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Reviews
Alternatives to Capitalism: Proposals for a Democratic Economy by Robin Hahnel, Erik Olin Wright
brendanjones's review
3.0
An informative read overall, but could have done with editing. Wanted more detail on the practicalities of each author's system, and less diving into minutiae of theory.
The first section from each author could have been massively reduced if they'd had a round of correspondence to answer questions. Instead there was too much time spent arguing unnecessary points based on incomplete information.
Hahnel's arguments were ultimately unconvincing, but his discussions of theory were useful. He writes and argues like someone who's spent altogether too long in academia; he struggles to present ideas in a linear way and goes off on tangents (he should be banned from using footnotes), and he argues like someone who's never had to compromise when ideas and ideals meet the cold light of reality. Olin Wright thankfully called out many of what felt like obvious holes in Hahnel's system.
Far more convinced by Olin Wright than Hahnel, but still much work to be done in this space.
The first section from each author could have been massively reduced if they'd had a round of correspondence to answer questions. Instead there was too much time spent arguing unnecessary points based on incomplete information.
Hahnel's arguments were ultimately unconvincing, but his discussions of theory were useful. He writes and argues like someone who's spent altogether too long in academia; he struggles to present ideas in a linear way and goes off on tangents (he should be banned from using footnotes), and he argues like someone who's never had to compromise when ideas and ideals meet the cold light of reality. Olin Wright thankfully called out many of what felt like obvious holes in Hahnel's system.
Far more convinced by Olin Wright than Hahnel, but still much work to be done in this space.
colin_cox's review
5.0
Philosophers, critical theorists, sociologists, and radical thinkers alike have conceptualized alternatives to capitalism for some time. Many want to challenge the sorts of cultural and, at times, theoretical assumptions regarding capitalism’s inevitability that Mark Fisher, for example, interrogates in Capitalist Realism. There, Fisher argues that capitalism, “is like a pervasive atmosphere, conditioning not only the production of culture but also the regulation of work and education, and acting as a kind of invisible barrier constraining thought and action” (16).
Disrupting this “invisible barrier” is challenging, especially when influential, progressive figures such as Democratic Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi fail to see alternatives to capitalism. During a CNN town hall in 2017, NYU sophomore Trevor Hill questioned Pelosi about the prospect of moving the Democratic Party further left, citing increasing skepticism among millennial voters toward capitalism. In response, Pelosi said, “We’re capitalists, that’s just the way it is.” In that moment, Pelosi betrayed the trust of her progressive constitutes, but more importantly, she disclosed a lack of imagination. Pelosi is not alone in failing to imagine a world beyond capitalism. In 2016, then President Barack Obama wrote in an essay for The Economist, “The world is more prosperous than ever before and yet our societies are marked by uncertainty and unease. So we have a choice — retreat into old, closed-off economies or press forward, acknowledging the inequality that can come with globalisation while committing ourselves to making the global economy work better for all people, not just those at the top.” Regrettably, pressing forward means discovering ways of making capitalism work better. To Obama’s credit, he acknowledged that, “a capitalism shaped by the few and unaccountable to the many is a threat to all,” yet his solution entailed reinstituting regulations instead of rethinking capitalism. According to Obama, a capitalism we cannot trust “cannot continue to deliver the gains they have delivered in the past centuries.” Unlike Pelosi, Obama did not suggest that capitalism lacks alternatives; at least, he did not do so directly. In response to the “radical reforms,” proffered by the left, he argued, “the economy is not an abstraction. It cannot simply be redesigned wholesale and put back together again without real consequences for real people.” What Obama failed to disclose is something I think he knows: capitalist markets work not when those “real consequences” are eradicated, but when those “real consequences” are hidden. The foundational lie at the core of capitalism is the notion that under the correct, deregulated conditions, everyone will flourish and profits will continue to rise ad infinitum.
As I write this, the American left is becoming more progressive. Upstart crows like Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez call themselves Democratic Socialists and advocate for progressive policies such as a $15 minimum wage and a jobs guarantee program. Yet, these policies fail in their visionary fervor because they fail to conceptualize a world beyond capitalism.
This is why Alternatives to Capitalism: Proposals for a Democratic Economy is so important: it articulates what a progressive, post-capitalist world can look like. Hahnel and Olin Wright adopt a readable, dialogic format to develop their theories and elucidate key points of disagreement. Hahnel’s Participatory Economy theory is comprised of “self-governing democratic councils of workers and consumers where each member has one vote.” Jobs are “balanced for empowerment and desirability by the members of workers councils themselves” and workers receive “compensation according to effort as judged by one’s workmates.” Finally, councils and federations of workers “propose and revise their own interrelated activities without central planners or markets, under rules designed to generate outcomes that are efficient, equitable, and environmentally sustainable.” Hahnel’s skepticism toward capitalists markets underpins the principal features of a Participatory Economy. Means of production and resource allocation become smaller and localized thus more democratic and egalitarian.
