Socialism
-
The Commons As a Fount of Hope By Richard Swift
The commons is not just a battlefield between corporate predators and those who resist them – it is also a source of hope for those willing to imagine a world beyond capitalism. It represents a space between the private market and the political state in which humanity can control and democratically root our common wealth.… Continue reading
-
If “Stalin = Communism = Bad,” Why not “Hitler = Capitalism = Bad?” Part II By Steven Jonas, MD, MPH
The publication of Part I of what with the appearance of this column is now a series, elicited quite a bit of commentary. And so those comments stimulated to write further on this subject, expanding the focus just a bit. First, a variety of views were presented on just what “capitalism” is. Here is my… Continue reading
-
Book Review: Eleanor Marx – A Life by Ben Gliniecki
Eleanor Marx, daughter of the greatest political scientist in history, faced the formidable task of living up to her family name in the turbulent period during the birth of the organised labour movement in Britain. What she managed to achieve in this period, under the influence of her father’s ideas, makes Rachel Holmes’ new biography… Continue reading
-
If Stalin Equals “Communism, Bad,” Why Doesn’t’ “Hitler Equals Capitalism, Bad?” By Steven Jonas, MD, MPH
“Many critics of the Soviet Union conveniently forget that the Soviet experience was shaped in a significant part by what someday will come to be known as ‘The 75 Years War Against the Soviet Union, 1917-1992.’” Continue reading
-
Popular Movements Toward Socialism By Samir Amin
The following reflections deal with a permanent and fundamental challenge that has confronted, and continues to confront, all popular movements struggling against capitalism. By this I mean both those of movements whose explicit radical aim is to abolish the system based on private proprietorship over the modern means of production (capital) in order to replace… Continue reading
-
What Is (and Is Not) Left-Wing? By Kieran Kelly
Recently I wrote an article objecting to labeling a false Left as Left — in effect erecting a strawman to criticize the Left. In his essay, Kieran Kelly elaborates on what is Left and how it differs from ideologies toward the Right. Continue reading
-
The Dead and the Quick: Hugo Chávez and His Project By Chris Gilbert
Praise, especially when empty, is often a way of dismissing a revolutionary historical figure more than preserving his legacy. That is what Lenin said about Marx: by making Marx into an icon, people had castrated and corrupted his thought. Continue reading
-
Research for Revolution By Andrew Gavin Marshall
I have returned full-force to working on The People’s Book Project, a crowd-funded project which has been ongoing (off and on) for the past two-plus years. The Project raises funds to subsidize my research and writing of a series of books examining the ideas, institutions and individuals of power in our world – through historical,… Continue reading
-
Venezuela: Socialism Is Still a Real and Inspiring Possibility By Chris Gilbert
What was once known as capitalism was simply being rebaptized as “socialism.” This story about indigenous people and priests not only illustrates his point; it also, with a bit of interrogation, raises a number of interesting questions about the fate of socialism in the Bolivarian process. Is socialism in Venezuela seen as something imposed from… Continue reading
-
The question of housing is a question of socialism By Gavin Jackson
With a social housing waiting list with approximately 5 millions names on it, thousands more homeless on any given night, and many more homes overcrowded, this is one more example of capitalism’s inability to meet the basic needs of huge numbers of people. There is plenty of demand for homes, but the supply of new-builds… Continue reading
-
Video: Building New Parties or Building Direct Democracy?
This forum was part of the 2013 World Peace Forum in Vancouver. Michael Lebowitz is Professor Emeritus, Economics Department, Simon Fraser University; oger Rashi is a member of Quebec Solidaire; Tara Ehrcke BC Teachers’ Federation Continue reading
-
A Late Victorian Utopia – Wilde’s Socialism in Context By James Thompson
At the time of the publication of ‘The Soul of Man under Socialism,’, Wilde was a hard working man of letters: well-known as essayist, reviewer and editor, deeply fashionable as dinner party guest, and much criticised as the author of The Picture of Dorian Gray, the first version of which had featured in Lippincott’s Magazine… Continue reading
-
The Soul of Man under Socialism By Oscar Wilde
The chief advantage that would result from the establishment of Socialism is, undoubtedly, the fact that Socialism would relieve us from that sordid necessity of living for others which, in the present condition of things, presses so hardly upon almost everybody. In fact, scarcely anyone at all escapes. Continue reading
-
NEW SERIES: THE SOUL OF MAN UNDER SOCIALISM
Wit, provocateur, sharp social satirist. Oscar Wilde was, famously, all these things, but he was also a highly engaged participant in the radical political circles of late Victorian London. Nowhere was his stature as a serious political thinker more evident than in his 1891 essay, ‘The Soul of Man under Socialism.’ Continue reading
-
The Soul of Man under Socialism By Sos Eltis
Despite its title, Wilde’s 1891 essay ‘The Soul of Man under Socialism,’ first published in the Fortnightly Review, advocated not state socialism but anarchism: there were to be no laws, no prisons, no punishments, no family, in short no authority over the individual. In Wilde’s utopia everything necessary or useful was to be manufactured by… Continue reading
-
Twenty Years of the EZLN – Steadfastness or Failed Strategy?
Thousands of Zapatistas turned out this month to celebrate the 20th anniversary of the 1994 uprising of the Zapatista Army of National Liberation (EZLN). At the New Year festivities in the five Caracoles, or regional centers of Zapatista autonomous government, veterans and adolescents not yet born at the time of the insurrection danced, flirted, shot… Continue reading
-
Lenin’s State and Revolution Today By Thomas Riggins
It’s been 97 years since Lenin first wrote what has since become a “classic” of Marxism — The State and Revolution: The Marxist Theory of the State and the Tasks of the Proletariat in the Revolution, hereafter referred to as SR. I propose to discuss the significance of this work for today (the beginning of… Continue reading
-
State of Nature Spring 2013: fossil fuels / environment movement / energy policy / nukes / …
14 January 2014 — State of Nature Little Big Pine The Grisly Underside of Fossil Fuels “As recently as the 19th century, the grizzly race discovered fossil fuels and everything changed almost overnight. What followed was an explosion of the grizzly population, leaving little ecological room for the survival of other species – to say Continue reading
-
The 4th International says: Against the European Union, for the United Socialist States of Europe!
Our aim is to unite working people throughout Europe in the struggle for a socialist society based on social equality, rather than the enrichment of a few at the expense of the vast majority. Continue reading
-
Book Review: Marxism and ecological economics By Martin Empson
Paul Burkett, along with John Bellamy Foster has been at the forefront of both rescuing the ecological core of Karl Marx’s work and developing it further. This book puts the case that Marxism offers both the best critique of existing ecological economics and the best alternative. Burkett argues that “Marxist class analysis can help answer… Continue reading
The New Dark Age 