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The Socialist Register 2013

The Socialist Register 2013

The Question of Strategy

by Greg Albo, Vivek Chibber and Leo Panitch

Socialists today have to confront two realities – that they cannot avoid the question of reforms and a gradualist path out of capitalism; and that the organizational vehicles for socialism will most likely have to abide by different structures and principles than those that dominated left politics in the twentieth century. Which features of past organizational models should be retained? And which discarded? Socialist Register 2013 seeks to explore and clarify strategy for the Left, in the light of new challenges, and new opportunities.

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About the book

The previous two volumes of the Register were focused on analyzing the roots of the ongoing economic crisis. It was clear by 2010 that if there was going to be a recovery, it would occur on the backs of the poor and working people. Even more, ruling parties pushed through programmes of privatization and anti-labour legislation that, until recently, would have been considered too draconian to be feasible. The question asked in the Preface to the 2012 Socialist Register was whether the left could fashion any sort of effective response to state-imposed austerity and attacks on public services and workers. This, the 49th volume of the Socialist Register examines the choices faced by the left today, the models of strategy available to it, and the innovations that are being made by groups as they organize in diverse settings.

Capitalism & Alternatives

Authors

Greg Albo

Greg Albo teaches political economy at the Department of Political Science, York University, Toronto. He is currently co-editor of the Socialist Register. He is also on the editorial boards of Studies in Political Economy, Relay, Capitalism, Nature, Socialism, Canadian Dimension, The Bullet and Historical Materialism (England). Co-editor of A Different Kind of State: Popular Power and Democratic Administration and author of numerous articles in journals such as Studies in Political Economy, Socialist Register, Canadian Dimension, and Monthly Review.

Vivek Chibber

Vivek Chibber is Professor of Sociology at New York University.

Leo Panitch

Leo Panitch was a Distinguished Research Professor, renowned political economist, Marxist theorist and editor of the Socialist Register. He received a B.A. (Hons.) from the University of Manitoba in 1967 and a M.Sc.(Hons.) and PhD from the London School of Economics and Political Science in 1968 and 1974, respectively. He was a Lecturer, Assistant Professor, Associate Professor and Professor at Carleton University between 1972 and 1984. He was a Professor of Political Science at York University since 1984. He was the Chair of the Department of Political Science at York from 1988-1994. He was the General Co-editor of State and Economic Life series, U. of T. Press, from 1979 to 1995 and is the Co-founder and a Board Member of Studies in Political Economy. He was also the author of numerous articles and books dealing with political science including The End of Parliamentary Socialism (1997). He was a member of the Movement for an Independent and Socialist Canada, 1973-1975, the Ottawa Committee for Labour Action, 1975-1984, the Canadian Political Science Association, the Committee of Socialist Studies, the Marxist Institute and the Royal Society of Canada. He was an ardent supporter of the Socialist Project.

Preface (Leo Panitch, Vivek Chibber & Greg Albo)
The Crisis and Economic Alternatives (Greg Albo)
Rethinking Unions, Registering Socialism (Sam Gindin)
Occupy Wall Street: After the Anarchist Movement (Jodi Dean)
Occupy Oakland: The Question of Violence (Barbara Epstein)
Occupy Lenin (Mimmo Porcaro)
Left Strategy in the Greek Caludron: Explaining Syriza’s Success (Michalis Spourdalakis)
The Rise of Syriza: an Interview (Aristides Baltas)
Transformative Power: Political Organization in Transition (Hilary Wainwright)
Die Linke Today: Fears and Desires (Christoph Spehr)
What is Left of Leninism? New European Left Parties in Historical Perspective (Charles Post)
Whatever Happened to Italian Communism? Lucio Magri’s The Tailor of Ulm (Stephen Hellman)
On Taming A Revolution: The South African Case (John S. Saul)
Strategy and Tactics in Popular Struggles in Latin America (Atilio A. Boron)
Twenty-first Century Socialism in Bolivia: The Gender Agenda (Susan Spronk)
Socialist-Feminist Strategy Today (Johanna Brenner, Nancy Holmstrom)
Feminism, Co-optation and the Problems of Amnesia: A Response to Nancy Fraser (Joan Sangster, Meg Luxton)
Reconsidering the American Left (Eli Zaretsky)
Alain Badiou and the Idea of Communism (Alex Callinicos)
The State and The Future of Socialism (Michael A. Lebowitz)