Michael Albert (born April 8, 1947) is an American economist, speaker, writer, and political critic. Since the late 1970s, he has published books, articles, and other contributions on a wide array of subjects. He has also set up his own media outfits, magazines, and podcasts. He is known for helping to develop the

socioeconomic Socioeconomics (also known as social economics) is the social science that studies how economic activity affects and is shaped by social processes. In general it analyzes how modern societies progress, stagnate, or regress because of their local ...

theory of

participatory economics Participatory economics, often abbreviated Parecon, is an economic system based on participatory decision making as the primary economic mechanism for allocation in society. In the system, the say in decision-making is proportional to the impact ...

Biography

Albert was born in New York City and grew up in

New Rochelle, New York New Rochelle (; older french: La Nouvelle-Rochelle) is a city in Westchester County, New York, United States, in the southeastern portion of the state. In 2020, the city had a population of 79,726, making it the seventh-largest in the state of ...

. In 1965, Albert was studying

physics Physics is the natural science that studies matter, its fundamental constituents, its motion and behavior through space and time, and the related entities of energy and force. "Physical science is that department of knowledge which r ...

MIT The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) is a private land-grant research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Established in 1861, MIT has played a key role in the development of modern technology and science, and is one of the m ...

. He objected to the US military's funding of the university. This, along with the

civil rights movement The civil rights movement was a nonviolent social and political movement and campaign from 1954 to 1968 in the United States to abolish legalized institutional Racial segregation in the United States, racial segregation, Racial discrimination ...

, led Albert to become politically active. He became a member of

Students for a Democratic Society Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) was a national student activist organization in the United States during the 1960s, and was one of the principal representations of the New Left. Disdaining permanent leaders, hierarchical relationships ...

and opposed the Vietnam War. He was expelled from MIT, in January 1970, for disruptive behaviour, although he claimed the charges were 'cooked-up'. Albert founded

South End Press South End Press was a non-profit book publisher run on a model of participatory economics. It was founded in 1977 by Michael Albert, Lydia Sargent, Juliet Schor, among others, in Boston's South End. It published books written by political activi ...

in 1977 along with

Lydia Sargent Lydia Sargent (January 10, 1942 – September 27, 2020) was an American feminist, writer, author, playwright, and actor. Biography She was a founder and original member of the South End Press Collective, as well as Z Magazine, which she co-ed ...

and

Juliet Schor Juliet B. Schor (born 1955) is an economist and Sociology Professor at Boston College. She has studied trends in working time, consumerism, the relationship between work and family, women's issues and economic inequality, and concerns about climat ...

, among others. In 1987, Albert founded ''Zeta Magazine'' with Sargent. The magazine focused on libertarian and anarchist socialist thought. It was renamed ''Z Magazine'' in 1989. In 1990–91, Albert and

Robin Hahnel Robin Eric Hahnel (born March 25, 1946) is an American economist and professor emeritus of economics at American University. He was a professor at American University for many years and traveled extensively advising on economic matters all over t ...

worked on outlining their ideas around participatory economics. They published ''Looking Forward'' and ''The Political Economy of Participatory Economics'', with the later including an

economic model In economics, a model is a theoretical construct representing economic processes by a set of variables and a set of logical and/or quantitative relationships between them. The economic model is a simplified, often mathematical, framework desig ...

of the system. Doug Brown, writing in the

Journal of Economic Issues The ''Journal of Economic Issues'' is an academic journal of economics. The current editor-in-chief is William Waller ( Hobart and William Smith Colleges). It is published by Taylor & Francis on behalf of the Association for Evolutionary Economics ...

said their alternative to markets was novel, but mainly of academic interest. By 1995, the organisation ''Z Magazine'' had branched out providing online content and media training. Along with the magazine the ventures are collectively known as ''

Z Communications Z Communications is a left-wing activist-oriented media group founded in 1986 by Michael Albert and Lydia Sargent.Max Elbaum''Revolution in the Air: Sixties Radicals Turn to Lenin, Mao and Che'' London, England, UK; New York, New York, US: Vers ...

