Socialism

A Socialist Economy For The 21st Century

April 24, 2018 Richard Rosen, Thenextsystem.org Create! Economics, New Economy, Socialism

In Next System Project Report 3, author and Tellus Institute co-founder Richard A. Rosen explores the changes he deems necessary for a modern definition of “socialism”, and describes key concepts and issues that arise when aiming to restructure the American economy to include social and environmental sustainability in the Twenty-First Century. To elucidate some of these concepts and issues, Rosen analyzes a set of economic sectors that have very different mechanisms and structures for determining prices, and very different environmental impacts, including: chemical manufacturing, small businesses, housing, defense manufacturing, nonprofit sector, agriculture, and finance. Through these seven-industry sector analyses, Rosen offers a number of changes to each– many of which are also applicable to the economy at large.

Vijay Prashad On War And Socialism

April 7, 2018 By Vijay Prashad, thetricontinental.org Educate! History, Socialism, Wars and Militarism

There is a good reason why our Dossier #3 is called A Bloody and Unforgiving War. It is about the conflict in Syria. It could very well be the name of the battering faced by the people of Yemen or even – truly – the ongoing war against the Palestinians. These are conflicts with no easy end and yet with such violent presents. Wars are ghastly. No doubt about that. Those on the Left are easily united regarding the conflicts in Palestine and Yemen – there is clarity here about the genesis of the occupation and war. With Syria, matters are murky. The origins of this conflict are contested as are the very terms used to define this or that aspect of the war. Is it the Syrian government or the Syrian regime, a term used to deny legitimacy to the government? Are they rebels or are they extremists and jihadis? There are no innocent choices here.

Why the Center Left Keeps Losing Elections in Europe

March 25, 2018 By Conn Hallinan, Foreign Policy in Focus Strategize! Capitalism, European Politics, Socialism

More than a quarter of a century ago, much of the European center-left made a course change, edging away from its working class base, accommodating itself to the globalization of capital, and handing over the post-World War II social contract to private industry. Whether it was the “New Labor” of Tony Blair in Britain or Gerhard Schroder’s “Agenda 2010” in Germany, social democracy came to terms with its traditional foe, capitalism. Today, that compact is shattered. The once powerful center-left is a shadow of its former self. If the center-left is to make a comeback, it will have to re-discover its roots and lure voters away from xenophobia and narrow nationalism with a program that improves peoples’ lives and begins the difficult task of facing up to what capitalism has wrought on the planet.

Behind The Explosion In Socialism Among American Teens

February 23, 2018 Rebecca Stoner, Portside.org Organize! Socialism, Youth

TAMPA, FLA.—In a fluorescent lit classroom with handmade posters covering one wall, approximately 15 high school students are chanting the words of black revolutionary Assata Shakur: “It is our duty to fight for our freedom. It is our duty to win. We must love each other and we must support each other. We have nothing to lose but our chains.” With some embarrassed giggling, they recite it once, twice, three times, led by their visiting speaker, Pamela Gomez of the Hillsborough Community Protection Coalition, an alliance of local progressive groups. These students are some of the 40-odd members of the Blake High School chapter of the Young Democratic Socialists of America (YDSA). The Tampa high school has 1,697 students, a majority of them black or Latino, and the YDSA chapter reflects that. The chapter also has a high concentration of LGBTQ students, the club’s biggest demographic bloc.

China Seeks To Become A ‘Socialist Country’ By 2050

February 11, 2018 By Jose A. Díaz and Tania Romero, Equal Times Educate! Capitalism, China, New Economy, Socialism

China is reaching a crucial moment in its long development. The world’s most populated country, now the second largest economy on the planet, with an urban population enjoying living standards of the kind never seen by their ancestors, is also burdened with huge social and environmental problems, and inequalities so wide that they could end up undermining the very legitimacy of the CPC, which has been ruling the People’s Republic since 1949 and relies on economic progress to justify remaining in power. Conscious that it needs to tackle these deep-seated problems if it wants the country’s development to be balanced and sustainable, Beijing has set a date, 2050, and has established a work programme to become the "socialist society" that the party promised when it was founded in 1921.

