Watch this discussion about Helena Sheehan’s new memoir, “Until We Fall,” and come along on Sheehan’s travels as she tracks the fallout from the transition from flawed forms of socialism to a particularly predatory form of capitalism. | more…
Faced with the implosion of the economy at the beginning of the 1990s and eschewing the neoliberal approach of placing the burden of social downturns on the poorest and weakest members of society, the Cuban government had to impose many restrictions on the consumption of all its citizens to distribute the hardships. How this was done is the heart of understanding the workers’ parliaments as a case study of workers exercising workers’ power, and hence as a case study of a particular dramatic and important event in Cuba’s 60-year effort to build socialism. | more…
This virtual panel examined the commune and communal organizing as part of the project of revolutionary social transformation. The speakers addressed how socialist communes can be used to abolish capitalism’s logic, based on the exploitation of the human being and the expropriation of nature, along with the range of oppressions (including racial, gender, sexual, and colonial oppression) in capitalist society. The speakers – Kali Akuno, John Bellamy Foster, Chris Gilbert, and M.E. O’Brien – drew from various theoretical perspectives and practical experiences. | more…
“…a woman in Gaza, her family had been bombed out of their home. But she was determined to make bread and she had found a hot plate. She was making these breads. She said you could get killed going to the bakery, you can’t go to the bakery. They’re bombing the bakeries. So I’m doing this. Her kids are in the street, sitting under a tarpaulin. And she’s making bread. That’s a form of heroism, you know?
…I asked them, “Do you ever feel like you should leave?” They replied, ‘We stay here. We’re not leaving. This is our home.’ That’s a form of resistance.” | more…
At the end of the postscript, Marini again emphasises the central concept of his work, namely that “dependent economy – and therefore the super-exploitation of labour – appears as a necessary condition of world capitalism” and that therefore “capitalist production, by developing labour’s productive powers, does not eliminate but rather accentuates the greater exploitation of the worker”… | more…
‘The Prosecution of Professor Chandler Davis’ provides the historical insight that I associate with the best accounts of this kind: motives are complex, power a critical variable, timing an unpredictable factor, and rational argument not necessarily a winning strategy… | more…
Stone, as always working from open-source materials, condemned the continuation of the bombing of the north even though there were no viable military targets left…These days, the Stone’s ‘Hidden History,’ while still viewed with hostility in certain quarters, is regarded as one of his best works. But given that it appeared long before the archives were open and while the conflict in Korea continued, is there merit in republishing it? The answer is yes. Stone may not have got everything right, and occasionally lapses into conspiracy theories, but his broad picture was accurate enough at the time and remains so. It is a lasting tribute to meticulous journalism. | more…
Protests against enclosure began as far back as 1450, when “tens of thousands of English peasants fought, and thousands died, to halt the spread of capitalist farming that was destroying their way of life.” | more…
The “what” of this program is socialist and the “how” is revolutionary, arguing for the elevation of working people as a new ruling class dedicated to the end of exploitation, expropriation, special oppressions, environmental degradation, and work itself… | more…
I was asked to write this essay in response to the plea for grief and recognition of Palestinian traumas in the pages of this magazine, beautifully written by the Palestinian journalist Mohammed R. Mhawish, who is now being personally targeted by the Israeli government, along with his family. I admittedly tremble at the responsibility involved in that request… | more…
….devised two centuries before Marx’s concept of communism as “from each according to their ability, to each according to their needs,” Winstanley’s ideas bore significant resemblances to the latter’s ideas, although Marx could not have known of Winstanley as the Diggers’ ideas were ruthlessly stamped out and were only re-discovered late in the 19th century… | more…
The UAW strike against Big Auto succeeded in winning impressive wage gains, but it failed to obtain a little-reported demand: that the auto companies reinstate defined benefit pension plans for new employees… | more…
Recently the podcast Cosmonaut hosted Chris Gilbert for a discussion of his new book ‘Commune or Nothing!’ They covered topics such as: The history of communes, the Venezuelan cooperative movement and the drive to build state-run industry; István Mészáros’ perspective on how the commune centers the communal control of the labor process; the problem of attracting the youth to communes today; the mystical side of communes in relation to human development, and more… | more…
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