A chronicle of recent events that have shaken the world, from the author of Capital in the Twenty-First Century.

As a correspondent for the French newspaper Le Monde, world-renowned economist Thomas Piketty has documented the rise and fall of Trump, the drama of Brexit, Emmanuel Macron's ascendance to the French presidency, the unfolding of a global pandemic, and much else besides, always from the perspective of his fight for a more equitable world. This collection brings together those articles and is prefaced by an extended introductory essay, in which Piketty argues that the time has come to support an inclusive and expansive conception of socialism as a counterweight against the hypercapitalism that defines our current economic ideology.

These essays offer a first draft of history from one of the world's leading economists and public figures, detailing the struggle against inequalities and tax evasion, in favor of a federalist Europe and a globalization more respectful of work and the environment.

Nikolai Bukharin was a pioneer and founder member of Soviet Communism. An Old Bolshevik and a close comrade of Lenin, he was shot by Stalin, but eventually reinstated, posthumously, under Gorbachev. This collection of essays by an international range of scholars is the first systematic study of his ideas. The book analyses three major areas of his thought: economics and the peasantry, politics and international relations, and culture and science, and examines his influence both on his contemporaries and on subsequent thinkers. Anthony Kemp-Welch's extensive introduction establishes the context for this discussion, and also provides a historical evaluation of Bukharin's role in relation to the emergence of Stalinism, the phenomenon that finally removed him from the political stage. Bukharin's intellectual legacy is only now beginning to be appreciated fully and this book will be an important resource for anyone wanting a more thorough analysis of his intellectual contribution. Contributors: Anna di Biagio, John Biggart, V. P. Danilov, Peter Ferdinand, Neil Harding, A. Kemp-Welch, Robert Lewis, and Alec Nove.

Instant New York Times bestseller "Howard Zinn on acid or some bullsh*t like that." -Tim Heidecker The creators of the cult-hit podcast Chapo Trap House deliver a manifesto for everyone who feels orphaned and alienated-politically, culturally, and economically-by the lanyard-wearing Wall Street centrism of the left and the lizard-brained atavism of the right: there is a better way, the Chapo Way. In a guide that reads like "a weirder, smarter, and deliciously meaner version of The Daily Show's 2004 America (The Book)" (Paste), Chapo Trap House shows you that you don't have to side with either sinking ships. These self-described "assholes from the internet" offer a fully ironic ideology for all who feel politically hopeless and prefer broadsides and tirades to reasoned debate. Learn the "secret" history of the world, politics, media, and everything in-between that THEY don't want you to know and chart a course from our wretched present to a utopian future where one can post in the morning, game in the afternoon, and podcast after dinner without ever becoming a poster, gamer, or podcaster. A book that's "as intellectually serious and analytically original as it is irreverent and funny" (Glenn Greenwald, New York Times bestselling author of No Place to Hide) The Chapo Guide to Revolution features illustrated taxonomies of contemporary liberal and conservative characters, biographies of important thought leaders, "never before seen" drafts of Aaron Sorkin's Newsroom manga, and the ten new laws that govern Chapo Year Zero (everyone gets a dog, billionaires are turned into Soylent, and logic is outlawed). If you're a fan of sacred cows, prisoners being taken, and holds being barred, then this book is NOT for you. However, if you feel disenfranchised from the political and cultural nightmare we're in, then Chapo, let's go...

Providing a range of different perspectives on some of the peoples who have inhabited various parts of Britain, this book combats the popular myth and media image that migrants and minorities are new to the British Isles. Included is Shivdeep Grewal's article on Southall, which is derived from his documentary film, "Remembering Southall. Keith Copley and Cronain O'Kelly offer comparable perspectives on the attitudes of British labor to Ireland, and an essay by Stephen Hipkin looks at property relations and rural conflict in early modern England, taking as his reference point the work of Robert Brenner.

This major new work from the well-known team of Heath, Jowell and Curtice explores the emergence of New Labour from the ruins of old Labour's four successive defeats at the hands of the Conservatives. Based on the authoritative British Election Surveys the book explores some of the key questions about contemporary British elections and the social and political factors that decide their outcomes.

