Verso (London), 2003, 304pp., ISBN 1-85984-540-1

Margaret Thatcher once infamously proclaimed: "There is no alternative". The World Social Forum retorts, "Another world is possible." But if this reply is not simply to remain a counter proclamation, then the green-left movement needs to offer a compelling vision of a viable alternative to global capitalism. Michael Albert does just that in this radical book on participatory economics, or 'parecon' for short.

Albert, webmaster of the indispensable ZNet site at www.zmag.org, has worked for many years with frequent co-author and economist Robin Hahnel to conceive, develop and refine an economic vision that honours the principles of equity, solidarity, diversity, self-management and ecological balance. 'Parecon: Life After Capitalism' is the culmination of all this work and ought to become a landmark text that will underpin the struggle to reconstruct a system of economics "as if people mattered", to recall E. F. Schumacher.

Albert spends little time in the book on analysing the iniquities of the Washington consensus and its triumvirate institutions of the WTO, IMF and World Bank, other than the occasional remark such as: "International structures certainly impose severe constraints on domestic choices." All that is taken as given here. Instead, Albert painstakingly sets out a practical programme for a genuinely democratically accountable system of economics.

The market, whether capitalist or socialist, is completely rejected. "The only information markets provide, with or without private property, are the prices of the commodities people exchange." Albert continues: "markets do not provide the qualitative data necessary for producers to judge how their activities affect consumers, or vice versa". Thus, social breakdown, pollution, and human-induced climate change are 'externalities' in market economics. Indeed, "all economic actors are forced to be anti-social and lack the means to do otherwise, in any event."

Parecon, on the other hand, would operate via democratic councils at many levels, including small work teams, broader workplace associations and whole industries, as well as groupings of consumers, neighbourhoods, counties and larger regions. A central concept in parecon is that of "balanced job complexes" involving the sharing out of pleasant, and less pleasant, aspects of running an economy. Each worker would have an equitable and stimulating share of tasks and responsibilities thus ensuring that everyone would have a similar combination of empowerment and quality of life benefits.

If this all immediately sounds overly abstract, idealistic or unfair, you wouldn't be alone. Albert has spent many years explaining parecon to sceptical audiences around the world. That's why he devotes a section to describing in some detail how daily life might actually look in a participatory economy. He then follows that up by raising, then systematically demolishing, a whole range of possible objections to parecon.

How efficient would it be? Wouldn't it stifle creativity and quality? Wouldn't it infringe on privacy? Wouldn't it be too bureaucratic or unwieldy? Even jaundiced views of human nature about the alleged "incapacity of the masses" are exposed for what they are: an excuse to "ignore widespread injustice because to do otherwise would be uncomfortable, costly, and even risky."

US sociologist C. Wright Mills once observed: "Freedom is not merely the opportunity to do as one pleases; neither is it merely the opportunity to choose between set alternatives. Freedom is, first of all, the chance to formulate the available choices, to argue over them - and then, the opportunity to choose." On that basis, parecon is a pragmatic and visionary programme that would certainly boost human freedom. We ought to at least try it out.

8 February 2003

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