Olin Wright’s alternative functions as a synthesis or “mix of diverse forms of participatory planning, state regulatory mechanisms, and markets.” Wright is skeptical that Participatory Planning could ever “completely displace markets,” yet, like Hahnel, he is committed to championing a system that rejects “inequalities in material conditions of life that are the result of talents or contributions or brute luck and certainly of power.”
Olin Wright’s theory feels far more practical than Hahnel’s, but Hahnel’s approach illustrates the depth of creative thinking on the left. It’s easy to dismiss Hahnel’s Participatory Planning as utopian idealism, but perhaps utopian thinking isn’t so bad when attempting to combat the perception that capitalism is just “the way it is.” Olin Wright, for example, makes a compelling case for utopian thinking in Chapter 4 when he writes, “Real utopias…envision the contours of an alternative social world that embodies emancipatory ideals and then look for social innovations we can create in the world as it is that move us towards that destination.”
With both approaches, Hahnel and Olin Wright offer their readers visions of progressive thinking that work beyond the boundaries of capitalist ideology. Neither theory is perfect (nor that new), but collectively they constitute a critical intervention that shifts the terms of discourse for those on the left.
Disrupting this “invisible barrier” is challenging, especially when influential, progressive figures such as Democratic Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi fail to see alternatives to capitalism. During a CNN town hall in 2017, NYU sophomore Trevor Hill questioned Pelosi about the prospect of moving the Democratic Party further left, citing increasing skepticism among millennial voters toward capitalism. In response, Pelosi said, “We’re capitalists, that’s just the way it is.” In that moment, Pelosi betrayed the trust of her progressive constitutes, but more importantly, she disclosed a lack of imagination. Pelosi is not alone in failing to imagine a world beyond capitalism. In 2016, then President Barack Obama wrote in an essay for The Economist, “The world is more prosperous than ever before and yet our societies are marked by uncertainty and unease. So we have a choice — retreat into old, closed-off economies or press forward, acknowledging the inequality that can come with globalisation while committing ourselves to making the global economy work better for all people, not just those at the top.” Regrettably, pressing forward means discovering ways of making capitalism work better. To Obama’s credit, he acknowledged that, “a capitalism shaped by the few and unaccountable to the many is a threat to all,” yet his solution entailed reinstituting regulations instead of rethinking capitalism. According to Obama, a capitalism we cannot trust “cannot continue to deliver the gains they have delivered in the past centuries.” Unlike Pelosi, Obama did not suggest that capitalism lacks alternatives; at least, he did not do so directly. In response to the “radical reforms,” proffered by the left, he argued, “the economy is not an abstraction. It cannot simply be redesigned wholesale and put back together again without real consequences for real people.” What Obama failed to disclose is something I think he knows: capitalist markets work not when those “real consequences” are eradicated, but when those “real consequences” are hidden. The foundational lie at the core of capitalism is the notion that under the correct, deregulated conditions, everyone will flourish and profits will continue to rise ad infinitum.
As I write this, the American left is becoming more progressive. Upstart crows like Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez call themselves Democratic Socialists and advocate for progressive policies such as a $15 minimum wage and a jobs guarantee program. Yet, these policies fail in their visionary fervor because they fail to conceptualize a world beyond capitalism.
This is why Alternatives to Capitalism: Proposals for a Democratic Economy is so important: it articulates what a progressive, post-capitalist world can look like. Hahnel and Olin Wright adopt a readable, dialogic format to develop their theories and elucidate key points of disagreement. Hahnel’s Participatory Economy theory is comprised of “self-governing democratic councils of workers and consumers where each member has one vote.” Jobs are “balanced for empowerment and desirability by the members of workers councils themselves” and workers receive “compensation according to effort as judged by one’s workmates.” Finally, councils and federations of workers “propose and revise their own interrelated activities without central planners or markets, under rules designed to generate outcomes that are efficient, equitable, and environmentally sustainable.” Hahnel’s skepticism toward capitalists markets underpins the principal features of a Participatory Economy. Means of production and resource allocation become smaller and localized thus more democratic and egalitarian.
Olin Wright’s alternative functions as a synthesis or “mix of diverse forms of participatory planning, state regulatory mechanisms, and markets.” Wright is skeptical that Participatory Planning could ever “completely displace markets,” yet, like Hahnel, he is committed to championing a system that rejects “inequalities in material conditions of life that are the result of talents or contributions or brute luck and certainly of power.”
Olin Wright’s theory feels far more practical than Hahnel’s, but Hahnel’s approach illustrates the depth of creative thinking on the left. It’s easy to dismiss Hahnel’s Participatory Planning as utopian idealism, but perhaps utopian thinking isn’t so bad when attempting to combat the perception that capitalism is just “the way it is.” Olin Wright, for example, makes a compelling case for utopian thinking in Chapter 4 when he writes, “Real utopias…envision the contours of an alternative social world that embodies emancipatory ideals and then look for social innovations we can create in the world as it is that move us towards that destination.”
With both approaches, Hahnel and Olin Wright offer their readers visions of progressive thinking that work beyond the boundaries of capitalist ideology. Neither theory is perfect (nor that new), but collectively they constitute a critical intervention that shifts the terms of discourse for those on the left.
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