On the centenary of the Russian Revolution of 1917, Mike Makin-Waite surveys the history of the communist movement, tracking its origins in the Enlightenment, and through nineteenth-century socialism to the emergence of Marxism and beyond. As we emerge from the long winter of neoliberalism, and the search is on for ideas that can help shape a contemporary popular socialism, some of the questions that have preoccupied socialist thinkers throughout left history are once more being debated. Should the left press for reform and work through the state or should it focus on protest and a critique of the whole system? Is it possible to expand the liberal idea of democracy to include economic democracy? Which alliances require too great a compromise and which can help secure future change? Arguments on questions such as these have been raging since the mid-nineteenth century, and were the basis of the split between Social Democrats and Communists in the aftermath of the First World War. Mike Makin-Waite believes that revisiting these debates can help us to avoid some of the mistakes made in the past, and find new solutions to some of these age-old concerns. His argument is that the democratic and liberal counter-currents that have always existed within the communist movement have much to offer the left project today. This unorthodox account therefore tracks an alternative history that includes nineteenth-century revisionists such as Karl Kautsky, Menshevik opponents of Bolshevik oppression in 1917, Popular Front critiques of sectarianism in the 1930s, communist support for 1968's Prague Spring, and the turn to Gramsci and Eurocommunism in the 1970s. The aim of Communism and Democracy: history, debates and potentials is to recover some of the hard-won insights of the critical communist tradition, in the belief that they can still be of service to the twenty-first-century left.

William Morris is perhaps best known today for the beautiful textile designs he created under the banner of Morris & Co, which continue to decorate homes around the globe. As one of the leading lights of British socialism, however, he is less well known, and this series of Morris's Manifestos seeks to highlight his extraordinary contribution to the literary canon on subjects socialist and artistic. Based on a lecture given at the Manchester Royal Institution in 1883, Art, Wealth and Riches is a thought-provoking essay that considers art as having educative and aesthetic value that should be shared with the many, rather than financial value that should be hoarded by the few. Morris asks: 'Is art to be limited to a narrow class who only care for it in a very languid way, or is it to be the solace and pleasure of the whole people?'

The 59th annual volume of the Socialist Register examines the growth of corporate power and other important organizational trends in global capitalism. It rejects such notions as stakeholder capitalism and reviews the organisation and strategies of unions and the left, and its current and potential practices, as it searches for new routes to socialism.

The word 'polarization' is on the lips of every commentator today, from mainstream journalists to the left, but the significance of this widely recognised phenomenon needs far more scrutiny than it has had. The 58th volume of the Socialist Register takes up the challenge of exploring how the new polarisations relate to the contradictions that underlie them, and how far 'centrist' politics can continue to contain them. Original essays examine the multiplication of polarised national, racial, generational and other identities in the context of growing inequality in income and wealth, new forms of regional and urban antagonism, 'vaccine nationalism', and the shifting parameters of great power rivalry.

Since the Great Financial Crisis swept across the world in 2008, there have been few certainties regarding the trajectory of global capitalism, let alone the politics taking hold in individual states. This has now given way to palpable confusion regarding what sense to make of this world in a political conjuncture marked by Donald Trump's `Make America Great Again' presidency of the United States, on the one hand, and, on the other, Xi Jinping's ambitious agenda in consolidating his position as `core leader' at the top of the Chinese state. * Is a major redrawing of the map of global capitalism underway? * Is an unwinding of globalization in train, or will it continue, but with closure to the mobility of labour? * Is there a legitimacy crisis for neoliberalism even while neoliberal practices continue to form state policy? * Are we witnessing an authoritarian mutation of liberal democracy in the 21st century? * Should the strategic issues today be posed in terms of `socialism versus barbarism redux'?

The issue of electoral reform has divided the Labour Party since its inception, but only for a brief period in the early 20th century has the Party been committed to reforming first-past-the-post (FPTP). Now, having suffered four successive general election defeats, the Labour Party will have to reconsider its electoral strategy if it is, once again, to become a party of government. For some, a commitment to electoral reform is an indispensable step to widen support, transform the Party, and unlock British Politics. For others, the present system still offers the best hope of majority Labour governments, avoiding deals with the Party's rivals and the watering down of Labour's social democratic agenda. This book explores the Labour Party's approaches towards reforming the Westminster electoral system, and more widely, its perception of electoral pacts and coalition government. The opening chapters chart the debate from the inception of the Party up to the electoral and political impact of Thatcherism. From there, the book takes a closer look at significant recent events, including the Plant Report, the Jenkins Commission, the end of New Labour, the Alternative Vote Referendum, and closing with the Labour leadership containing the matter at Party Conference, 2021. Importantly, it offers an assessment of the pressures and environment in which Labour politicians have operated. Extensive elite-level interviews and new archival research offers the reader a comprehensive and definitive account of this debate.

Cultural Writing. Political Science. Cutting through the myths, misunderstandings, and neglect that have obscured the influence of Darwinism on radical thought, this detailed account examines the paradoxical challenges that Darwinism posed for late 19th- and early 20th- century socialism. This study shows that Darwin provided British socialists from Alfred Russel Wallace to Emile Vandervelde with a new language of political expression, and that socialist thought developed through interaction with the most advanced biological theories of the day.

