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Books > Social sciences > Politics & government > Political ideologies > Socialism & left-of-centre democratic ideologies
Sergei Prozorov critically analyses Stalinism as a distinct strain of political theory, showing how it was oriented towards transforming, not protecting, life in accordance with the communist ideal. He engages with the theories of Foucault, Agamben, Esposito, Meillassoux, Henry and Malabou to critique conventional approaches to biopolitics.
Latin America experienced an unprecedented wave of left-leaning governments between 1998 and 2010. This volume examines the causes of this leftward turn and the consequences it carries for the region in the twenty-first century. "The Resurgence of the Latin American Left" asks three central questions: Why have left-wing parties and candidates flourished in Latin America? How have these leftist parties governed, particularly in terms of social and economic policy? What effects has the rise of the Left had on democracy and development in the region? The book addresses these questions through two sections. The first looks at several major themes regarding the contemporary Latin American Left, including whether Latin American public opinion actually shifted leftward in the 2000s, why the Left won in some countries but not in others, and how the left turn has affected market economies, social welfare, popular participation in politics, and citizenship rights. The second section examines social and economic policy and regime trajectories in eight cases: those of leftist governments in Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Ecuador, Uruguay, and Venezuela, as well as that of a historically populist party that governed on the right in Peru. Featuring a new typology of Left parties in Latin America, an original framework for identifying and categorizing variation among these governments, and contributions from prominent and influential scholars of Latin American politics, this historical-institutional approach to understanding the region's left turn--and variation within it--is the most comprehensive explanation to date on the topic.
A personal and political manifesto vying for an antiracist socialist feminist movement of movements The world is burning, flooding, and politically exploding, to the point where it's become clear that neoliberal feminism--the kind that aims to elect The First Woman President--will never be enough. In this book, Zillah Eisenstein asks us to consider what it would mean to thread "socialism" to feminism; then, what it would mean to thread "abolitionism" to socialist feminism. She asks all of us, especially white women, to consider what it would mean to risk everything to abolish white supremacy, to uproot the structural knot of sex, race, gender, and class growing from that imperial whiteness. If we are to create a revolution that is totally liberatory, we need to pool together in a new working class, building a radical movement made of movements. Eisenstein's manifesto is built on almost half a century of her antiracist socialist feminist work. But now, she writes with a new urgency and imaginativeness. Eisenstein asks us not to be limited by reforms, but to radicalize each other on differing fronts. Our task is to build bridges, to connect disparate and passionate people across aisles, state lines, picket lines, and more. The genius force demanding that we abolish white supremacy can also create a new "we" for all of us--a humanity universally accepting of our complexities and differences. We are in uncharted waters, but that is exactly where we need to be.
Travelling from Madrid to The Valley of the Fallen, through Castile and Leon and across the fiercely contested region of Catalonia, Christopher Finnigan meets a remarkable cast of characters behind some of the biggest political events Spain has witnessed in decades. Whether it is the Indignados left-wing activists rethinking society, the everyday citizens sitting in parliament, or the Catalan separatists fighting for a new nation, The New Spanish Revolutions meets those struggling at the heart of historic change. Spain today finds itself in the grip of immense social upheaval, still shaken by the financial crash of 2008 and still struggling with its fascist past. Against a fragmented and polarised backdrop, Christopher Finnigan discovers how individuals and ideas that were once outside the mainstream are now shaping the nation's future.
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.
Commemorating the 150th anniversary of W. E. B. Du Bois's birth, the chapters in this book reflect on the local, national, and international significance of his remarkable life and legacy in relation to his specific commitments to socialism and democracy. Written with contemporary conditions in mind, such as the current political period of economic inequality, the debilitating reality of exploitative economic conditions, an expansive and invasive surveillance state, the grotesque injustice of the prison industrial complex, the ongoing crisis of police violence and the militarization of law enforcement, and a White House unashamedly spewing white supremacist, nationalist rhetoric in word and deed, this book collectively ponders how Du Bois's radicalism can shape and re-texture historical understanding and underscore a reflective urgency about the future. In this volume, scholars and activists undertake thoughtful and analytical explorations with regards to how Du Bois' commitments to socialism and democracy can inform current methodology and praxis. This book was originally published as a special issue of the journal Socialism and Democracy.
