WHAT SHOULD THE LEFT AIM TO ACHIEVE TODAY? This book addresses the challenges facing socialists and the recent shift from protest to politics. It examines the limits and possibilities for class, party and state transformation and the democratic and socialist insurgencies inside the Labour Party in Britain, and the Democratic Party in the USA. One of the most unexpected aspects of politics today is the coming to the fore of socialists at leadership level in the British Labour Party and the US Democratic Party. Their class-focused political discourse is directed against the power of capitalists, corporations and banks - and against the state policies which reflect and sustain that power. This is more than mere left populism - the focus is on addressing the dynamics, structure, inequalities, and contradictions in capitalism, confronting ruling class privilege and power, and the systemic core of neoliberal globalization. There is a new will: to build the power, cohesion, and capacities of the working class; to struggle for broader and deeper reforms. New socialist movements know that they must offer systematic political education to realise their great potential, and to overcome the barriers that they face. The authors provide essential historical, theoretical and critical perspective. They stress the need for renewing working-class politics through new kinds of socialist parties.

This book tells the story of financial power in American capitalism, from the collapse of the J.P. Morgan's vast empire to the rise of finance behemoth BlackRock. It traces the making and remaking of the American ruling class as the postwar "Golden Age" of industrial hegemony gave way to the powerful revival of finance in the neoliberal period. Following the 2008 crisis, this remaking culminated in the reorganization of our financial system around the unprecedented economic power of the "Big Three" asset management firms. Maher and Aquanno elucidate the transformations of ruling class power across these periods, highlighting how transitions from one phase to another were shaped by profound crises and marked by the restructuring of corporations and the state. Contrary to what has become the common sense view, advanced by figures from Hillary Clinton to Bernie Sanders, Maher and Aquanno insist that financialization did not imply the decline of capitalism, the hollowing out of the "real" economy, or the retreat of the state. Rather, it served to intensify competitive discipline to maximize efficiency, profits, and the exploitation of labor - all with the support of an increasingly authoritarian state.

This book advances an original conception of the relationship between state and corporate power in the United States. Using what he terms an Institutional Marxist framework, Maher argues that, far from passively responding to interest group pressures, the state has been a key agent in politically mobilizing business, and has played an active role in the organization of lobbying groups. Such business associations do not merely express the pre-existing interests of their corporate members, but are also mechanisms through which the state organizes the political power of the capitalist class. They form part of what the author refers to as an integral state—a wider network of state power which traverses and interpenetrates the state bureaucracy, the legislature, the industrial policy apparatus, and corporate governance. Based on extensive archival research, this book tracks the role of the General Electric Company as a pillar of the integral state in the United States from the finance capital period (1880 to 1930), through the managerial period (1930-1979), to the restructuring leading up to the age of neoliberalism (1979-present).

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.

This book advances an original conception of the relationship between state and corporate power in the United States. Using what he terms an Institutional Marxist framework, Maher argues that, far from passively responding to interest group pressures, the state has been a key agent in politically mobilizing business, and has played an active role in the organization of lobbying groups. Such business associations do not merely express the pre-existing interests of their corporate members, but are also mechanisms through which the state organizes the political power of the capitalist class. They form part of what the author refers to as an integral state-a wider network of state power which traverses and interpenetrates the state bureaucracy, the legislature, the industrial policy apparatus, and corporate governance. Based on extensive archival research, this book tracks the role of the General Electric Company as a pillar of the integral state in the United States from the finance capital period (1880 to 1930), through the managerial period (1930-1979), to the restructuring leading up to the age of neoliberalism (1979-present).

Leo Panitch, Sam Gindin, and Stephen Maher provide a newly updated and expanded primer for twenty-first century democratic socialists. The Socialist Challenge Today presents an essential historical, theoretical, and critical perspective for understanding the potential as well as the limits of three important recent phenomena: the Sanders electoral insurgency in the United States; the Syriza experience in Greece; and Corbyn's leadership of the Labour Party in the United Kingdom. The renowned coauthors compellingly convey the importance of developing strategic and practical capacities to democratically transform state structures so as to render them fit for realizing collective democracy, social equality, sustainable ecology, and human solidarity.

"What a story Part paranoid thriller, part political satire, and all Canada - a sharp, cynical portrait of the sometimes incestuous ties between reporters and political staffers on Parliament Hill, with a corker of a plot. Crooked cops and cover-ups, sex, lies and BlackBerrys: probably Ottawa was never this exciting, but as we say in the business, it's too good to check." - Andrew Coyne
Political reporter Jack Macdonald is having a bad day. He wakes up with a terrible hangover, a hazy memory and an extra BlackBerry in the pocket of his wine-stained suit. He's doing better than his friend, political staffer Ed Sawatski, who is floating face down in the icy Rideau Canal.
The same morning, Prime Minister Bruce Stevens tells his wife he has decided to retire from politics, which sets off a ruthless, no-holds-barred power struggle in the backrooms and bedrooms of Ottawa.
Macdonald doesn't know it, but he has a great story on his hands, if he can stay alive long enough to tell it.
"One of Ottawa's best political reporters has turned his hand to novel-writing and the result is a gritty, compelling mystery. The plotline has all the best ingredients of detective fiction, but the scenes, the details and even some of the characters bear some fun resemblance to oh-so-real life here on Parliament Hill." -Susan Delacourt
"A fun read. Look forward to the movie " -Keith Boag
"Few writers can write a real page-turner. Maher's done it, telling a great story with style and energy." -Mark Bourrie
"A fast-paced, well-written adventure and a fun read." -Kate Malloy, Hill Times
"A rip-roaring thriller. Deadline works not because of its setting, but because it's a page-turner." -Paul Adams, iPolitics
"Filled with tales of deception, corruption and sexual intrigue; a fictional portrayal of the sometimes cutthroat world of Ottawa politics." -Michael Woods, Postmedia News