Bicentenary Of Marx’s Birth, Socialism & Resurgence Of International Class Struggle

January 4, 2018 David North, Wsws.org Educate! Class Struggle, Internationalism, Karl Marx, Marxism, Socialism

This year marks the 200th anniversary of the birth of Karl Marx, the originator of the materialist conception of history, the author of Das Kapital and, with Friedrich Engels, the founder of the modern revolutionary socialist movement. Born on May 5, 1818 in the Prussian city of Trier, Marx was, to quote Lenin, “the genius who continued and consummated the three main ideological currents of the nineteenth century, as represented by the three most advanced countries of mankind: classical German philosophy, classical English political economy, and French socialism combined with French revolutionary doctrines in general.” [1]

Ex-FARC Members Create Self-Sufficient, Socialist-Modeled Town

December 29, 2017 Staff, Telesurtv.net Create! Colombia, FARC, Socialism

Ximena Narvaez, delegate to the Territorial Council of Reincorporation, explained that the community "works collectively, each person has a role." Colombia's first town of former Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia rebels was established between gorges and mountains in the south of the department of Caqueta just two months ago. In La Montanita, now called Hector Ramirez zone in honor of a guerrilla fighter from the FARC's southern bloc where some 200 former fighters have settled and created a socialist village after handing over their weapons as part of the November 2016 peace accord signed between the FARC and the Colombian government. They've built about 60 homes of drywall that are raised on concrete bases, assigned collective work projects, and created an equitable economy where all of the local resources are shared among the community.

The Revolt That Shook The World

October 22, 2017 Pete Dolack, www.indypendent.org Strategize! Democracy, Revolution, Socialism

By Pete Dolack for The Indypendent. History does not travel in a straight line. I won’t argue against that sentence being a cliché. Yet it is still true. If it weren’t, we wouldn’t be still debating the meaning of Russia’s 1917 October Revolution on its centenary, and more than a quarter-century after its demise. Neither the Bolsheviks nor any other party played a direct role in the February revolution that toppled Tsar Nicholas II, for the leaders of those organizations were in exile abroad or in Siberia or in jail. Nonetheless, the tireless work of activists laid the groundwork. The Bolsheviks were a minority even among the active workers of Russia’s cities then...

Climate Change Brings Socialism And Science Together

September 27, 2017 Eve Ottenberg, www.truth-out.org Strategize! Climate Change, Science, Socialism

By Eve Ottenberg for Truthout - Thanks to climate change, science and socialism have become entwined in ways previously unimaginable. Science brings the news that, unless we act swiftly to control climate change, we will inhabit a dying planet. Socialism traces the causes of this catastrophe to the destructive and chaotic growth model of capitalism and advocates for a different system. Meanwhile, sensing the source of danger to their profits, corporate and government reactionaries fuel disinformation campaigns to discredit science and confuse the public. This has been going on for years, with disastrous results. Ian Angus' new book, A Redder Shade of Green, (red for socialist revolution, green for ecological revolution) is about the prospect of ecosocialism in the face of capitalist ecocide. Angus has written previously about the "Anthropocene," a name for our era that emphasizes the centrality of human-influenced climate change. He does not accuse humanity as a whole of environmental destruction, but only a small sliver of humanity -- the capitalist class, which has left a gigantic, planet-sized carbon footprint. Angus repeatedly stresses that billions of people have a negligible impact on climate change and that the overpopulation argument -- which blames humanity as a whole for climate change -- has been used to distract and undermine an effective, ecosocialist movement. The US military has a hugely destructive impact on the environment.

Social Democracy Is Good. But Not Good Enough.

September 5, 2017 Joseph M. Schwartz Bhaskar Sunkara, www.jacobinmag.com Educate! Capitalism, New Economy, Socialism

By Joseph M. Schwartz Bhaskar Sunkara for Jacobin Magazine - John Judis has all the right intentions. He’s looking at the resurgence of openly democratic socialist currents in the United States with a mix of excitement and trepidation. Excitement, because he knows how desperately the country’s workers need social reforms. Trepidation, because he worries that the new left might fall into the familiar traps of insularity and sectarianism. But while Judis wants us to change society for the better, his response to the failures of twentieth-century state socialism would lead us into the dead end of twentieth-century social democracy. In his New Republic essay “The Socialism America Needs Now,” Judis makes a passionate plea for the rebuilding of a social-democratic movement — or what he calls “liberal socialism.” He contends that the welfare state and democratic regulation of a capitalist economy should be the end goal for socialists, as past efforts at top-down nationalization and planning yielded the repressive societies and stagnant economies of the Soviet bloc. In contrast, Judis argues, the Scandinavian states are dynamic capitalist economies that are still far more equitable and humane than the United States. For him, socialism — democratic control over workplaces and the economy — consists of “old nostrums” whose days have past.

Is The Market Economy Working?

