Socialism for Future (original) (raw)

The future of post-socialism

2011

This article discusses three contributions to new thinking on the Left. * Two of these, Anthony Giddens' s Beyond Left and Right: The Future of Radical Politics and David Miliband's collection Reinventing the Left (to which Giddens contributes the first chapter), set out to provide the new thinking which the post-Clause 4 Labour Party certainly needs. Socialismfor a Sceptical Age, by Ralph Miliband (Miliband pere), defends traditional socialist positions against facile revisionism, as its author did throughout his working life. The most theoretically ambitious of these works is that of Anthony Giddens. It is a prolegomenon to a political programme, somewhere between a theoretical framework and the specific policies it might generate. 'A Future for Post-Socialism', one might say.' This book was originally announced in 1981 2 under the title 'Between Capitalism and Socialism'. It was going then to combine the project of realizing still-valid socialist ideal...

SOCIALISM IN THE 21ST CENTURY

NOVA SCIENCE, 2018

This easy to read book explores the fundamental ideas of socialism as a prelude to its critical reappraisal of their implementation in the Soviet revolutionary experiment. The book then turns to the seismic economic changes of the neoliberal era which it claims now preclude both national social democratic and Soviet-style paths to socialism. Rather, it is argued, if socialism is to become a force for change in the 21st century, wholly new economic and environmental considerations compel it to adopt a fresh orientation around current designs of democratic ecosocialism. Yet, the herculean challenges this poses tend not to be fully apprehended even among socialist proponents. Table of Contents: Preface Chapter 1. Introduction Chapter 2. From Socialism as Idea to Twentieth Century Experiment Chapter 3. Socialist Failure and Rethinking Chapter 4. Socialists Confront a Changed World Chapter 5. Ecosocialism and New Democratic Designs Chapter 6. We are All Socialists Now Chapter 7. Conclusion

A Socialist Horizon: Crisis, Hegemony, and the Promise of a New Party

North Meridian Review, 2019

"The often-criticized "vagueness" of socialism since the rise of DSA is not a weakness of the movement, but rather a constitutive element of its populist nature. As Laclau writes of populist movements, they are not the stereotype of a "people" against an "elite" but a democratic "social demand" that produces itself discursively to define an irreparable social antagonism." https://thenorthmeridianreview.org/blog/a-socialist-horizon?fbclid=IwAR0rPsFcqkdeUgfCHQGNvdG2yffAOGRjI1elkwOgEWbYRYUdA1T1TNTzeHk

The Renewal of the Socialist Ideal

Monthly Review, 2020

Any serious treatment of the renewal of socialism today must begin with capitalism's creative destruction of the bases of all social existence. Since the late 1980s, the world has been engulfed in an epoch of catastrophe capitalism, manifested today in the convergence of (1) the planetary ecological crisis, (2) the global epidemiological crisis, and (3) the unending world economic crisis. Added to this are the main features of today's "empire of chaos," including the extreme system of imperialist exploitation unleashed by global commodity chains; the demise of the relatively stable liberal-democratic state with the rise of neoliberalism and neofascism; and the emergence of a new age of global hegemonic instability accompanied by increased dangers of unlimited war.

Creating an Ecological Socialist Future

Capitalism Nature Socialism, 2000

The growth of transnational corporations and financial institutions together with developments in communication, information, transport and manufacturing technologies, have metamorphosed capitalism. It is now more aggressive, more powerful and more unmanageable than ever before. The global web of information and communication has annulled temporal/spatial distance for a new class of managers and speculators, emancipating them from territorial constraints. Just when alternatives to capitalism are required most desperately, socialism has lost its credibility. Why? Did the partial implementation of socialism prove its inadequacy? Has critical consciousness been dissolved by capitalist hyperculture? Has the new de-territorialized power of the network society outflanked socialism? Or is something more complex involved? This situation calls for a reassessment of the socialist ideas which once inspired people to long and heroic straggle. If the socially and environmentally destructive imperatives of globalized capitalism are to be overcome and global ecological destruction avoided, it is first necessary to understand what we have lost and why. With this understanding we must then forge a new path into the future.

What is Socialist about Green Socialism The Bullet

Socialist Project. The Bullet, 2013

“Another grand, left-wing concept with an adjective… Shouldn’t we rather work on concrete social-ecological projects – on initiatives for conversion, a process of ‘energy transition,’ or free public transport?” Undoubtedly, many problems of the left have resulted from its tendency to create grand utopias and attempt to bring social reality in line with them. Transformation starts with concrete entry projects, but where does this road go to? What is the common ground, the common direction of manifold initiatives? Ultimately, we need an antidote to pragmatism – American activists call it a ‘vision.’ What does this imply for green politics? One of the core tasks of left-wing politics is to constantly work on connecting the social and the ecological question. The left is credible on the social question – and there are promising attempts to become more convincing on ecology, even if the mainstream media does not seem to notice this much. There is the notion of ‘social-ecological transformation,’ which belonged to the agenda of the green parties in the 1980s. Today, it is used from the left as a paradigm for the ‘mosaic left’ in formation. But how can we make sure that it remains rooted in a counter-hegemonic project? How far is the profile of the socialist left different from that of Friends of the Earth? It is surely right to build bridges between diverging approaches to social change, but in the process, contradictions are often covered up, and a debate on contentious issues like property and the state is avoided. In this article, we are experimenting with the concept of ‘green socialism.’ We want to discuss whether it could fill the void of a left-wing, ecological, feminist imagination.