Blair's community, available in paperback for the first time, is an exciting and timely book which challenges the accepted wisdom about the role of communitarian thought in the development of New Labour under Tony Blair. From the mid-1990s there has been a widespread view that Labour policies have reflected, or even been influenced by, the work of communitarian writers like Amitai Etzioni and John MacMurray, and philosophers such as Alasdair MacIntyre and Michael Sandel. The book begins by establishing that such a view was widely, and frequently unquestioningly, held, in both popular and academic forums. It then identifies reasons for the persistence of this impression, the evidence on which it was based, and the understandings of communitarianism used by commentators. The book argues that existing accounts of New Labour's communitarianism' fail to present an accurate picture because they are - in some cases explicitly - working with a generic or composite conception of communitarianism which bears little relation to the work of the communitarian writers whose names have been associated with the party. -- .
What is the future for progressive politics in advanced capitalism? With its political fortunes so low, how might the Left move forward? These essays from leading left intellectuals - Dean Baker, Fred Block, David Coates, Hilary Wainwright, Colin Crouch, Wolfgang Streeck, Leo Panitch, Sam Gindin and Matthew Watson - reflect on the scale and nature of the task that the Left now faces and consider the following questions: * What in modern capitalism has brought the Left to this impasse?* What role has the Left played in its own failings?* What lessons can be learnt for progressive politics going forward?* What are the immediate options and how can they best be pursued? The views and opinions expressed vary, but all offer searching insights into the task the Left now faces. All point to the intellectual and practical experience on which the Left now needs to draw as it deals with its contemporary challenges. These essays represent a major statement on the future for centre-left politics and offer a frank appraisal of the Left's current capacity to keep conservatism at bay and to strengthen radical politics again.
From the moment Jeremy Corbyn was elected Labour leader, Corbynism has been dismissed, derided or romanticised, but rarely taken seriously as a set of ideas on its own terms. This book critically outlines the shared understanding of capitalism and its alternatives that unites the component parts of the Corbyn movement. It decodes the central tenets of the Corbynist worldview, showing their coherence with contemporary political-economic shifts and conspiratorial understandings of global capitalism as a 'rigged system' common to populist nativism in an age of Trump and Brexit.
Divided into two volumes, The Cambridge History of Socialism offers an up-to-date critical survey of the socialist movements and political practices that have arisen thus far throughout the world. A much-needed corrective of the current state of the study of socialism from a historical perspective, the volumes use a wider geographical and temporal focus to track the changes and trends in global socialisms and to move beyond the European trajectory. Together they cover anarchism, syndicalism, social democracy, labour, the New Left, and alternative socialist movements in the Global South in one encompassing reconstruction. Featuring 55 essays by experts across the field, the volumes will serve as examples of the rich variety of socialist histories and, together, endeavour to reveal the major contours of its development.
This book brings together thirteen scholars to introduce the newest and most cutting-edge research in the field of Russian and East European art history. Reconsidering canonical figures, re-examining prevalent debates, and revisiting aesthetic developments, the book challenges accepted histories and entrenched dichotomies in art and architecture from the nineteenth century to the present. In doing so, it resituates the artistic production of this region within broader socio-cultural currents and analyzes its interconnections with international discourse, competing political and aesthetic ideologies, and continuous discussions over identity.
