Build It Now: Socialism for the 21st Century

Michael Lebowitz has proven to be a most imaginative thinker, re-interpreting the legacy of Marx’s political economic project. Influenced by the dramatic processes unfolding in Venezuela, Lebowitz re-imagines a socialism for the twenty-first century that places workers and popular communities at the center of the project. The case is made for a participatory process of endogenous development. I agree with Lebowitz: let’s ‘Build It Now!’

— Gregory Albo, York University, Toronto

An elegant, passionate and entirely convincing argument for socialism—one that will resonate powerfully within the global and local justice movements.

— Patrick Bond, University of KwaZulu-Natal Centre for Civil Society, South Africa

Build It Now helps us transcend the impasse created by the implosion of statist socialism. It provides a new vision of the collective worker ‘as human beings with needs rather than as competitors.’

— Pratyush Chandra, Blogger, India, South Asia, and the World

We need to build now the political traditions capable of forging the solidarity that revolutionary movements in the Global South will require. Lebowitz has offered us a very useful weapon in that struggle. Read it now.

— Socialist Worker

Here, Michael Lebowitz analyzes how ongoing attempts to build worker and community self-management in the early twenty-first century are transcending previous attempts to move beyond capitalism. His personal involvement in the exciting changes in Venezuela makes Lebowitz the ideal commentator for our time. There is nobody else I would rather read on this subject.

— Robin Hahnel, Professor of Economics, American University