This book steers a middle path between those who argue that the theories of Marx and Engels have been rendered obsolete by historical events and those who reply that these theories emerge untouched from the political changes of the last ten years.Marxism has been a theory of historical change that claimed to be able to predict with considerable accuracy how existing institutions were going to change. Marxism has also been a political program designed to show how these inevitable changes could be hastened. Richard Schmitt argues that Marxian predictions are ambiguous and unreliable, adding that the political program is vitiated by serious ambiguities in the conceptions of class and of political and social transformations. Marxism remains of importance, however, because it is the major source of criticisms of capitalism and its associated social and political institutions. We must understand such criticisms if we are to understand our own world and live in it effectively. While very critical of the failures of Marx and Engels, this book offers a sympathetic account of their criticism of capitalism and their visions of a better world, mentions some interpretive controversies, and connects the questions raised by Marx and Engels to contemporary disputes to show continuity between social thought in the middle of the last century and today.Addressed to undergraduate students, the book is easily accessible. It will be important in introductory or middle-level courses in sociology, political theory, critical theory of literature or law. It will also be useful in graduate courses in political theory, sociology, and economics.

This book, originally published in 1923, embodies two related and yet distinct types of sociological endeavour. It is a study in the history of social thought, a field which had only been receiving serious and widespread attention in recent years, and attempts to give an historical cross-section of representative Utopian thought at the time. But it is also a study in social idealism, a study in the origin, selection and potency of those social ideas and ideals that occasional and usually exceptional men conceive, with particular emphasis upon their relation to social progress. It was the first book that attempted to give an unprejudiced, systematic treatment of the social Utopias as a whole.

Capitalism is hegemonic today not because it is the best we fallible humans can do but because it supports, and is supported by, special interests of immense power. This book argues that Economic Democracy, a competitive economy of democratically run enterprises that replaces capitalist financial markets with more suitable institutions, will be more efficient than capitalism, more rational in its growth, more democratic, more egalitarian, and less alienating."Against Capitalism" is an ambitious book, drawing on philosophical analysis, economic theory, and considerable empirical evidence to advance its controversial thesis. It examines both conservative and liberal forms of capitalism; it compares Economic Democracy to other models of socialism; and it considers the transition to Economic Democracy from advanced capitalist societies, from economies built on the Soviet model, and from conditions of underdevelopment. The book concludes with some unconventional reflections on historical materialism, ideal communism, and the future of Marxism.

Providing an introductory account of the Labour Party from its foundation, this book covers the whole period up to the General Election of 1992 and the subsequent choice of John Smith to succeed Neil Kinnock as party leader. It also discusses the role of labour unions within the party.

On the basis of a distinctive "material-cultural" approach to ethics, this book puts the case for radically changing the conventional terms of debate in respect to two intersecting issues: the problem of sexual harrassment, and the place of "citizenship" in socialist political theory and programmes. In so doing, this book of essays makes clear the implication of viewing both liberalism and its limits as aspects of "governmentality" (in Michel Foucault's sense) which cannot be reduced to the language of political philosophy and the debates which surround it. The study presents an anthropological rather than philosophical view of ethics and attempts to think through the ethical aspects of citizenship and participatory democracy. By the author of "Genealogies of Moral".

IstvAn MeszAros's bold new study analyzes the historical choices facing us at the outset of the new millennium. Drawing on the theoretical arguments of his monumental and widely-acclaimed work, Beyond Capital, MA(c)szAros shows that the economic boom of the 1990s was built not only on the foundation of new, digital technologies but also on a new social and ethical basis. In the global quest for profit, capitalism has abandoned its claims to serve a larger historical cause. Even in the wealthiest capitalist economies, unemployment has become structural and conditions of life have become more onerous for most of the population.

