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.

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.

One hundred years ago, "October 1917" galvanized leftists and oppressed peoples around the globe, and became the lodestar for 20th century politics. Today, the left needs to reckon with this legacy--and transcend it. Social change, as it was understood in the 20th century, appears now to be as impossible as revolution, leaving the left to rethink the relationship between capitalist crises, as well as the conceptual tension between revolution and reform. Populated by an array of passionate thinkers and thoughtful activists, Rethinking Revolution reappraises the historical effects of the Russian revolution--positive and negative--on political, intellectual, and cultural life, and looks at consequent revolutions after 1917. Change needs to be understood in relation to the distinct trajectories of radical politics in different regions. But the main purpose of this Socialist Register edition--one century after "Red October"--is to look forward, to what might happen next. Acclaimed authors interrogate and explore compelling issues, including: - Greg Albo: New socialist strategies--or detours? - Jodi Dean: Are the multitudes communing? Revolutionary agency and political forms today. - Adolph Reed: Are racial minorities revolutionary agents? - Zillah Eisenstein: Revolutionary feminisms today. - Nina Power: Accelerated technology, decelerated revolution. - David Schwartzman: Beyond global warming: Is solar communism possible? - Andrea Malm: Revolution and counter-revolution in an era of climate change.

It is often remarked that critical - and especially Marxist - state theory began to lose its central place in the study of comparative politics in the 1980s. Ironically, this shift occurred just as neoliberal policies were transforming the social form and spatial scales of the state, radically restructuring the practices of state economic intervention, and extending the capabilities of the coercive arms of the state. This volume addresses the 'impoverishment of state theory' over the last decades and insists on the continued salience of class analysis to the study of states. The book's title, State Transformations, reflects several central themes in the comparative study of states: the neoliberal restructuring of capitalist states, the changing economic and political architecture of imperialism, and the prospects of a democratic transformation of capitalist states. The essays collected here are intended to honor the memory of Leo Panitch, whose influential body of work has shaped debates on the state, imperialism, and socialism over the past four decades. Contributors are: Clyde W. Barrow, Caio Bugiato, Frank Deppe, Ruth Felder, Ana Garcia, Sam Gindin, Doug Henwood, Martijn Konings, Colin Leys, Sebnem Oguz, Bryan D. Palmer, Dennis Pilon, Larry Savage, Charles Smith, Michalis Spourdalakis and Hilary Wainwright.

As digital technology became integral to the capitalist market dystopia of the first decades of the 21st century, it refashioned both our ways of working and our ways of consuming, as well as our ways of communicating. And as the Covid-19 pandemic coursed through the world's population, adding tens of billions of dollars to the profits of high-tech corporations, its impact revealed grotesque class and racial inequalities and the gross lack of public investment, planning and preparation which lay behind the scandalously slow and inadequate responses of so many states.

A World Turned Upside Down? poses two overarching questions for the new period opened by the Trump election and the continued growth of right-wing nationalisms. Is there an unwinding of neoliberal globalization taking place, or will globalization continue to deepen, but still deny the free cross-border movement of labor? Would such an unwinding entail an overall shift in power and accumulation to specific regions of the Global South that might overturn the current world order and foster the disintegration of the varied regional blocs that have formed? These questions are addressed through a series of essays that carefully map the national, class, racial, and gender dimensions of the state, capitalism, and progressive forces today. Sober assessment is crucial for the left to gain its political bearings in this trying period and the uncertainties that lie ahead.

As digital technology became integral to the capitalist market dystopia of the first decades of the 21st century, it refashioned both our ways of working and our ways of consuming, as well as our ways of communicating. And as the Covid-19 pandemic coursed through the world’s population, adding tens of billions of dollars to the profits of high-tech corporations, its impact revealed grotesque class and racial inequalities and the gross lack of public investment, planning and preparation which lay behind the scandalously slow and inadequate responses of so many states.

For more than half a century, the Socialist Register has brought together some of the sharpest thinkers from around the globe to address the pressing issues of our time. Founded by Ralph Miliband and John Saville in London in 1964, SR continues their commitment to independent and thought-provoking analysis, free of dogma or sectarian positions. Transforming Classes is a compendium of socialist thought today and a clarifying account of class struggle in the early twenty-first-century, from China to the United States.

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.

