Marta Harnecker, author of A World to Build: New Paths toward Twenty-First Century Socialism, presents her paper, “People’s Power and Political Instruments” to the Socialist Alliance’s conference, “Socialism in the 21st Century,” held in Sydney, Australia, May 2016. | more…
Left Forum, Saturday, May 21, New York City: John Smith, author of Imperialism in the Twenty-First Century: Globalization, Super-Exploitation, and Capitalism’s Final Crisis, John Bellamy Foster, Hannah Holleman, Intan Suwandi, and Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz, discuss the accumulation of capital, cheap wage goods, and the super-exploited workers of the Global South. | more…
The Socialist Imperative: From Gotha to Now
By Michael A. Lebowitz
224 pp, $22 pbk, 9781583675465
Reviewed by Kit Klarenberg
“The Socialist Imperative: From Gotha to Now is Michael Lebowitz’s latest work, a gathering of eleven ruminations on the nature of socialism in the present day. In many ways, this is a refreshing volume that helpfully adds its voice to a suddenly resurgent and more confident left.
Books articulating theories of socialist development are voluminous in number. Since the fall of the Berlin Wall, the publication of such volumes has been fervid, as academics and Kathedersozialisten (armchair theorists) have struggled to make sense of the post-Cold War world with
Steve Early, author of Embedded with Organized Labor: Journalistic Reflections on the Class War at Home and Save Our Unions: Dispatches from A Movement in Distress, writes about big oil and primary politics:
“Residents of Richmond and other California refinery towns have learned, over time, to be wary of state and local officials too closely tied to companies like Chevron. ¶ Politicians who benefit from ‘independent expenditures’ on their behalf or direct campaign donations from oil producers or, their lobbying group, the Western States Petroleum Association (WSPA) tend to be less enthusiastic about protecting the environment by reducing fossil fuel dependence. ¶ In Sacramento,
Ronnie Kasrils, activist, intellectual, and author of The Unlikely Secret Agent, recently wrote a paper, picked up by South Africa’s Daily Maverick, in which Kasrils discusses Karl Marx and what Marx can bring to the work of today’s South African activists:
“Karl Marx, who developed the philosophy of dialectical and historical materialism, scientific and political economy, the founder of scientific socialism and communism, and teacher and leader of the international working class for whom he created a new, purposeful world outlook, was born at Trier, in the Prussian Rhineland, on May 5, 1818. One must include Frederick Engels (1820-1895), his closest friend and collaborator…”
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Come to the 2016 Left Forum!
Friday, May 20 – Sunday, May 22
John Jay College of Criminal Justice
524 W 59th St., NYC 10019
Drop by the Monthly Review book tables!
Pick up discounts on new books, classics, the Monthly Review magazine, the Socialist Register, and Merlin Press books! | more…
May 13, Sydney, Australia: Christopher Wright, Professor of Organisational Studies at the University of Sydney Business School, spoke at the international launch of Ian Angus‘s book, Facing the Anthropocene: Fossil Capitalism and the Crisis of the Earth System. The transcript of his address follows.
“Spoiler – I really liked this book! …
When Ian contacted me late last year and asked if I’d be interested in reading his manuscript, I have to say I was somewhat wary. As many of you probably know the term ‘Anthropocene’ has become something of a buzzword de jeure in academic circles. Every day it seems there is a new
April 15, Baltimore, at Red Emma’s Bookstore Coffeehouse: Gerald Horne discusses his latest two books: Paul Robeson: The Artist as Revolutionary and Confronting Black Jacobins: The U.S., the Haitian Revolution, and the Origins of the Dominican Republic. | more…
Americans live in a historical moment that annihilates thought. Ignorance now provides a sense of community; the brain has migrated to the dark pit of the spectacle; the only discourse that matters is about business; poverty is now viewed as a technical problem; thought chases after an emotion that can obliterate it. The presumptive Republican Party presidential nominee, Donald Trump, declares he likes “the uneducated”—implying that it is better that they stay ignorant than be critically engaged agents—and boasts that he doesn’t read books. Fox News offers no apologies for suggesting that thinking is an act of stupidity…. | more…
Jeb Sprague-Silgado, is the author of Paramilitarism and the Assault on Democracy in Haiti. His article, “Polyarchy in the Dominican Republic: The Elite versus the Elite,” appeared in NACLA, May 6, 2016:
“In the Dominican Republic, as in many other countries around the Caribbean, the political strategy of leading dominant groups in recent decades has been one of polyarchy—that is to say, the options in democratic elections have been limited to voters selecting between different factions of elites. Since the 1970s, U.S. foreign policymakers, along with an increasingly wide array of UN, EU and other international agency officials have come to promote this approach. If
Saturday, 14 May, 8:45 PM EDT & Sunday, 15 May, 1:30PM EDT
C-SPAN will present a talk by Gerald Horne, author of Confronting Black Jacobins: The United States, the Haitian Revolution, and the Origins of the Dominican Republic and Paul Robeson: The Artist as Revolutionary taped April 15 at Baltimore’s Red Emma’s Bookstore | more…
Bill Fletcher (Longtime labor and social justice activist, host of The Global African TV show author of Solidarity Divided: The Crisis in Organized Labor
and Chip Berlet (Award-winning investigative journalist, author of Right-Wing Populism in America: Too Close for Comfort will discuss the rise of the right | more…
Ian Angus, author of Facing the Anthropocene: Fossil Capitalism and the Crisis of the Earth System, answers questions from London’s Socialist Review on why and how human activity has transformed the Earth:
SR: Can you explain the concept of the Anthropocene and its importance for understanding the current climate crisis?
IA: Anthropocene is the proposed name for the present stage of Earth history: a time in which human activity is transforming the entire planet in unprecedented and dangerous ways. Scientists divide Earth’s 4.5 billion year history into time intervals that correspond to major changes in the conditions and forms of life on Earth….
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