The failure of capitalism's historical mission is most evident in the end of the project of "Third World modernization" so essential to the claims of U.S. global power to represent an advance on old-style imperialism. MA(c)szaros develops an illuminating analysis of the roots and tensions of the politics of U.S. global power from the time of Roosevelt's "Open Door" policy to the present. Against this historical background, he examines the dilemmas which will be faced in the making of U.S. foreign policy towards Chinathe largest and most rapidly-expanding national market in the global economy and the newly-emerging rival to U.S. global dominance. MA(c)szAros shows how this process is rooted in the historical logic of contemporary capitalism, and is neither accidental nor temporary. In the process, he gives new meaning and urgency to the alternatives posed by Rosa Luxemburg at the beginning of the 20th century: socialism or barbarism.

MA(c)szAros also explores the conditions for the emergence of a radical alternative to capitalism, arguing that a criticalre-examination of earlier movements and struggles is an essential task for the emergence of such an alternative. As a sequel to his essay, an extended interview deals with more reflectively with the main categories underlying his analysis and relates it to developments within the broader analysis of modern society.

While there has been much focus in recent times on the rise of right-wing populism in Europe, there has been surprisingly little material on the phenomenon of left-wing populism. This edited collection seeks to fill that gap with an investigation of the relationship between the radical left and populism. Featuring a broad range of historical and contemporary case studies from across Europe, this is a much-needed empirical account of this phenomenon. This book will be of considerable interest to researchers, scholars and students of left radicalism, European politics and the politics of social movements. It will also appeal to appeal to non-academic audiences, especially party and social movement activists because of its politically salient topic and its historical and comparative focus.

Introduces you to the promises and problems of Charles Taylor's thought in major contemporary debatesCharles Taylor is one of the most influential contemporary philosophers, arguably the most important living political philosopher writing in English. 'Taylor and Politics' assesses Taylor's thought and its relevance to contemporary political challenges, especially religion and secularity, multicultural diversity, political alienation and demands for greater democracy. Craig Browne and Andrew Lynch outline Taylor's key concepts and highlight the substantive applications of his ideas. They explain the substantial differences between Taylor's conception of social imaginaries and that of Cornelius Castoriadis, and contrast Taylor's account of the political form of modernity with Claude Lefortas.

This book--as a history of the German labor movement--offers a critique of the traditional emphasis on organization and ideology both through a survey of the literature and a presentation of new evidence, including a study of working-class opinion on a wide range of political and social issues, based on reports compiled by police spies in the pubs and bars of Hamburg between 1892 and 1914.

Democratization has been spreading rapidly since the 1980's, breaking barriers, and gaining a foothold in new territories, although not with equal success in all parts of the world. This book examines the strategies used in the struggle for democracy and problems of democratization in different parts of the world. The examination is based on the idea that conscious choices of people and their leaders matter and that better knowledge of successful and unsuccessful strategies might help people to adopt more rational strategies in the struggle for democracy. Comparatively examining over 8 states including South Korea, Nigeria, Hungary, the Soviet Union and China, the contributors are prescriptive rather than descriptive in suggesting methods of achieving democratization.

Much of Karl Marx's most important work came out of his critique of other thinkers, including many socialists who differed significantly in their conceptions of socialism. The fourth volume in Hal Draper's series looks at these critiques to illuminate what Marx's socialism was, as well as what it was not. Some of these debates are well-known elements in Marx's work, such as his writings on the anarchists Proudhon and Bakunin. Others are less familiar, such as the writings on "Bismarckian socialism" and "Boulangism," but promise to become better known and understood with Draper's exposition. He also discusses the more general ideological tendencies of "utopian" and "sentimental" socialisms, which took various forms and were ingredients in many different socialist movements.

