We recently had the honor of hosting Robin Hahnel, who spoke at the CIM as well as to my students. Hahnel spoke, quite fittingly given the context, on the need for a new model of participatory socialist planning, to replace market socialist models on the one hand and authoritarian planning on the other.

Much ado currently about a recent speech by PDVSA president Rafael Ramirez, in which he declared the "new PDVSA" to be "red from top to bottom," and furthermore urged those non-revolutionaries in the ranks to step aside and make room for a Bolivarian. (more…)