Thank you for the plug. I appreciate it.

SEK–

I also thought Joseph’s critique was a good one, not least because it spurred me to clarify my thinking even further. I’ve finally gotten around to posting a response over at my site. I don’t know if it will confirm or dispel your skepticism, but I hope it’s the latter. My “revolutionism,” such as it is, is neither apocalyptic nor messianic. I also agree that pragmatism is important; however, I don’t think pragmatism is antithetical to a revolutionary position, as long as we think of revolution not as an event, but as a practice engaged in a concrete situation, working ultimately towards re-making its parameters. To invert the slogan of the ’68 protesters: I’m a idealist, I demand the possible! Part of my motivation in starting the blog (as well as intervening in the debate) was simply to direct attention to projects already in motion, actually-existing projects that could serve as models. My stress on political economy is in the same pragmatic spirit: I don’t think we stand any chance of making a new society if we don’t understand the basic objective institutional mechanisms currently employed to reproduce the one we’re trapped in. It’s time, I think, to sublate the dialectic of enlightenment, bring critical reason and instrumental reason back together again. The way out is through. When the revolution comes, someone’s going to have to know how to do the plumbing.

They took a poke at me too, slightly, in that piece. This is a marker of what a mature and well-balanced person I am (now) that I’m linking without comment.