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Can We Change the World without Taking Power?
Critique of John Holloway’s Change the World without Taking Power. Originally appeared in Open Space Forum (India): http://www.openspaceforum.net/twiki/tiki-read_article.php?articleId=49 – Editors
New Orleans: The Human Cost of Capitalism’s Brutality
Hurricane Katrina did far more than wreak an enormous amount of human, material, and environmental devastation to New Orleans and the Gulf Coast. The giant storm violently lifted the curtain that obscures the racial and class divides that constitute American civilization and made plain for the world to see that anti-Black racism continues to shape the reality for millions.
The Philosophic Ambiguities of C.L.R. James
A review of John McClendon, C.L.R. James’s Notes on Dialectics: Left Hegelianism or Marxism-Leninism? (Lanham: Lexington Books, 2004), Originally appeared in Socialism and Democracy, July 2005 — Editors
Acheh: The Social Form of `Natural’ Disaster
The tsunami that impacted over a dozen nations in the Indian Ocean region at the end of 2004 was a natural catastrophe, but it was no less of a social disaster. Nowhere is that truer than in Acheh, the province of northern Sumatra that was most gravely affected by the tsunami – Editors
Iraq and the Idea of Freedom
Wadood Hamad is correct that many today are “stuck between two inadequate visions” — either apologizing for U.S. imperialist actions or “cheering any misguided ‘apparent’ resistance to imperialism.” Avoiding these false alternatives is not only needed to develop a successful antiwar movement; it is needed to ensure that the idea of freedom is not forsaken by today’s radicals.
Directly and Indirectly Social Labor: What Kind of Human Relations Can Transcend Capitalism?
An examination of the work that contains Marx’s most detailed discussion of a non-capitalist society, his 1875 Critique of the Gotha Program, this presentation focuses on the differences between the lower and the higher phases of communism in that work. Issues such as directly vs. indirectly social labor, and the factors that must exist before it is possible to reach “from each according to his ability, to each according to his need” are discussed. Originally presented as part of a Marxist-Humanist class series entitled “Beyond Capitalism,” Chicago – Editors
Crossroads for Movement Against Global Capital
A report on the January 2005 World Social Forum in Porto Alegre, Brazil – Editors
Marxist-Humanism and the Struggle for a New Ecology
Capital’s drive for self-expansion is the foundation of the ecological crisis, this vs. those, even on left, who believe that capital can be controlled. Even revolutionary Marxist thinkers like Istvan Meszaros believe that capital can be controlled, holding to the notion that the post-capitalist society would not end the wages system. Nor do neo-primitivist ecologists offer a viable solution, since they evade the question of achieving industrial and economic development in a non-capitalist manner. Originally read (in the author’s absence) at Workshop on “Ecology and the Future Society,” Nagpur, India, January 15-16, 2005 – Editors
China as Global Factory Is Incubator of Future Revolt
China’s rapid economic development rests upon the expropriation of rural workers. Worker and peasant resistance is analyzed. At the same time, an international conference on Rosa Luxemburg in Guangzhou emphasized her concept of socialist democracy – Editors
Resistance or Retrogression? The Battle of Ideas Over Iraq
The U.S. occupation of Iraq has turned into a quagmire of nightmarish proportions, with many now calling it the most serious setback for U.S. foreign policy since the Vietnam War. At the same time, some on the left like Arundhati Roy and Naomi Klein have fallen into uncritical support of fundamentalist forces that oppose the US, most notably the Iraqi Shia leader Muqtada al-Sadr. As the controversy over Bosnia showed, attitudes similar to Stalinism persist after the collapse of the USSR – Editors
Praxis, Cognition, and Revolution
An appreciation of the Czech Marxist Humanist Karel Kosik’s Dialectics of the Concrete, 40 years later – Editors
September 11 Report Reflects Damage Control
An analysis of the September 11 Commission Report – Editors