To what extent can contemporary socialist economies be reformed by the introduction of markets? The question is usually debated in either a Chinese or an East European context; this collection of eleven essays is unique in taking the first steps toward a comparative analysis. Twenty years of experience with reforms in Hungary and a decade of experimentation with reforms in China proivde a critical mass of evidence for analyzing the problems endemic to cnetrally planned economies and the dilemmas faced in efforts to reform them. In reflecting on the Chinese and East European experiences, these essays trace the shift from a conception of reform as a mix of planning and makrets within the state sector to a socialist mixed economy with implications for the emergence of new social groups and autonomous social organizations. The essays exemplify a new perspective in the study of state socialism that changes the focus from ideologies to economic institutions, examining how the activities of subordinate groups place limits on the power of state elites. The authors include scholars who have shaped debates in Eastern Europe and whose work is now stimulating much discussion in China, as well as representatives of a younger generation of economists, sociologists, and political scientists writing on the basis of field research recently conducted in factories, cities, and villages in China and Eastern Europe. The contributors are: Wlodzimierz Brus, Walter D. Connor, Zhiren Lin, Victor Nee, Susan Shirk, David Stark, Ivan Szelenyi, and Martin King Whyte. An introductory essays surveys recent theories and research on state socialism and outlines a new institutional perspective for understanding the dilemmas of partial reforms, the political cycles of reform and retrenchment, and the role of subordinate groups in stimulating changes outside the state sector.

This book provides a concise set of thirteen essays looking at various aspects of the British left, movements of protest and the cumulative impact of the First World War. There are three broad areas this work intends to make a contribution to; the first is to help us further understand the role the Labour Party played in the conflict, and its evolving attitudes towards the war; the second strand concerns the notion of work, and particularly women's work; the third strand deals with the impact of theory and practice of forces located largely outside the United Kingdom. Through these essays this book aims to provide a series of thirteen bite-size analyses of key issues affecting the British left throughout the war, and to further our understanding of it in this critical period of commemoration. -- .

Must the sins of America's past poison its hope for the future? Lately the American Left, withdrawing into the ivied halls of academe to rue the nation's shame, has answered yes in both word and deed. In Achieving Our Country, one of America's foremost philosophers challenges this lost generation of the Left to understand the role it might play in the great tradition of democratic intellectual labor that started with writers like Walt Whitman and John Dewey. How have national pride and American patriotism come to seem an endorsement of atrocities--from slavery to the slaughter of Native Americans, from the rape of ancient forests to the Vietnam War? Achieving Our Country traces the sources of this debilitating mentality of shame in the Left, as well as the harm it does to its proponents and to the country. At the center of this history is the conflict between the Old Left and the New that arose during the Vietnam War era. Richard Rorty describes how the paradoxical victory of the antiwar movement, ushering in the Nixon years, encouraged a disillusioned generation of intellectuals to pursue "High Theory" at the expense of considering the place of ideas in our common life. In this turn to theory, Rorty sees a retreat from the secularism and pragmatism championed by Dewey and Whitman, and he decries the tendency of the heirs of the New Left to theorize about the United States from a distance instead of participating in the civic work of shaping our national future. In the absence of a vibrant, active Left, the views of intellectuals on the American Right have come to dominate the public sphere. This galvanizing book, adapted from Rorty's Massey Lectures of 1997, takes the first step toward redressing the imbalance in American cultural life by rallying those on the Left to the civic engagement and inspiration needed for "achieving our country."

Everyone knows that in socialism private companies are replaced by state enterprises which employ wage-workers in order to produce profits which accrue to the state. 'Not so!' say the authors of this book. In the nineteenth century, socialists as different as Marx and Kropotkin were agreed that socialism means a marketless, moneyless, wageless, classless, stateless world society. Subsequently this vision of non-market socialism has been developed by currents such as the Anarcho-Communists, Impossibilists, Council Communists, Bordigists and Situationists. By tracing this development, this book challenges the assumptions of both supporters and opponents of what is conventionally regarded as socialism.

