Highlights from the Albert interview

by Dave Markland

The youtube videos of an interview with Michael Albert which Bryan linked to in the previous blog entry are very worth checking out, I think. Here's a couple quotes:

"If workers' and consumers' councils are going to be key to the new society that we're going to construct, well then we'd better start building them."

"If self-management is what we're striving towards, then why not self-management in the movement?"

"[Movement media institutions, movement think-tanks, etc] often have a division of labour that's the same as ... major corporations... OK the content's a little better, but the structure is constantly putting the lie to the content. It's constantly pressuring to devolve the content -- which often happens. And it's not inspiring to anybody."

"Women taught us: You can't build a movement to change the world that's as patriarchal, or even more patriarchal, than the world outside. It will not only not have women leadership, it won't have women, period. They won't be able to stomach it -- and neither will sensitive men. So it's strategically disastrous as well as immoral."

"What is it that a working class person perceives when they encounter our movement? Do they perceive a movement that is classless, that is consistent with working people controlling their own lives, that's consistent with an end to the oppressions that they feel -- not just the owner, but managers, engineers, doctors, lawyers, being above them, having more power than them, having more income than them? This stuff doesn't come up. But it's what is at the heart of their alienation..."

"The movement, because it doesn't have a good economic vision, doesn't internally present and inspire the good economic values. Instead it feels more like law school, or a typical corporation... than like a movement that's about getting rid of class and elevating working people."