“But defeating Trump at the polls, and today’s fiasco, has given us some breathing space. We must use it well. The results today in Georgia, Black Lives Matter, teachers and nurses’ strikes, MeToo, and the rise of the Democratic Socialists of America all indicate the direction we must take.”
Riot on the Hill
8 January 2021, by“Freed from Trump’s electronic fatwas, moreover, some of the younger Republican senators may prove to be much more formidable competitors for the white college-educated suburban vote than centrist Democrats realize. In any event, the only future that we can reliably foresee – a continuation of extreme socio-economic turbulence – renders political crystal balls useless.”
Quick notes on Trump’s putsch
8 January 2021, by“We are in the midst of the deepest crises (yes plural) of the capitalist system since the 1930s. These will continue to stoke profound polarization within countries, waves of class and social struggles, and greater conflict between capitalist states in the hierarchy of global imperialism. Out of this a new socialist left will be born and take organizational form. We must do everything in our power to arm it with revolutionary socialist ideas, strategies and tactics.”
After the fascist coup in the United States No time to lose - counter-offensive now!
8 January 2021, by“Our hope is for the forces that in recent years have shown that the United States is so much more than the banner of big business and imperialism, from politicians of Bernie Sanders’ cut to activists in Black Lives Matter, it abounds in campaigns for health care reforms and other social reforms to the socialist currents that have smelled morning air in the tracks of these movements.”
Why the Democrats have won one battle against Trump but can’t win the war
19 November 2020, by“While Biden looks like he will pull out a squeaker of a win, the main goals of his campaign failed miserably.” This assessment of the US election was published on 6 November.
Self-Extinction of Neoliberalism? Don’t Bet on It.
4 May 2020, byFor the second time since the turn of the century, governments in North America and Europe are intervening massively with public funds and in conjunction with central banks to bail out entire sectors of the economy and prevent a general economic collapse. The ongoing rescue operations necessitated by the Covid-19 pandemic has already reached a much higher scale than the one deployed against the 2007–08 financial crisis. These operations clash with the basic tenets of neoliberalism in that they constitute a massive regulatory intervention by the state in reining back the market, whereas deregulation and market “survival of the fittest” are central to neoliberal ideology.
The role of planning in the ecosocialist transition – a contribution to the debate
25 April 2020, byThe semiannual French review Les Possibles, a publication of Attac France, in its most recent issue (No 23) features a number of articles on planning for the ecological and social transition. Most are addressed to the issue of socialist planning vs. capitalist markets that was prominent in the debates of 20th century socialism. The contribution by Michael Löwy puts this debate in the ecosocialist framework that has emerged in this century. My translation of it is published below.
– Richard Fidler
A Left Case for Hong Kong Self-Determination
22 April 2020, byThe social revolution of the nineteenth century cannot take its poetry from the past but only from the future. It cannot begin with itself before it has stripped away all superstition about the past. The former revolutions required recollections of past world history in order to smother their own content. The revolution of the nineteenth century must let the dead bury their dead in order to arrive at its own content. There the phrase went beyond the content – here the content goes beyond the phrase.”
Karl Marx, The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte (1852)
Problems with an Electoral Road to Socialism in the United States
23 January 2020, by ,In a welcome sign, the recent revitalization of the socialist left, particularly the spectacular growth of Democratic Socialists of America, has revived debate about the road to socialism. Also, fortunately, the discussion, which has partially played out in the pages of Jacobin, has gone beyond a simple revisiting of the old “reform versus revolution” argument of early twentieth-century social democracy. Vivek Chibber “Our Road to Power,” Jacobin, 5 December 2017) and Eric Blanc (most recently in his debate with Charlie Post, “Which Way to Socialism,” Jacobin, 21 July 2019) have raised important problems with applying a revolutionary model from the Russian Revolution of 1917 to modern industrial countries with parliamentary systems. Blanc’s observation that “a government elected by universal suffrage has vastly more popular legitimacy than the tsarist autocracy” is particularly valid and important.
Identity Politics Can Only Get Us So Far
3 November 2017, byLet’s give identity politics its due, but let’s also be clear about why we need universalist politics.