The election of Barack Obama has raised hopes in terms of giving the much-needed leadership at a global level, in dealing with the three major crises that the world faces today. These crises are closely intertwined. The first crisis is the crisis of poverty and inequality, which is an unnecessary crisis. The second crisis is the financial crisis, which is causing markets to go up and down, but mostly down. Governments are finding overnight hundreds of billions of dollars to bail out the banks for their stupid and greedy behavior. The third crisis is the most serious, and most urgent of all: the environmental crisis of global warming, of climate change, of the destruction of biodiversity. This is happening much faster than most scientists and governments believed are possible.
Obama’s policies have been decried by his detractors as “Socialistic… spreading the wealth around”. This is reminiscent of the Church in Kerala, which dismisses its critics as “communists and atheists”. Being essentially left leaning, I must honestly confess that I find this simplistic labelling quite irksome, causing me to wonder, “So what?” This article is an attempt at dispassionately reviewing ‘Socialism’ in the way that it has evolved and is perceived.
According to the political theorist Michael Albert, socialism could be viewed from three distinct perspectives:
1. Socialism as an economic system, which suggests state ownership of the means of production and market leading to central planning;
2. Socialism as a collaboration between producers and consumers to self-manage economic outcomes and enjoy equitable remuneration not affected by property ownership, power, or any other social or personal advantage such as racism, sexism, etc;
3. Socialism referring to a much desired society, beyond just the economic realm, and taking into account new gender, cultural, and other relations in the larger society.
Within the perspective of Socialism as an economic system, the elites in the central planning system of the Socialist economy are quite alike to the privileged ruling class who own the means of production under capitalism. They had degenerated into a new class system by monopolizing the conditions of work, and retaining collective control over how all work is conducted, what its outputs are, and who receives its bounty. Hence, under Socialism as an economic model, the elevation of those who coordinate and manage (the economy's planners and managers) into the ruling status, leaves the working class (who are busy doing routine and disempowering labor) subordinate to a new boss: not the same as the old boss, but certainly much like the old boss.
This brand of Socialism ought to be rejected, not because of the Cold War militaristic competition and internal political dictatorship, and corruption that led to the crumbling of Soviet economy. It should be rejected because it is not and never has been compatible with the greatest fulfillment and development of an economy's producers and consumers. What's wrong with this brand of Socialism is that even at its best it is an authoritarian system with economic class rule of the few over the many. It cannot optimally advance desirable values and aims that we aspire to. The conservative and right wing forces allude to this version of Socialism, in order to distract the debates on vital issues like healthcare reforms in US, climate change, etc.
The view of Socialism as a collaboration between producers and consumers is often argued as being simply impossible, and that trying to attain it is more of a pipe-dream. Looking back in history, one could have come across people who made similar arguments about slavery, child labor, overwhelming illiteracy, average life spans in the 20s, 30s, 40s, or 50s, and also about dictatorships. These oponents are also the ones who greedily benefit from such beliefs and hence make loud pronouncements against the potential for economic institutions to empower workers and consumers to impact decisions proportionately as they are affected by them.
Michael Albert and his colleague Robin Hahnel have proposed an economic model called “Participatory Economics” as an alternative to contemporary capitalist market economies and also an alternative to centrally planned socialism. It uses participatory decision making as an economic mechanism to guide the production, consumption and allocation of resources in a given society.
Participatory economics according to its protagonists is built on a few centrally defining institutions: democratic self-managing workers and consumers councils and federations of councils (instead of autocratic corporate hierarchies), remuneration according to effort and sacrifice (instead of remuneration according to property, power, or even output), balanced job complexes that equally empower all workers in their economic activities (instead of an unfair division of labor that leads to a monopoly of information, knowledge, and access to decision-making being vested with the elites), and participatory planning (instead of markets or central planning).
We also come across folks who use the word socialism to refer to a whole better society through safeguarding and promotion of gender-equality and rights of minorities that include gays and immigrants. This view of socialism is least compatible with a Socialist economic system based on centralised planning and control giving rise to political dictatorship, continuing patriarchy, and cultural homogenization. Stalinism could never address issues of sexism, heterosexism, racism, national oppression, and empowerment of people.
There are a large number of people who view a participatory society as a desirable model and vision for the future. They have a vision similar to that of MK Gandhi about self-managed and self-reliant communities (Gram-swarajya), with nested councils that allows for decision-making power and responsibility to reside at the ‘bottom' rather than the hierarchical structure that we presently endure where power and decisions are concentrated at the ‘top'. This is of course antithetical to the ‘trickle-down theory ‘of the Republicans and Conservative parties that provide tax breaks to the businesses and rich citizens.
Kerala today is known globally for its decentralized governing and participatory democracy and the credit goes to the left-front led “Peoples Planning Campaign” in 1996. Even though the left parties were routed in the 2009 Indian elections, there is no denying the fact that the” Left agenda” has not only won the Congress its impressive numbers, it is also seen by the party today to guarantee both its own further successes as well as a just pattern of "development" in the long term.
Participatory society as a societal model is capable of accommodating a positive feminist vision, a political vision that achieves true democracy, and, a cultural vision that yields a non-racist society.
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