Gar Alperovitz: New York Police Slowdown and the Classic Challenges of Alternatives to Capitalism
New York Police Slowdown and the Classic Challenges of Alternatives to Capitalism
Wednesday, 14 January 2015 11:26
By Gar Alperovitz,
Truthout | Op-Ed
Quite apart from the political challenges it represents, the current New York City police slowdown illuminates a classic general issue that must be faced by those concerned with how to structure a next system that moves us beyond the problems of both traditional corporate capitalism and traditional state socialism.
While we may enjoy some satisfaction in the NYPD's attempt to enrage its critics by giving them exactly what they've been asking for - i.e. a drastic reduction in the criminalization of the lives of poor communities of color - it's important to confront the additional question of who should be able to make these kind of decisions and how, both now and in serious system-changing discussions. (If every decision about how the NYPD operates were left up to its workers, that would certainly not further the goal of real justice.)
A common position among some theorists is that the answer to the failures of state socialism, for instance, is simply to encourage worker-ownership and self-management of virtually all industry, instance by instance, case by case. Historically, this position was commonly termed "syndicalism."
The traditional "socialist" alternative placed ownership and control in a "community-wide" institution rather than in one that yielded power to "the workers" within any functioning unit. This meant municipal, state, regional or nationalized ownership and control. For syndicalists critical of the kind of top-down bureaucracy that has all too often been associated with socialist experiments, self-management by the workers presents what seems to be a compelling alternative based in freedom and participation. ......................(more)
The complete piece is at:
http://truth-out.org/opinion/item/28514-ny-police-slowdown-and-the-classic-challenges-of-alternatives-to-capitalism