Tag Archives: Towards A History Of Socialism

Jacobin is a recent, popular socialist magazine in the United States. I think the editor is Bhaskar Sunkara. Doubtless, some of you will have objections to some of the politics of some of their writers or interpretations of various things. One nice aspect of their magazine is that they provide profiles and write ups of lesser known historical figures and events in the past. Some of these are academics writing on their speciality. Some are book reviews. I have gathered together some...

I think of Gramsci or Lukacs as the authors to read for understanding why Marxism might be called a "philosophy of praxis". Apparently, that phrase was first used by Antonio Labriola. His collection of letters to Georges Sorel was published as Socialism and Philosophy. In the following letter, "praxis" is translated as "practice" in the last two paragraphs. Rome, May 14, 1897 To return to my first argument, it seems to me that the following question is uppermost in your...

[embedded content]Ryan Chapman On (The History Of) Socialism I found the above video fairly reasonable. Chapman tends to depict history as a debate about ideas, with little about material developments. In other videos, he seems unreliable on the new left, post modernism, and identity politics. My Marx includes a mathematical economist. This post provides some lists. As usual, I expect my lists are quite idiosyncratic. Some items, with more investigation, I might dislike. Books: Gary...

A Timeline For The United States This post provides an outline of the development of socialist and communist parties in the United States. The focus is on national political parties, not labor unions, not intentional communities, and not activist groups. The Socialist Labor Party (SLP), the Socialist Party (SP), the Communist Party of the United States of America (CPUSA), and the Socialist Workers’ Party (SWP) are the most long-lived parties considered here. Democratic Socialists of...

I was prompted to write this post by Matthew Yglesias's post from Martin Luther King Day. "[A. Philip] Randolph, of course, continued as a major leader in the struggle until his death in 1979. When I became deeply involved in the civil rights movement in the fifties and sixties, I was a conscious Randolphite, dedicated to the program of an integrated class struggle against both exploitation and racism. And when I began to work with Martin Luther King, Jr., I discovered that he, too, had...

In my study of economics, I have learned a bit about socialism. Writing a book based on this outline is a years-long project. Some parts are not filled out in the outline because I know too much and my thoughts are unorganized (not that you might disagree with my emphasis and story). Others are not filled out because I know too little. I am aware I have spelling mistakes. Some needs to be reorganized. Introduction, Overall Themes Socialists advocate that capitalism be replaced by a...