Category: Socialism

An Open Letter to the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA)

In Resolution 62 of the Atlanta Convention of DSA you asserted your support for the Cuban government and condemned the U.S. policy of economic sanctions on that country.
I who write to you, a Cuban formed in the struggle by trying . . .

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Marxism, the Democratic Republic, and the Undemocratic U.S. Constitution

The debate over socialist strategy that kicked off with Bernie Sanders’ 2016 campaign has now been going on for almost four years.  Over that time parties to this debate have delved deeper into the history of socialism and Marxism in . . .

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Livestream Dialogue Between Sudanese, Algerian, African American, Syrian and Iranian Socialist Feminists

This Facebook event will happen on Saturday, August 3, 2019, 6 p.m. to 8:30 p.m. Geneva time.

Fortieth Anniversary of the Nicaraguan Revolution; Twenty-Ninth Anniversary of the Counter-Revolution in Power

I can only outline here the complex history of the Nicaraguan revolution and counter-revolution, but cannot do them justice in a short article. I have given a more detailed account in my article “Daniel Ortega, Nicaragua’s Nov. 6 Election, and . . .

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A Possible Road to Independent Leftist Electoral Action

Some months ago, a Gallup poll established that a majority of Americans, 57%, believe there is a need for a third major political party. Granted, this particular poll says nothing about the political orientation of this hypothetical third party. But given how . . .

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In Defense of Socialist Internationalism: Answering the Propaganda of the Authoritarian “Left”

We have been slimed. An article by Ben Norton and Max Blumenthal on the recent Socialism 2019 Conference — which appears on their rancid website, The GrayZone, and is apparently being widely circulated — is a scurrilous attack not only . . .

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Against the GrayZone Slanders

A recent article in the GrayZone viciously slanders the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA), Jacobin magazine, and Haymarket books, accusing these sponsors of the Socialism conference in Chicago last weekend of hosting paid government agents engaged in attempts at regime change in several countries. . . .

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Sunday, July 21: Livestream Facebook Dialogue Between Venezuelan, Syrian and Iranian Socialists

A Dialogue Between Venezuelan, Syrian and Iranian Socialists on the Challenges of Offering an Emancipatory Internationalist Alternative to Imperialism, Capitalism, Sexism and Racism. Sunday July 21, 2019, 6:00-8:30 p.m. Geneva Time.

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Socialist Meaning in Feminist Mobilizations

Feminism for the 99% calls attention to women’s mobilizations that are sweeping the world and argues for their revolutionary, anti-capitalist potential. At the same time, this compelling homage to the Communist Manifesto flips the focus from a classic notion of . . .

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Anarchists of Connecticut

The complex history of working-class anarchism and syndicalism in the United States has been understudied. A good part of the problem is language. German, Spanish, Finnish, and Yiddish sources have been utilized by a handful of scholars, but mostly decades . . .

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DSA 2019 Convention Breakdown

The 2019 Convention for Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) is fast approaching, and there is a lot to sort out. The Convention will debate and vote on the approved resolutions and constitution/bylaw changes and elect a new sixteen (16) person . . .

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Rosa Luxemburg: A Revolutionary Life

Rosa Luxemburg’s legacy is very live, very relevant, and very contested. One of the ways to understand this particular political valence is to see her not only as an exceptional individual, which she surely was, but also as . . .

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Rosa Luxemburg and the Necessity of Anti-Imperialism for Revolutionary Socialism

Today prominent political leaders are calling themselves socialists, but even if the terms “socialist” and “democratic socialism” are being used, it is often unclear what exactly is meant by these terms and what kind of political projects they embody. In . . .

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Beyond Bernie

Last November, in one of the most hostile rental markets in the world, in a city where a majority of residents are renters, a local rent control ordinance was defeated on the ballot by a margin of 38 percent. In . . .

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The Tendency for the Rate of Profit to Decline—And Why It Matters

The law of the tendency for the rate of profit to decline has been the focus of an immense and on-going debate since the publication of Vol.III of Capital in 1894. In what follows, . . .

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Is a Revolutionary Rupture with Capitalism Possible?

For too long, the radical left has framed debates about reform and revolution in terms bequeathed to us from an era very unlike our own. At the expense of soberly and concretely analyzing the conditions socialists face today in advanced . . .

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What Defines Revolutionary Politics? A Response to Dan La Botz

I dislike criticizing my good friend Dan La Botz, but I have to disagree with aspects of his review of The Socialist Manifesto, the new book by Bhaskar Sunkara, our fellow New Politics editorial board member and editor of Jacobin. To me, . . .

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The Socialist Manifesto of Bhaskar Sunkara of Jacobin: Socialism without Revolution  

Bhaskar Sunkara, the young, left, entrepreneurial genius who founded and publishes Jacobin, has written a book, The Socialist Manifesto, in which he puts himself forward as the spokesperson for his generation’s socialist movement in America. He is certainly in a . . .

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Sanders’ “Socialism” Is Old-Fashioned Liberalism

Give Bernie Sanders props for popularizing the term “socialism.” It used to be a conversation stopper. Now it is a conversation starter.
But Sanders isn’t helping the socialist cause by confusing it with the old New Deal liberalism of FDR. As . . .

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“Is the New Deal Socialism?” by Norman Thomas

Norman Thomas was the most prominent spokesperson for the Socialist Party of America in the 1930s and 1940s. He ran six times for president on the SP ballot line. Recently, an article by Seth Ackerman of Jacobin magazine argued that . . .

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Rosa Luxemburg Symposium

Rosa Luxemburg’s Legacy
Rosa Luxemburg was a brilliant Polish/German revolutionary socialist theorist and political activist. Thoroughly committed to socialism from below, she believed in the necessity of radical class struggle principally in order to build the experience and capacities of the working . . .

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