Originally published as a pamphlet in 1979 and again by Pluto in 1980, In and Against the State brought together questions of working-class struggle and state power, exploring how revolutionary socialists might reconcile working in the public sector with their radical politics. Informed by autonomist political ideas and practices that were central to the protests of 1968, the book's authors spoke to a generation of activists wrestling with the question of where to place their energies. Forty years have passed, yet the questions it posed are still to be answered. As the eclipse of Corbynism and the onslaught of the global pandemic have demonstrated with brutal clarity, a renewed socialist strategy is needed more urgently than ever. This edition includes a new introduction by Seth Wheeler and an interview with John McDonnell that reflect on the continuing relevance of In and Against the State and the questions it raises.

Economic democracy is essential for creating a truly democratic political sphere. This engaging book uses Marxist theory to hypothesise that capitalism is not a democratic system, and that a modern socialist system of producer cooperatives and democratically managed enterprises is urgently needed. A New Model of Socialism focuses on the current crisis of the political Left, a result of the collapse of the Soviet model of society and the decline of statism and kingship. Bruno Jossa expands on existing theories to explore Marx?s notions on economic democracy in a modern setting. He advocates a move away from the centralised planning form of economic socialism towards a self-management system for firms that does not prioritise the interests of one class over another, in order to achieve greater economic democracy. It is argued that the establishment of such a system of democratic firms is the precondition for reducing intervention in the economy, thus enabling the State to perform its ultimate function of serving the public interest. This timely book is ideal for advanced scholars of Marxist, radical and heterodox economic theory, as well as academics with an interest in the rise of socialism in our modern world. Indeed, it will also be of value to all those seeking a viable and practical alternative to existing capitalist and socialist thinking.

After the twenty year hiatus of Thatcherism, the character and politics of the British Labour Party are again centre stage. In the UK itself, a new generation of students, intellectuals and political activists are turning both their scholarship and their politics back towards Labour. Abroad there is widespread interest in the substance and potential of New Labour's 'Third Way'. Yet that turn has so far very little to bite on. For one consequence of those twenty years has been a dearth of informed scholarship on Labour, 'old' or 'New'. Fortunately one such body of scholarship exists, and is reproduced here for the first time in an easily accessible form: the writings of a group of scholars inspired by Ralph Miliband. The 'Miliband' voice in Labour Party historiography has been a strong and permanent one since the publication of Parliamentary Socialism in 1961, so strong in fact that even its most strident critics continue to cite it in their publications, invariably distorting its arguments in the process. These writings constitute one of the richest sources of material and analysis of the continuing limits of Labour politics. These writers- John Saville, Colin Leys, Leo Panitch, Hilary Wainwright- have an immense role to fulfill debunking the wilder claims for novelty of New Labour. They constitute an insightful source on the true character of Old Labour; and exemplify the problems of reformism. In this edited collection, David Coates reproduces the best of difficult to obtain scholarship. His editorial comments act as a guide to the moments to which that scholarship was a response. His choice of extracts demonstrates the coherence of the approach that links them together; and his closing essay (written with Leo Panitch) makes clear their vital importance as a source of understanding of the contemporary Labour Party as well as of Labour Parties in the past.

In this book, Anthony Williams investigates the history of Christian Socialist thought in Britain from the late nineteenth to mid-twentieth century. Through analysis of the writings of ten key Christian Socialists from the period, Williams reframes the ideology of Christian Socialism as a coherent and influential body of political thought - moving the study of Christian Socialism away from historical narratives and towards political ideology. The book sheds new light on a key period in British political development, in particular Williams demonstrates how the growth of the Christian Socialist movement exercised a profound impact on the formation of the British Labour party, which would go on to radically change 20th century politics in Britain.

Throughout the 1920s Mexico was rocked by attempted coups, assassinations, and popular revolts. Yet by the mid-1930s, the country boasted one of the most stable and durable political systems in Latin America. In the first book on party formation conducted at the regional level after the Mexican Revolution, Sarah Osten examines processes of political and social change that eventually gave rise to the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI), which dominated Mexico's politics for the rest of the twentieth century. In analyzing the history of socialist parties in the southeastern states of Campeche, Chiapas, Tabasco, and Yucatan, Osten demonstrates that these 'laboratories of revolution' constituted a highly influential testing ground for new political traditions and institutional structures. The Mexican Revolution's Wake shows how the southeastern socialists provided a blueprint for a new kind of party that struck calculated balances between the objectives of elite and popular forces, and between centralized authority and local autonomy.

