mdl:

I am very sympathetic to your well-argued points. David tells us that one of his life goals is World Peace while his marketing materials, blogs, and writings tout his counseling to the US Armed Forces (he mentions this in the GTD Fast audio series) and the massive weapons manufacturers.

But my strongly held belief is that GTD the system, as opposed to David's personal beliefs, is value-neutral and socially/economically/mode-of-production neutral. (OK. That's an exaggeration. Precapitalist modes of production are not explicitly seeking to increase productivity.)

Stalin rejected the Aristotelian logic of computers because Hegel said that everything contains its opposite. That set the Soviet Union back decades in computer development. I think that GTD is like Aristotelian (true-false) logic or like Arabic numerals. These are useful conceptual tools that have proved useful across many social/economic/cultural conditions.

I find Covey's writings much more hypocritical than Allen's. Covey is all about putting values first. Allen is purely instrumentalist. Allen is value-neutral. You figure out what you want to do and then use his system to achieve the outcome. Covey is all about loving your neighbor as the corporation you head downsizes and does everything possible to put its competition out of business.

I know, I know. I hear you telling me mdl that the notion of value-neutrality is a capitalist invention. Prior to capitalism we understood that values were inherent in society and in our actions. Liberal capitalism is based on the idea that values are a private decision and the state may not trespass on these private values. Precapitalist societies view values as a social decision.

Nonetheless, I think that GTD would be a very effective tool for organizing an anticapitalist revolution in the United States. Let's say my goal is to nationalize the commanding heights of US industry. I need to set up a revolutionary organization. I need to organize people, finances, propaganda, etc. I can use a to-do list or I can use GTD. I think my chances for nationalizing big industry, providing free healthcare to all, free university education to all, workers' control in medium-sized enterprises, reduction of greenhouse gas emissions, etc. will be much higher if I used GTD than if I did not.

Likewise my fascist counterpart would be much more likely make his fascist paradise a reality, by freeing business from any regulation at all, if he used GTD.

GTD emerged from a capitalist culture. But it would be foolish to reject GTD totally because of that.

I believe that GTD is well-suited to revolutionary goals.

Another criticism is that GTD is inherently individualistic and this is a reflection of a capitalist distortion.

I think there is merit to this criticism. But not much. Any revolution worth fighting for is going to allow for free development of individuals' capacities. This development will be founded on a high level of social development which could only be achieved by collective revolutionary action. But should we reject any form of personal development until the time that all forms of capitalist alienation are elminated? Obviously not. This anticapitalist rejection of individual development is as distorted as the capitalist logic of each individual against the other. You need to develop some powerful individual capacities if you want to be an effective revolutionary. And you want to have some individual capacities worth developing after the revolution.