Tag Archives: socialism

After the fall of the Berlin Wall, there was a widespread sense that liberal capitalism had triumphed in the battle of ideas, and that socialism as a plausible alternative was pretty much dead. But the many crises of contemporary capitalism – obscene levels of economic inequality, looming ecological disaster, the rise of the racist and anti democratic populist right, the new threats of surveillance capitalism and the surveillance state – threaten dystopia, an unbearable...

After the fall of the Berlin Wall, there was a widespread sense that liberal capitalism had triumphed in the battle of ideas, and that socialism as a plausible alternative was pretty much dead. But the many crises of contemporary capitalism – obscene levels of economic inequality, looming ecological disaster, the rise of the racist and anti democratic populist right, the new threats of surveillance capitalism and the surveillance state – threaten dystopia, an unbearable future. In...

What then is the escape from capitalism? What would be the essential features of a socialist economy, one the would be really achievable? Exactly the right question. It's not just about there but getting from here to there. The former is utopian, the latter involves being realistic. This is not primarily a theoretical question but a practical one.Marx concluded that capitalism is based on a monetary production economy, and that monetary production economies tend toward capitalism, as China...

I  (Tom Hickey) recommend reading this paper now that "socialism" is the new buzz word. You may recall Professor Wolff from The Poverty of Liberalism, In Defense of Anarchy, and A Critique of Pure Tolerance (with Herbert Marcuse and Barrington Moore, Jr.), which were popular at the time of the "countercultural revolution" in the Sixties and Seventies. He also published scholarly works on Emmanuel Kant and Karl Marx. He blogs at The Philosopher's Stone, which I follow and occasionally offer...

On the historical meanings of "socialism."See my comment there. The Philosopher's StoneA WORD OF CLARIFICATION Robert Paul Wolff | Professor Emeritus, University of Massachusetts Amherst

This is a good historical backgrounder and it should be read for that reason alone. But Michael Roberts also brings up other issues that follow upon this history that are relevant to the current debate, at least some of which that have been brought up previously in the comments here. Highly recommended. As Maria Ivanova has shown, there remains a blind belief that the crisis-prone nature of the latter can be managed by means of ‘money artistry’, that is, by the manipulation of money,...

Barkley Rosser either makes a bad mistake in starting with Marx's definition of "socialism" as state-ownership of the means of production as exclusive, or he is carrying water for the ownership class that uses this arbitrary definition to demonize the opposition to its rent-seeking and parasitic rent extraction, e.g., by socializing negative externality, the result of which is now climate change. I suspect that he was shooting from the hip and shot himself in the foot instead of hitting his...

A perennial question for Marxists is how to overturn capitalism. Will institutional changes that improve the lot of workers but fall short of ending capitalism immediately help or harm this cause? To the extent that social struggle is a learning-by-doing process, it may be that the securing of small gains can whet the appetite for more significant gains and that institutional reforms of a transformational nature can place revolution on a more secure footing if and when it does occur. But...

Trump showing his age in denouncing progressive proposals as "socialist"? Presidential hopeful Pete Buttigieg (D) on Sunday dismissed President Trump's efforts to portray Democratic policy pitches as "socialism," arguing that the term no longer carries negative connotations. “I think he's clinging to a rhetorical strategy that was very powerful when he was coming of age 50 years ago, but it's just a little bit different right now," Buttigieg, the South Bend, Ind., mayor who has launched...

The older generation may not like it but the world they created and are trying to passing on, or pass off, is being rejected by the younger generation, which favorable to socialism. Why is that? What is capitalism? Favoring capital (ownership) over labor (people) and land (environment).  What is socialism? Favoring labor (people) and land (environment) over ownership. No-brainer unless you have been brainwashed by ownership. Occasional Links & CommentarySocialism and...