Gender? Then the Anarchist chapter becomes fixated by some person who I have never heard of who writes about Primitivism. I wouldn't have put the two together and if you were goign to try write an article about Anarchism & how the economy would function - this would not be it. It would have used the Spanish Revolution a starting point and talked more on workers' co-operatives. Not some nutter who wants to abolish all technology like that's representative of all anarchist writers and thinkers. Really did not get the last chapter at all.

[Javier · Rating 2 out of 5]

Rather unimpressive.