Does the left love capitalism?

Michael Albert today added an interesting post to his blog on participatory economics. It seems that while audiences up to and including the mainstream in countries around the world are interested in hearing about parecon, in the USA not even liberals will give it a shot.

Outside the country, Albert is invited to conferences, the latest parecon book is translated and reviewed, meanwhile American leftist publications like The Nation or The Progressive won't even review the book much less start up a discussion on the vision.

This is strange, to say the least. Liberals know that free markets make all kinds of social inequalities much worse, that they destroy the environment, that they corrupt politics. And here's a proposal that would eliminate markets and replace them with something egalitarian and democratic. Wouldn't we at least want to talk about it?

Maybe these liberals are afraid of appearing too radical? Do they fear that talking about ending capitalism would hurt their credibility? It's possible. But credibility with whom? Who is their audience? Is it regular men and women, or is it those who hold power in society? Most mainline liberal organizations, like NOW, the PIRGs, NAACP, &c, focus their attention on appeals to legislators, corporate leaders, and other highly-placed authority figures. These people would of course dismiss any fundamental challenge to free markets — their power is based on the status quo.

Regular people are too often merely foot soldiers to man the phone banks and collect the petitions, not individuals to be mobilized and empowered in new structures of power. Maybe this audience would be more receptive?

Another possibility, as Albert has suggested, is that the leaders of these magazines and organizations themselves have a class interest in preventing the sort of nonhierarchical structures of parecon. They, like their counterparts in government and corporations, serve at the top of hierarchies, receiving greater pay and authority than those they order around. The people who fund these organizations and read these magazines, too, tend to be from an educated, professional background, expecting the power and perks that accrue to their class. In parecon these sorts of inequities would be eliminated.

Whatever the reason, it's time for the left to stop being afraid. The injustices we fight against, from race to foreign policy, can't be solved as long as capitalism reigns.

(I make the case for parecon here)