Looking Forward: Participatory Economics for the Twenty First Century

by Michael Albert, Robin Hahnel

How work can be organized efficiently and productively without hierarchy; how consumption could be fulfilling and also equitable; and how participatory is planning could promote solidarity and foster self-management.

Genres: Economics, Nonfiction, Politics

153 pages, Paperback

First published December 1, 1990

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

[Ariel · Rating 4 out of 5]

Finally finished this book! Looking Forward is an optimistic and practical model to an egalitarian, democratic alternative to capitalism and central planning. Looking Forward isn't perfect, but I appreciate the vision instead of critique. Looking Forward reminded me of radical science fiction because Albert and Hahnel try to manifest their utopian future, but unlike fiction, they're explicit about what they're doing.

[Lambert · Rating 5 out of 5]

Looking Forward lays out a detailed vision of a libertarian socialist economy, an alternative to capitalism and state socialism. Next time someone tells you there is no viable alternative to capitalism, tell them to read this book. I've probably recommended Looking Forward to more people than any other book. While Albert and Hahnel have both written numerous other books on Parecon (I've read most of them) this one is the best and the most accessable. It is written in plain language and full of great pictures and diagrams, and even dialogues with potential critics.

[Nathan Colquhoun · Rating 3 out of 5]

started off interesting but got difficult to stay interested as everything got more hypothetical and harder to imagine society ever getting close to what they suggest. I love the concept but would need way more practical ways smaller groups are actually doing it.

[Scott · Rating 5 out of 5]

Really worth a read. The presented alternative economy gives you a lot of perspective on economic relations between people.

[David Hunter · Rating 3 out of 5]

This one is really difficult to assess. Their ideas about worker owned and operated businesses are not new, but the idea of "job complexes" is intriguing and would probably benefit workers.

On the other hand, the ideas about consumers planning their consumption over the period of a year and submitting anonymous requests, using computers to assess the bulk of the data involved in these requests, etc really date the book to the early 90s. Google, Facebook, and the owner of this website, Amazon, use tons of user data in much the same way that the authors suggest. Granted, these companies are not worker-owned or operated, so the context is quite different.

In addition, just looking at the planning aspect, this is in general a horrible idea. Even in market economies, most businesses are terrible at planning. People in general are not very good at predicting the future.

[Ken · Rating 4 out of 5]

A brave book with interesting potential.

I was torn though on his use of straw men-representing Command socialism, Mixed capitalism, and Free market-lassiez faire perspectives.

I fight my own cynicism in saying that maybe we need more utopian dreams again.