Robert Paterson said it a while back, and Brian Alger just mentioned it. I’m referring to this statement made by Rob:
I am beginning to think that this may be the great work — to build the alternatives rather than to try and reform the existing system.
I think that this is a wonderful mission statement — To build alternatives rather than to try and reform existing systems. I know that we have systemic problems in politics, academia, and health care, to name a few. Instead of trying to tweak these systems, it may be more fruitful to build alternatives that can serve as examples. This does not mean destroying the existing system (as some may argue that managerial capitalist systems can do this all on their own) but creating prototypes for experimentation and learning. It’s kind of like early American democracy that showed many other people how it could work.
