Tag Archives: socialism

Socialism a century ago seemed to be the wave of the future. There were various schools of socialism, but the common ideal was to guarantee support for basic needs, and for state ownership to free society from landlords, predatory banking and monopolies. In the West these hopes are now much further away than they seemed in 1917. Land and natural resources, basic infrastructure monopolies, health care and pensions have been increasingly privatized and financialized. Instead of Germany and...

This is a longish article that puts forward analysis diagnosing the challenge and proposes a plan in outline for addressing it, based on full employment, a job guarantee and a basic income. The latter part of the article is about the opportunities present by our entering the Information Age. Those opportunities can be seized rather than left to the whims of the market and its penchant for rent-seeking in a neoliberal environment.A lot in crammed into this one piece. Hopefully, people will...

Absolutely must-read! Economic planning and societal control: The digital transformation is changing the rules of the game in the global systemic competition. China's determined pursuit of a "digital Leninism" presents a major challenge to liberal market economies and democratic political systems. MERICS — Mercator Institute for China Studies Big Data reshapes China's approach to governance Sebastian Heilmann ht Ryan in the comments Sebastian Heilmann is the founding president of the...

Critique of David Harvey's reading of Das Kapital.Michael Roberts BlogCapital.150 part two: the economic reason for madnessMichael Roberts

There are several forms of socialism, just there there are of capitalism. One form of socialism is public ownership of the means of production, and another is worker-owned ("cooperatively owned") means of production. Consider some of the most intractable problems we face in contemporary society: rising inequalities between rich and poor, rapid degradation of the environment, loss of control of their lives by the majority of citizens. It might be observed that these problems are the result...

All these studies have one thing in common: they demonstrate that reflection on power relationships and property, which for a moment was thought to have been annihilated after the Soviet disaster, in reality is only beginning. Europe and France must take their rightful place. The magic work — "power." Le blog de Thomas Piketty — EnglishRe-thinking the capital code Thomas Piketty | Professor at EHESS and at the Paris School of Economics

The Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) has 25,000 members. Its growth over the past year has been massive — tripling in size — and no doubt a product of the increasing rejection of a bipartisan neoliberal consensus that has visited severe economic insecurity on the vast majority, particularly among young workers.No socialist organization has been this large in decades. The possibilities for transforming American politics are exhilarating.... Here’s a sketch of a practical approach...

An international campaign by capitalist politicians and media has been unleashed against president Nicolás Maduro’s Venezuelan government. It has been used by Labour’s Blairista right wing to try to weaken Jeremy Corbyn. In Spain, the spectre of Venezuela has been held up as a warning of what a Podemos-led government would mean. The close links of Podemos leader Pablo Iglesias to Hugo Chávez regime in the past has facilitated this idea. Across Latin America this campaign has been conducted...

On June 3, 1951, the Socialist International association was formed in London. It is still going. It is “a worldwide association of political parties, most of which seek to establish democratic socialism”. Its roots date back to the C19th (to the First International formed in 1864) when it was considered beneficial to unite national working class movements into a global force to overthrow Capitalism. Internal bickering among various factions led to various dissolutions and reformations over...

Comparison and contrast of  Ferdinand Lassalle, Mikhail Bakunin, and Karl Marx stated simply. The Real MovementRethinking Marx’s Grand StrategyJehu