It is said that capitalism believes in competition but hates competitors. With this thoughtful book, Robin Hahnel and Erik Olin Wright aim to strengthen the resources of anti-capitalist politics against the charge that ‘there is no alternative’. While there is a debate on the left over the value of engaging in utopian planning of the kind represented by this book, Hahnel and Wright present their approach as supporting radical politics, building confidence rather than distracting from current struggles. The thinking and action inspired by real-world examples (such as participatory budgeting in Porto Alegre) underlines the point. We need concrete inspiration; we need to believe that ‘another world is possible’. In Erik Wright’s words, ‘We need … utopian longing melded to realist thinking about the dilemmas and constraints of building viable alternatives to the world as it is.’
The book sets out two approaches to anti-capitalist utopian thinking, taking the form of a dialogue between the two authors (embedded in a shared commitment to radical conceptions of equality and democracy). Each sets out a position and provides a constructive and reflective commentary on the other’s contribution, and a response to the points raised about their own.
Hahnel’s proposal is for a system of participatory economics, originally developed with the US activist and radical economist Michael Albert. This is essentially a bottom-up method of production and consumption planning. In this book, he focuses on the mechanisms by which individual producers and consumers would collectively elaborate an agreed annual plan, without the need for markets or hierarchical central control. A little more detail on the content of the proposed system at the outset of his dialogue with Wright would have been helpful, although he does provide useful references to his extensive writing on participatory economics elsewhere.
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