In the early twenty-first century, the citizens of many Latin American countries, such as Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Ecuador, and Venezuela, elected left-wing governments, explicitly rejecting and attempting to reverse the policies of neoliberal structural economic adjustment that had prevailed in the region during the 1990s. However, in other countries such as Chile, Colombia, Mexico, and Peru continuity and even extension of the neoliberal agenda have been the norm. What were the consequences of rejecting the neoliberal consensus in Latin America? Why did some countries stay on the neoliberal course? Contributors to Latin America Since the Left Turn address these questions and more as they frame the tensions and contradictions that currently characterize Latin American societies and politics. Divided into three sections, the book begins with an examination of the political economy, from models of development, to taxation and spending patterns, to regionalization of trade and human migration. The second section analyzes the changes in democracy and political identities. The last part explores the themes of citizenship, constitutionalism, and new forms of civic participation. With essays by the foremost scholars in the field, Latin America Since the Left Turn not only delves into the cases of specific countries but also surveys the region as a whole. Contributors: Isabella Alcaniz, Sandra Botero, Marcella Cerrutti, George Ciccariello-Maher, Tula G. Falleti, Roberto Gargarella, Adrian Gurza Lavalle, Juliet Hooker, Evelyne Huber, Ernesto Isunza Vera, Nora Lustig, Paulina Ochoa Espejo, Emilio A. Parrado, Claudiney Pereira, Thamy Pogrebinschi, Irina Carlota Silber, David Smilde, John D. Stephens, Maristella Svampa, Oscar Vega Camacho, Gisela Zaremberg.
The collapse of the Soviet Union provides economist Howard Sherman with the opportunity to re-evaluate Marxism as an alternative to conventional pro-capitalist perspectives. Arguing that Soviet Marxism distorted Marxian thought, Sherman acknowledges that Marxism must move beyond its traditional Soviet formulation. What is needed, he writes, is a new, critical Marxism that is integral to a radical political economy - a Marxism that sees society as an organic whole dependent upon an integrated set of relationships. Sherman applies his relational-historical approach to four problems: poverty and exploitation, unemployment, the state, and the history of the Soviet Union. Then, using the same approach, he explores several important subjects of classical Marxism - dialectics, materialism, determinism, and Marxian humanism. The result is an understanding of Marxism that is more open-ended, flexible, and nuanced than previous approaches had allowed. In the final part of the book Sherman reconstructs contemporary Marxism as a political economy, and uses it as a critique of such failed communist societies as the former Yugoslavia and Soviet Union. He also shows how Marxism can be a valuable tool for examining society, economics, and politics in the United States.
The ten years since the financial crash have been lean years for progressive politics of all kinds. Now Brexit in the UK, Trump in the US, and the rising tide of national populism in Europe pose new dangers. Parties of the Centre-Left are in retreat. Old bases of support have declined, old policies are out of touch, old assumptions no longer hold. At the same time new thinking, new innovations, new forces are turning the world upside down. We face great dangers but also great opportunities. How should those who still want a progressive future respond? This book argues that the first priority is an Open Left. We must abandon the idea that one tradition of progressive thought has all the answers. We need openness to new policy ideas, openness to learning from past mistakes and other's experiences. We should be prepared to listen to very different voices and very different intellectual traditions. We must find ways to engage with people from a wide range of communities and backgrounds. An Open Left also recognizes we cannot retreat from the world, or ignore economic and political realities. We need a dialogue with progressive movements from many different countries, learning from their experiences of putting progressive ideas into action. The idea of progress can still inspire change, but it needs updating. This book is a contribution to that task.
First published in 1999, this volume was offered as a response to an increasingly hostile and alienating political world and speaks for the vision of libertarian socialism (anarchism). Building upon James Arnt Aune's Rhetoric and Marxism and the author's The Rise of Rhetoric, this book differs by stressing the social over the communicative / theoretical. Omar Swartz presents a book of applied communication and advances social philosophy from a communication perspective rather than communication theory per se. It will find an audience amongst those in social and communication studies as well as the cultural studies movement, along with left-wing political parties.
The growing polarization between the rich and powerful and the poor and powerless, the yawning social and developmental divide and the multidimensional systemic crisis of capitalism have given rise to a fundamental problem of our times: barbarism or socialism? Will we continue on the path of capitalist barbarism or move to a more just socialist system? Bringing together a group of passionate socialists, 21st Century Socialism participates in the emerging and critical debate concerned with reinventing and rebuilding socialism. Revisiting concepts of class and capital, reinventing Marx, problematizing party politics, re-examining alternative forms of socialist politics and learning lessons from Venezuela's Bolivarian Revolution, 21st Century Socialism explores how socialism needs to be re-imagined to make it relevant to 21st-century.