August 27, 2017 William Blum, www.williamblum.org Educate! Capitalism, Ethics, Finance and the Economy, Socialism

By William Blum for the Anti-Empire Report. Speaking in very broad terms … slavery gave way to feudalism … feudalism gave way to capitalism … capitalism is not a timelessly valid institution but was created to satisfy certain needs of the time … capitalism has outlived its usefulness and must now give way to socialism … the ultimate incompatibility between capitalist profit motive and human environmental survival demands nothing less. The system corrupts every important aspect of our lives, including the one which takes up the most of our time -– our work, even for corporation executives, who demand huge salaries and benefits to justify their working at jobs that otherwise are not particularly satisfying.

Eugene Debs And The Kingdom Of Evil

July 18, 2017 Chris Hedges, www.truthdig.com Educate! History, Labor, Socialism, US history

By Chris Hedges for Truth Dig - Debs burst onto the national stage when he organized a railroad strike in 1894 after the Pullman Co. cut wages by up to one-third but did not lower rents in company housing or reduce dividend payments to its stockholders. Over a hundred thousand workers staged what became the biggest strike in U.S. history on trains carrying Pullman cars. The response was swift and brutal. “Mobilizing all the powers of capital, the owners, representing twenty-four railroads with combined capital of $818,000,00, fought back with the courts and the armed forces of the Federal government behind them,” Barbara W. Tuchman writes in “The Proud Tower: A Portrait of the World Before the War, 1890-1914.” “Three thousand police in the Chicago area were mobilized against the strikers, five thousand professional strikebreakers were sworn in as Federal deputy marshals and given firearms; ultimately six thousand Federal and State troops were brought in, less for the protection of property and the public than to break the strike and crush the union.” Attorney General Richard Olney, who as Tuchman writes “had been a lawyer for railroads before entering the Cabinet and was still a director of several lines involved in the strike,” issued an injunction rendering the strike illegal.

DNC Photoshopping Our Poster: History Of Co-Optation In One Tweet

April 26, 2017 Staff, www.liberationnews.org Educate! DNC, Socialism

By Staff of Party for Socialism and Liberation - Last Friday, the official Twitter account of the Democratic Party sent out a Tweet celebrating the defeat of the Republican health plan, including an image of the mass protest movement against Trump. In the bottom of the photo, taken at the Jan. 21 Women’s March in D.C., they flagrantly blacked out the text of a PSL poster that read, “Trump is the Symptom. Capitalism is the Disease. Socialism is the Cure.” The lines about capitalism and socialism were erased but “Trump is the symptom” was left — which allowed people to quickly identify their falsification. Some journalists have asked us if we are considering legal action against the DNC, or will demand they take down the image. We’ve said: no, they should leave it up. The image perfectly illustrates the strategy of the Democratic Party leadership to co-opt the grassroots people’s movements and use them as window dressing for their own political interests. Let the whole world see what they’re up to. Across the country there is in fact a growing interest in socialism, and a growing rejection of capitalism. Our members carried and distributed thousands of newspapers, posters and signs at the Women’s March, and at the #InaugurateTheResistance rally on the Inaugural Parade the day before, which we helped organize.

The Latin American Left Today Global Center For Resistance

April 23, 2017 Staff, www.telesurtv.net/english Resist! Anti-capitalism, Anti-Imperialism, Bolivia, Brazil, Cuba, Ecuador, Imperialism, Latin America, Socialism, Venezuela

By Staff for Telesur. From Brazil to Venezuela there have been radical shifts in the geopolitical landscape of the region. However, Latin America remains a global center for creativity and resistance. Torn between right and left – and dealing with the significant pressures of imperialism and a colonial legacy – popular forces have been fighting for their social rights and progress, making significant strides and remaining vital despite setbacks. Amid this complicated scenario, teleSUR takes a look at the Latin American left of today – from the Indigenous councils to the national assemblies, the urban centers to the rural villages – which continues to stand strong and fight for an integrated, united and socialist future.

5 Times Donald Trump Praised Socialized Healthcare

March 24, 2017 Staff, www.ijr.com Educate! Donald Trump, Health Care, Socialism

By Staff of IJR - During a rally in Manchester, New Hampshire, on Monday, Donald Trump touted his healthcare plan. The Washington Examiner called the speech “a mixture of socialism and incoherence.” Trump's Republican opponents have hit the businessman repeatedly over his effusive praise for socialized healthcare, but that hasn't stopped him from pushing ahead. Here are five times Trump's rhetoric about healthcare sounded more socialist than free-market: In September, during an interview on CBS' “60 Minutes,” Trump was asked by Scott Pelley about healthcare...

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