Amidst waves of economic crises, health crises, class struggle and neo-fascist reaction, few possess the clarity and foresight of world-renowned theorist, David Harvey. Since the publication of his bestselling A Brief History of Neoliberalism, Harvey has been tracking the evolution of the capitalist system as well as tides of radical opposition rising against it. In The Anti-Capitalist Chronicles, Harvey introduces new ways of understanding the crisis of global capitalism and the struggles for a better world. While accounting for violence and disaster, Harvey also chronicles hope and possibility. By way of conversations about neoliberalism, capitalism, globalization, the environment, technology, social movements and crises like COVID-19, he outlines, with characteristic brilliance, how socialist alternatives are being imagined under very difficult circumstances. In understanding the economic, political and social dimensions of the crisis, Harvey's analysis in The Anti-Capitalist Chronicles will be of strategic importance to anyone wanting to both understand and change the world.

Culture Wars investigates the relationship between the media and politics in Britain today. It focusses on how significant sections of the national press have represented and distorted the policies of the Labour Party, and particularly its left, from the Thatcher era up to and including Ed Miliband's and Jeremy Corbyn's leaderships. Revised and updated, including five brand new chapters, this second edition shows how press hostility to the left, particularly newspaper coverage of its policies on race, gender and sexuality, has morphed into a more generalised campaign against 'political correctness', the 'liberal elite' and the so-called 'enemies of the people'. Combining fine-grained case studies with authoritative overviews of recent British political and media history, Culture Wars demonstrates how much of the press have routinely attacked Labour and, in so doing, have abused their political power, distorted public debate, and negatively impacted the news agendas of public service broadcasters. The book also raises the intriguing question of whether the rise of social media, and the success of its initial exploitation by Corbyn supporters, followed by Labour as a whole in the 2017 General Election, represent a major shift in the balance of power between Labour and the media, and in particular the right-wing press. Culture Wars will be of considerable interest to students and researchers in the fields of media, politics and contemporary British history, and will also attract those with a more general interest in current affairs in the UK.

In its broadest sense, this book is concerned with the attempt by workers in Britain during the period 1760-1871 to engage in collective action in circumstances of conflict with their employers during a time when the nation and many of its traditional economic structures and customary modes of working were undergoing rapid and unsettling change. More specifically, the book principally focuses on the attempt by those workers favouring a collective approach to struggle to overcome what they felt to be one of the main obstacles to collective action, the uncooperative worker. At times during these decades, the sanctions directed by collectively inclined workmen at those workers deemed to have engaged in acts contrary to the interests of the trade and customary codes of behaviour in the context of strikes and other instances of friction in the workplace were severe and uncompromising. Stern and unforgiving, too, was the struggle between the collectively inclined worker and the uncooperative worker in a more general sense, a contest that occasionally took a violent and bloody form. In exploring the fractious and hostile relationship between these two conflicting parties, this book draws on concepts and insights from a range of scholarly disciplines in an effort to shift the perception and study of this relationship beyond many of the conventional paradigms and explanatory frameworks associated with mainstream trade union studies.

Almost 80 years after Leon Trotsky founded the Fourth International, there are now Trotskyist organizations in 57 countries, including most of Western Europe and Latin America. Yet no Trotskyist group has ever led a revolution or built an enduring mass, political party. Contemporary Trotskyism looks in detail at the influence, resilience and weaknesses of the British Trotskyist movement, from the 1970s to the present day. The book argues that to understand and explain the development, resilience and influence of Trotskyist groups, we need to analyse them as bodies that comprise elements of three types of organization: the political party, the sect and the social movement. It is the properties of these three facets of organization and the interplay between them that gives rise to the most characteristic features of the Trotskyist movement: frenetic activity, rampant divisions, inter-organizational hostility, authoritarian and charismatic leadership, high membership turnover and ideological rigidity. Trotskyist groups have been involved in a wide range of important social movements including trade unions, student unions, anti-war, anti-racist and anti-fascist groups. While their energy and activity in civil society have had some success, their influence has never been reflected in votes or seats at elections even after the financial crisis. Drawing on extensive archival research, as well as interviews with many of the leading protagonists and activists within the Trotskyist milieu, this is essential reading for students, activists and researchers with an interest in the far left, social movements and contemporary British political history.