Essays that explore new ways of living with technological change Every year since 1964, the Socialist Register has offered a fascinating survey of movements and ideas from the independent new left. This year's edition asks readers to explore just how we need to live with new technologies. Essays in this 57th Socialist Register reveal the contradictions and dislocations of technological change in the twenty-first century. And they explore alternative ways of living: from artificial intelligence (AI) to the arts, from transportation to fashion, from environmental science to economic planning. Greg Albo - Post-capitalism: Alternatives or detours? Nicole Aschoff and Pankaj Mahta - AI-deology: Science, capitalism and the dream of a 'people's AI' Hugo Radice - There is nothing artificial about AI: Labour, class, utopia, socialism Larry Lohman - Interpretation machines: Contradictions of digital mechanization in twenty-first century capitalism Robin Hahnel - Democratic socialist planning: Against, with and beyond the new technologies Tanner Mirrlees - Platform socialists in the age of digital capitalism Derek Hrynyshyn - Imagining information socialism Bryan Palmer - Capitalism and the clock: Time's meaning in the struggle for socialism Sean Sweeney and John Treat - Shifting gears: Labour strategies for low-carbon public transit mobility Adam Greenfield - Smart cities, technological traps, democratic possibilities Christoph Hermann - The consequences of commodification: Contours of a post-capitalist society Joan Sangster - The surveillance of service labour: Conditions and possibilities of resistance Jeronimo Montero Bressan - Beyond neoliberal fashion: Imagining clothing production as a human need Massimiliano Mollona - Art/Commons: Art collectives and the post-capitalist imagination Ingar Solty - The world of tomorrow: Scenarios for our future between demise and hope

For years, intellectuals have argued that, with the triumph of capitalist, liberal democracy, the Western World has reached "the end of history." Recently, however, there has been a rise of authoritarian politics in many countries. Concepts of post-democracy, anti-politics, and the like are gaining currency in theoretical and political debate. Now that capitalist democracies are facing seismic and systemic challenges, it becomes increasingly important to investigate not only the inherent antagonism between liberalism and the democratic process, but also socialism. Is socialism an enemy of democracy? Could socialism develop, expand, even enhance democracy? While this volume seeks a reappraisal of existing liberal democracy today, its main goal is to help lay the foundation for new visions and practices in developing a real socialist democracy. Amid the contradictions of neoliberal capitalism today, the responsibility to sort out the relationship between socialism and democracy has never been greater. No revival of socialist politics in the twenty-first century can occur without founding new democratic institutions and practices.

Today the Left faces new challenges from political forces amassing on the radical right. The 52nd volume of the Socialist Register presents a serious calibration and a careful political mapping of these forces. It addresses pivotal questions on the reordering of the new right. These essays - very broad in terms of themes and places - speak to the global challenges the new right poses for the left at this historical moment. * What is the nature of the right's populism, nationalism and militarism? * What is the social base and organizational strength and range of far right political forces? * To what extent are they influencing mainstream parties and opinion? * How have they penetrated state institutions?* What role do state security services and police forces play?* Does our political situation today require comparison with 1930s Fascism? * How should the left respond to defend democratic and human rights?

Essays which aim to create a world of agency and justice How can we build a future with better health and homes, respecting people and the environment? The 2020 edition of the Socialist Register, Beyond Market Dystopia, contains a wealth of incisive essays that entice readers to do just that: to wake up to the cynical, implicitly market-driven concept of human society we have come to accept as everyday reality. Intellectuals and activists such as Michelle Chin, Nancy Fraser, Arun Gupta, and Jeremy Brecher connect with and go beyond classical socialist themes, to combine an analysis of how we are living now with visions and plans for new strategic, programmatic, manifesto-oriented alternative ways of living.

Since beginning publication in 1964, The Socialist Register has been one of the most important sources of engaged, critical, and influential theoretical interventions on the socialist left. Released as an annual with a focus on publishing rigorous, sustained pieces that take up particular themes, it has always been committed to developing an independent, nonsectarian relationship with Marxism. This volume - the Register's first-ever reader - grapples with the question of whether political organisation is a necessary part of the struggle by the working-class to overthrow capitalism. In pieces published over the course of publication's entire history contributors, from Ralph Miliband to Jean-Paul Sartre, examine various aspects of this theme.

"The intellectual lodestone for the international Left since 1964."
"--Mike Davis"

"Compulsory reading."
"--Daniel Singer"

Socialist Register 2001 examines the concept and the reality of class as it affects workers at the beginning of the twenty-first century. Theoretical contributions explore today's old and new working classes, workers "north" and "south," peasants and workers, gender and the working class, as well as migrant and knowledge workers. Other essays examine critically important regional experiences in East Asia, India, South Africa, Brazil, Iran, Russia, Europe and North America.

Contributions include: Giovanni Arrighi, Beverly Silver, Henry Bernstein, Peter Kwong, Eric Mann, Ursula Huws, Andree Levesque, Pat & Hugh Armstrong, Rosemary, Brigitte Young, Rohini Banaji, Gerard Greenfield, Barbara Harriss-White & Nandini Gooptu, Patrick Bond, Darlene Miller, Greg Ruiter, Huw Beynon & Jose Ramalho, Justin Paulson, Haideh Moghissi, Saeed Rahnema, David Mandel, Michael Goldfield, and Steve Jeffreys.

The Socialist Register has been at the forefront of intellectual enquiry and strategic debate on the left for five decades. This expertly curated collection analyzes technological innovation against the backdrop of the recurrent crises and forms of class struggle distinctive to capitalism. As we enter what some term the "fourth industrial revolution" and both mainstream commentators and the left grapple with the implications of rapid technological development, this volume is a timely and crucial resource for those looking to build a political strategy attentive to sweeping changes in how we produce goods and live our lives.