''. In 2003, ''Parecon: Life After Capitalism'' was published further outlining participatory economics in a more accessible, less academic format. The book was translated into 20 languages. Reviewing the book

Paul Ormerod Paul Andrew Ormerod (born 20 March 1950) is a British economist who is a partner at Volterra Partners consultancy. Additionally, he is a visiting professor at UCL Centre for Decision Making Uncertainty. Research Ormerod has researched complexity ...

felt Albert's criticisms of

capitalism Capitalism is an economic system based on the private ownership of the means of production and their operation for Profit (economics), profit. Central characteristics of capitalism include capital accumulation, competitive markets, pric ...

were unfounded. Albert spoke at the

World Social Forum The World Social Forum (WSF, pt, Fórum Social Mundial ) is an annual meeting of civil society organizations, first held in Brazil, which offers a self-conscious effort to develop an alternative future through the championing of counter-hegemoni ...

in the same year. He spoke at

European Social Forum The European Social Forum (ESF) was a recurring conference held by members of the alter-globalization movement (also known as the Global Justice Movement). In the first few years after it started in 2002 the conference was held every year, but late ...

in 2004. Albert was a founding member of the International Organization for a Participatory Society, in 2012.

Sean Michael Wilson Sean Michael Wilson is a comic book writer from Edinburgh, Scotland. He has written more than 30 books with a variety of US, UK and Japanese publishers and has been nominated for both the Eisner and Harvey book awards, and won a medal in the Jap ...

created a comic book based on Albert and his ideas in 2013.

Beliefs

Albert identifies himself as a

market abolitionist Market abolitionism is the belief that the economic market should be completely eliminated from society. Market abolitionists argue that markets are ethically abhorrent, antisocial and fundamentally incompatible with long term human and environ ...

and believes markets should be replaced with

Criticism

In 2006,

David Schweickart David Schweickart (born 1942) is an Americans, American mathematician and philosopher. He holds a Bachelor's Degree, BS in Mathematics from University of Dayton, a Doctor of Philosophy, PhD in Mathematics from University of Virginia, and a PhD in ...

wrote a detailed critique of participatory economics called ''Nonsense on Stilts: Michael Albert's Parecon''. He claimed three fundamental features of the economic system are flawed.

Bibliography

* ''What Is To Be Undone?'', (1974) * ''Stop the Killing Train: Radical Visions for Radical Change'', (1994) * ''Thinking Forward: Learning To Conceptualize Economic Vision'', (1997) * ''Moving Forward: Program for a Participatory Economy'', (2001) * ''The Trajectory of Change: Activist Strategies for Social Transformation'', (2002) * ''Parecon: Life After Capitalism'', (2003)

Verso ' is the "right" or "front" side and ''verso'' is the "left" or "back" side when text is written or printed on a leaf of paper () in a bound item such as a codex, book, broadsheet, or pamphlet. Etymology The terms are shortened from Latin ...

* ''Thought Dreams: Radical Theory for the 21st Century'', (2003)

* ''Realizing Hope: Life beyond Capitalism'', (2006) * ''Remembering Tomorrow: From SDS to Life After Capitalism, A Memoir'', (2007) Seven Stories Press * ''Occupy Theory'' (2013) * ''Occupy Vision'' (2013) * ''Occupy Strategy'' (2013) * ''Practical Utopia: Strategies for a Desirable Society'', preface by

Noam Chomsky Avram Noam Chomsky (born December 7, 1928) is an American public intellectual: a linguist, philosopher, cognitive scientist, historian, social critic, and political activist. Sometimes called "the father of modern linguistics", Chomsky is ...

(2017)

PM Press PM Press is an independent publisher, founded in 2007, that specializes in radical, Marxist and anarchist literature, as well as crime fiction, graphic novels, music CDs, and political documentaries. It has offices in the San Francisco Bay Area, ...

/Kairos * ''No bosses'' (2021)

Co-authored

* ''Unorthodox Marxism'', with R. Hahnel (1978) * ''Socialism Today and Tomorrow'', with R. Hahnel (1981) * ''Marxism and Socialist Theory'', with R. Hahnel (1981) * ''Liberating Theory'', with Holly Sklar, Lydia Sargent, Mel King, Robin Hahnel, Noam Chomsky and Leslie Cagan (1986) * ''Talking about a Revolution: Interviews with Michael Albert, Noam Chomsky, Barbara Ehrenreich, Bell Hooks, Peter Kwong, Winona LaDuke, Manning Marable, Urvashi Vaid, Howard Zinn'' (1998) * ''Quiet Revolution in Welfare Economics'', with R. Hahnel (1990) Princeton University Press, * ''Looking Forward: Participatory Economics for the Twenty First Century'', with R. Hahnel (1990) * ''The Political Economy of Participatory Economics'', with R. Hahnel (1991)

Princeton University Press Princeton University Press is an independent publisher with close connections to Princeton University. Its mission is to disseminate scholarship within academia and society at large. The press was founded by Whitney Darrow, with the financial su ...

References