Socialist Women and the Great War: Protest, Revolution and Commemoration, an open access book, is the first transnational study of left-wing women and socialist revolution during the First World War and its aftermath. Through a discussion of the key themes related to women and revolution, such as anti-militarism and violence, democracy and citizenship, and experience and life-writing, this book sheds new and necessary light on the everyday lives of socialist women in the early 20th century. The participants of the 1918-1919 revolutions in Europe, and the accompanying outbreaks of social unrest elsewhere in the world, have typically been portrayed as war-weary soldiers and suited committee delegates-in other words, as men. Exceptions like Rosa Luxemburg exist, but ordinary women are often cast as passive recipients of the vote. This is not true; rather, women were pivotal actors in the making, imagining, and remembering of the social and political upheavals of this time. From wartime strikes, to revolutionary violence, to issues of suffrage, this book reveals how women constructed their own revolutionary selves in order to bring about lasting social change and provides a fresh comparative approach to women's socialist activism. As such, this is a vitally important resource for all postgraduates and advanced undergraduates interested in gender studies, international relations, and the history and legacy of World War I. The ebook editions of this book are available open access under a CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 licence on bloomsburycollection.com. Open access was funded by Knowledge Unlatched.

This year's Socialist Register continues its coverage of the economic crisis. It deepens the analysis with essays on: * The global roots of the crisis * The place of the city as a site of capital accumulation and resistance * The dismantling of the public sector * The fraudulence of neoliberal "environmentalism" * The intensification of global austerity It extends regional coverage of the crisis, with essays on the United States, Latin America, China, Eastern Europe, Ireland, and the Middle East. The volume also opens up a debate on possible strategies for the Left, which it will continue in the forthcoming volume in 2013 on socialist strategy for the 21st century.

This book offers a reading of Bhimrao Ambedkar's engagement with the idea and practice of socialism in India by linking it to his lifelong political and philosophical concerns: the annihilation of the caste system, untouchability and the moral and philosophical systems that justify either. Rather than view his ideas through a socialist lens, the author suggests that it is important to measure the validity of socialist thought and practice in the Indian context, through his critique of the social totality. The book argues its case by presenting a broad and connected overview of his thought world and the global and local influences that shaped it. The themes that are taken up for discussion include: his understanding of the colonial rule and the colonial state; history and progress; nationalism and the questions he posed the socialists; his radical critique of the caste system and Brahmancal philosophies, and his unusual interpretation of Buddhism.

Millions of people across the globe face a precarious existence because of Covid-19, climate change, and the greatest wealth inequality in a century. In Britain, the pandemic has revealed critical failings in the social safety net, especially the damage to the National Health Service caused by years of underfunding and creeping privatisation. The role of the state in sustaining the economy with huge disbursements of funds has been thrown into sharp relief, showing how little truth there was in the phrase: 'There is No Alternative'. We do depend on each other. Funds can be found. Most Labour supporters confront the problems of poverty and social inequity with the ethical socialist values of collective solidarity, respect, and equality. How did these ideals develop? This book follows their evolution in Britain since Robert Tressell's The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists in the early twentieth century, and reviews developments over the last hundred years. The 1945 Labour government inspired hope that nationalisations were a 'first step' towards socialism, and for a time ended poverty and mass unemployment. It was followed by the Labour governments of 1964-1970, then Tony Benn, Tony Blair, Gordon Brown and Jeremy Corbyn. Despite defeats and setbacks, ethical socialism still lives on in the Labour Party, inspired by historical events and social struggles. This book looks at the importance of socialist ideals for the challenge of building a fairer and more equal society, and a better world.

This volume of new, original essays reflects the lifelong concerns and writings of the person they honor, Professor Howard Sherman. Sherman wrote on a wide range of topics - the causes of recessions, depressions and mass unemployment under capitalism; the difficulties and challenges of establishing viable democratic planning systems under socialism; the down-to-earth realities of economic life in the United States, the Soviet Union and elsewhere; and the theoretical traditions he drew upon to inform these empirical studies, i.e. Keynesianism, institutionalism and, most especially, Marxism. The contributors follow in Sherman's tradition through their careful analysis of topics such as the long-term trends in contemporary global capitalism; the relationship between Marxism and institutionalism; debates over the usefulness of class analysis; the political economy of financial liberalization; lessons from the demise of socialism in the Soviet Union and China; and the possibilities for advancing a workable egalitarian economic agenda. This book demonstrates the continued vibrancy and relevance of radical political economy as a mode of social scientific analysis. Scholars and students in economics, sociology, history, philosophy and political science will find the essays thought-provoking and informative.

Socialist planning played an enormous role in the economic and political history of the twentieth century. Beginning in the USSR it spread round the world. It influenced economic institutions and economic policy in countries as varied as Bulgaria, USA, China, Japan, India, Poland and France. How did it work? What were its weaknesses and strengths? What is its legacy for the twenty-first century? Now in its third edition, this textbook is fully updated to cover the findings of the period since the collapse of the USSR. It provides an overview of socialist planning, explains the underlying theory and its limitations, looks at its implementation in various sectors of the economy, and places developments in their historical context. A new chapter analyses how planning worked in the defence-industrial complex. This book is an ideal text for undergraduate and graduate students taking courses in comparative economic systems and twentieth-century economic history.