Eugene V. Debs exploded upon the national scene in 1894 as the leader of a sensational strike by his American Railway Union (ARU) against the Pullman Parlor Car Company-a job stoppage which paralyzed the country's transportation network for nearly two weeks. On January 1, 1897, the polarizing public figure Debs declared his allegiance to international socialism, emerging as the most widely recognized socialist in America. He would thereafter tour the country relentlessly, speaking to large audiences and writing hundreds of articles on political and economic themes over the ensuing three decades. Debs almost singlehandedly established a new political party, the Social Democracy of America, in the summer of 1897, building upon the remnants of the depleted ARU. The organization advanced a double agenda, seeking to promote both electoral politics and the construction of socialist colonies on the frontier-a dual focus which led to internal tensions and a bitter split. In 1898 Debs cast his lot with Milwaukee publisher Victor L. Berger in a new organization dedicated to political action, the Social Democratic Party of America. After a split of the older and larger Socialist Labor Party of America in 1899, protracted unity discussions between the Debs group and an organized body of former SLP dissidents ensued. This unity effort was marked by Debs's first run for president of the United States on a joint Social Democratic ticket in November 1900. After heated on-again off-again negotiation between the two groups, a marriage was finally brokered in the summer of 1901 and the Socialist Party of America was launched. The party would soon grow to become the third biggest in American politics, with Debs enthusiastically heading the Socialist ticket in 1904 in the second of his five runs for the presidency.
This book seeks to develop a new agenda for the centre-left. During the 1990's, left of centre governments or coalitions came into power in the US, many of the European Union countries, and in societies elsewhere too. The modernisation of social democracy was crucial to these successes - all centre-left parties that came to power revised and updated their traditional doctrines. Recent years have seen the widespread return of the right to power, coupled to the prominence of far right parties in many countries. The centre-left must respond. Third-way thinking was a major source of ideological renewal, but today we must move beyond the political formulae of the 1990s. The authors represented in this volume show how. The papers included were prepared for the summit of progressive leaders held in July 2003. All have been written by leading experts in their fields. In his extensive introduction, Anthony Giddens draws the threads together to sketch a powerful and novel left-centre political approach. The book includes contributors from John Kay, Folke Schuppert, Tom Berntley, David Halpern, G?sta Esping-Andersen, Nicola Rossi, David Held, Mary Kaldor, Rebecca Willis and James Wilsdon. Formerly Director of the London School of Economics and Political Science, Anthony Giddens is a leading contributor to political debate around the world. He is the author of numverous widely acclaimed works including The Third Way (1998) and The Third Way and its Critics (2000).
Bakunin was a propagator of Anarchistic Socialism and an active promoter of the International Workers' Association (IWA). He argued for International workers' solidarity, change involving rural and industrial workers, and a Libertarian or Anarchist form of Socialism with federated accountable democratic organisations responsible to the grassroots, rather than hierarchical state structures. He rejected electoral politics that made working people serve the interest of middle- and upper-class professional politicians.This book brings together a selection of texts: letters, a lecture, newspaper articles, finished and unfinished works. The selection begins in 1868, the year Bakunin moved to Geneva and became a member of the local section of the IWA. Bakunin discusses the development of politics in and around the IWA. Many of these texts appear here in English for the first time.
In October 1918, war-weary German sailors mutinied when the Imperial Naval Command ordered their engagement in one final, fruitless battle with the British Royal Navy. This revolt, in the dying embers of the First World War, quickly erupted into a full scale revolution that toppled the monarchy and inaugurated a period of radical popular democracy. The establishment of the Weimar Republic in 1919 ended the revolution, relegating all but its most prominent leaders to a historical footnote. In A People's History of the German Revolution, William A. Pelz cuts against the grain of mainstream accounts that tend to present the revolution as more of a 'collapse', or just a chaotic interregnum that preceded the country's natural progression into a republic. Going beyond the familiar names of Karl Liebknecht, Rosa Luxemburg or Clara Zetkins, Pelz explores the revolution from the bottom up, focusing on the active role that women, rank-and-file activists, and ordinary workers played in its events. Rejecting the depiction of agency as exclusively in the hands of international actors like Woodrow Wilson or in those of German elites, he makes the compelling case that, for a brief period, the actions of the common people shaped a truly revolutionary society.
