Interview with Michael Albert, co-founder of Z Magazine and proponent of Parecon Michael, about twenty years ago, you and Robin Hahnel developed participatory economics, or Parecon, as an alternative to capitalism and centrally planified economies. Could you describe, in a nutshell, your proposal?   Parecon is, as you note, a vision for an economy to replace capitalism, [...]

Markets subjugate ecology, abominate personality, breed poverty, and require gross inequality. War, what is it good for? Not people. Capitalism? It makes accumulation the goal of life and caring a token of failure. But, another world is possible nearly everyone replies. Really, what is it? We want the world and we want it now. Yes, but kind of world do you prefer? Well, when I am asked that question about economics—and it is a good question about culture and kinship, and polity too—I answer, what I want is the fourth of four currently available options.

Source: ZNet by Chris Spannos December 23, 2009 While attention to class has ebbed and flowed among social movements for generations, class rule was always present and the recent economic crisis has forced it back into the spotlight. But what is class rule and why is it important? People define class in diverse ways, but for me classes are [...]