LISTEN/WATCH: Chris Gilbert’s Commune or Nothing!

Now available as an audio book:

Listen to the full book by searching for Kudoslive on YouTube…

In the public eye:

Cosmonaut:

Cosmonaut covered the history of the Venezuelan communal project, and how it relates to previous attempts of the government to build a socialist economy — including the Venezuelan cooperative movement or the drive to build state-run industry. Gilbert discussed the ideas of István Mészáros on how the commune centers the communal control of the labor process, and attempts to solve problems found during the socialist transition, before pivoting to ground data on the communes, the economic relationships between them and towards the outside, the issues with voluntarism, the problem of attracting the youth and the structure of the new Communard Union. And they finished the discussion with an outlook for the future and a discussion on how communes center all around human development and have a more mystical side to them. Listen here...

Book launch

This panel was presented by Monthly Review and hosted by The People’s Forum, organized in the context of the recent launch of Chris Gilbert’s Commune or Nothing! Venezuela’s Communal Movement and Its Socialist Project, a deep look at the theory, practice, and history of socialist commune building in Venezuela.

The panel examined the commune and communal organizing as part of the project of revolutionary social transformation. The speakers – Kali Akuno, John Bellamy Foster, Chris Gilbert, and M.E. O’Brien – drew from various theoretical perspectives and practical experiences, addressing 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.

SPEAKERS:

Kali Akuno, Cooperation Jackson spokesperson and co-author of Jackson Rising Redux: Lessons on Building the Future in the Present.

John Bellamy Foster, Monthly Review Editor and author most recently of Capitalism in the Anthropocene: Ecological Ruin or Ecological Revolution.

Chris Gilbert, author of Commune or Nothing! Venezuela’s Communal Movement and Its Socialist Project.

M.E. O’Brien, author of Family Abolition: Capitalism and the Communizing of Care and co-author of Everything for Everyone: An Oral History of the New York Commune, 2052–2072.

Cira Pascual Marquina (moderator), Venezuelanalysis editorial team and co-author (with Chris Gilbert) of Venezuela, the Present as Struggle.