This book explores how intellectuals of the later Soviet decades - the 1970s and 1980s - sought to bring about the socialist utopian world. It argues that the last two decades of the Soviet Union were not characterised by state withdrawal and malaise, as some scholars have argued; attempts to envisage and enact Utopia remained as imaginative and creative as ever. The book considers what these utopian ideas looked like through housing schemes, layouts of districts and cities, design of objects and interiors, and proposals for the organisation of family and social life. Relating developments in the Soviet Union to evolving social theory and postmodernism more broadly, the book draws transnational parallels between the intellectual history of east and west in the late twentieth century.
American Socialists and Evolutionary Thought, 1870-1920 demonstrates how evolutionary theories fundamentally shaped, and ultimately undercut, the American socialist movement. Mark Pittenger examines the attempts of radicals in the late 19th and early 20th centuries to synthesise the evolutionary ideas of Charles Darwin and Herbert Spencer with socialist philosophy, social theory and political practice. In contrast to authors who have shown the influence of Darwinism on conservative and progressive political ideologies, Pittenger establishes that radicals also took scientific ideas seriously and wanted to link the public fascination with evolution to their own cause. Looking at theoretical, political and fiction writing by American socialists, Pittenger identifies debates among factions during two distinct periods: the Gilded Age, during which socialism was a fragmented aggregation of largely non-Marxist individuals and organisations; and the Progressive Era, when socialism coalesced into a distinctly Marxist movement, seeking political and economic power via the American Socialist Party. Many activists of both eras saw evolutionary science as the necessary foundation for socialist theory and practice. Some tried in various ways to incorporate pragmatism, cultural relativism, and rights for blacks and women into their programmes, or worked to democratise scientific knowledge in service of the class struggle. But, as a result of the social pressure on socialists to adopt less radical positions and of their own desires to appeal to a broader constituency, the Marxist call for a workers' revolution receded in importance, replaced by the less painful notion that socialism would arrive as the result of natural and inevitable processes. As socialists broadened their message it became difficult to distinguish it from other types of progressive reform. Pittenger's insights regarding the role of evolutionary science in American socialist thought are an important contribution to understanding why socialism has not had more of an impact on modern American society.
Ada Salter's pioneering role in the socialist politics of the early twentieth century has, in past accounts of the period, been marginalised in favour of the work of her husband Dr Alfred Salter. Yet years before the 'Bermondsey Revolution' Ada had worked out nearly all of its ideas from her experience in the women's movement and as President of the Women's Labour League. Afterwards, it was Ada on the LCC who spread ground-breaking ideas on urban development all over London and, as Chair of the National Gardens Guild, all over Britain. By foregrounding Ada - more rooted in the movement than her husband - Graham Taylor is better able to explore and interpret 'ethical socialism' and the revolutionary work of this remarkable woman, both previously overlooked. He shows how Ada's experiences as a 'Sister of the People' in the London slums led her to Keir Hardie's ILP, and to the belief that achieving democracy and social justice in Britain required a grassroots alliance between the labour and women's movements. Although other women in the ILP had similar ideas, only Ada actually took political power, implemented her derided 'utopian' ideas, and won elections by huge majorities. Based on original research, including unpublished memoirs, the author argues that successful social revolutions percolate upwards from grassroots activity in local communities to the highest reaches of government. In that way Ada's ethical socialism brought her into alliance with Ramsay Macdonald, Herbert Morrison and Bertrand Russell, and into conflict with Churchill, Asquith and Lenin. Finally, the author shows how the ideas of ethical socialism have now returned to contemporary politics. Finally, the author shows how the ideas of ethical socialism have now returned to contemporary politics, making Ada Salter a remarkable figure of topical historical interest. |
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