Almost 80 years after Leon Trotsky founded the Fourth International, there are now Trotskyist organizations in 57 countries, including most of Western Europe and Latin America. Yet no Trotskyist group has ever led a revolution or built an enduring mass, political party. Contemporary Trotskyism looks in detail at the influence, resilience and weaknesses of the British Trotskyist movement, from the 1970s to the present day. The book argues that to understand and explain the development, resilience and influence of Trotskyist groups, we need to analyse them as bodies that comprise elements of three types of organization: the political party, the sect and the social movement. It is the properties of these three facets of organization and the interplay between them that gives rise to the most characteristic features of the Trotskyist movement: frenetic activity, rampant divisions, inter-organizational hostility, authoritarian and charismatic leadership, high membership turnover and ideological rigidity. Trotskyist groups have been involved in a wide range of important social movements including trade unions, student unions, anti-war, anti-racist and anti-fascist groups. While their energy and activity in civil society have had some success, their influence has never been reflected in votes or seats at elections even after the financial crisis. Drawing on extensive archival research, as well as interviews with many of the leading protagonists and activists within the Trotskyist milieu, this is essential reading for students, activists and researchers with an interest in the far left, social movements and contemporary British political history.

The Road to Serfdom remains one of the all-time classics of twentieth-century intellectual thought. For over half a century, it has inspired politicians and thinkers around the world, and has had a crucial impact on our political and cultural history.

With trademark brilliance, Hayek argues convincingly that, while socialist ideals may be tempting, they cannot be accomplished except by means that few would approve of. Addressing economics, fascism, history, socialism and the Holocaust, Hayek unwraps the trappings of socialist ideology. He reveals to the world that little can result from such ideas except oppression and tyranny.

Today, more than fifty years on, Hayek's warnings are just as valid as when The Road to Serfdom was first published.

The Triumph of Politics offers a comparative and historical interpretation of Venezuela's Chavez, Bolivia's Morales and Ecuador's Correa - South America's most prominent '21st century socialists'. It argues that the claims of these 21st century socialists should be taken seriously even though not necessarily at face value. The authors show how the consensual market oriented policymaking that characterized almost all of South America in the 1990s has now given way to something quite different. Polarization and intense political conflict have returned to much of the region. Although the Left has not always been the beneficiary of this changed pattern, the 21st century' governments of Chavez, Morales and Correa have been agenda setters. The questions raised by their emergence, style of governance and policy orientations resonate across Latin America and beyond. It is likely that the kind of politics with which they have been associated will be influential in the region for quite some time to come.

George Orwell has had a profound influence on modern politics and culture. He is regularly invoked as an authority by journalists, commentators and politicians, and his works speak with increasing relevance to our polarised and media-saturated society. Stephen Ingle explores Orwell's character, his life and his beliefs by guiding the reader through the main events, private and public, that shaped his life and major works. This includes his time fighting in the Spanish Civil War as well as the writing of classics like Animal Farm and 1984. The book also reconsiders Orwell's legacy and contextualises his contemporary resonance. Orwell, it is argued, is more concerned with morality than ideology. This book will be of significant interest to students and other readers interested in Orwell's life as well as his profound contribution to the history of social and political thought and English literature.

Unlike any other collection of Goldman's work, Red Emma Speaks presents in a single, handy volume the full sweep of her opinions and personality. In addition to nine essays from Goldman's own 1910 collection, Anarchism and Other Essays; three dramatic sections from her 1931 autobiography, Living My Life; and the afterword to her My Disillusionment in Russia (which the collapse of the Soviet Union later revealed as prescient); this book contains sixteen more pieces covering a great range of subjects, assembled here for the first time to offer a rich composite or Goldman's life and thought. Red Emma speaks on: anarchism, sex, prostitution, marriage, jealousy, prisons, religion, schools, violence, war, communism, and much more.
This new third edition, containing a new foreword by Alix Kates Shulman and more accessible source listings, has been revised to situate the works more precisely in light of burgeoning Goldman scholarship.