The Socialist Register 2013
The Question of Strategy
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.
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.
Contents
- 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)