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This first collection of Peter Beilharz's highly influential thought traces the themes and problems, manifestations, and trajectories of socialism and modernity as they connect and shift over a twenty-year period. Woven throughout Beilharz's analysis is the urgent question of modern utopia: how do we imagine freedom and equality in modernity? The essays in this volume explore the relationship between socialism and modernity across the United States, Europe, and Australia from the mid-1980s to the turn of the twenty-first century, a time that witnessed the global triumph of capitalism and the dramatic turn away from Marxism and socialism to modernity as the dominant perspective. According to Beilharz, we have seen the expansion of a kind of Weberian Marxism, with the concept of revolution giving way to the idea of pluralized forms of power and the idea of rupture giving way to the postmodern sense of difference. These changes come together with the discourse of modernism, both aesthetic and technological. Socialism and modernity, Beilharz argues, are fundamentally interrelated. In correcting the conflation of Marxism, Bolshevism, and socialism that occludes contemporary political thinking, he reopens a space for discussion of what socialist politics might look like now-in the postcommunist-postcolonial-postmodern moment.
Andrei Znamenski argues that socialism arose out of activities of secularized apocalyptic sects, the Enlightenment tradition, and dislocations produced by the Industrial Revolution. He examines how, by the 1850s, Marx and Engels made the socialist creed “scientific” by linking it to “history laws” and inventing the proletariat—the “chosen people” that were to redeem the world from oppression. Focusing on the fractions between social democracy and communism, Znamenski explores why, historically, socialism became associated with social engineering and centralized planning. He explains the rise of the New Left in the 1960s and its role in fostering the cultural left that came to privilege race and identity over class. Exploring the global retreat of the left in the 1980s–1990s and the “great neoliberalism scare,” Znamenski also analyzes the subsequent renaissance of socialism in wake of the 2007–2008 crisis.
This book is a reception study of Karl Marx’s and Friedrich Engels’ ideas in Britain during the late nineteenth century and a revisionist account of the emergence of modern British socialism. It reconstructs how H. M. Hyndman, E. B. Bax, and William Morris interacted with Marx and ‘Marxism’. It shows how Hyndman was a socialist of liberal and republican provenance, rather than the Tory radical he is typically held to be; how Bax was a sophisticated thinker and highly influential figure in European socialist circles, rather than a negligible pedant; and it shows how Morris’s debt to Bax and liberalism has not been given its due. It demonstrates how John Stuart Mill, in particular, was combined with Marx in Britain; it illuminates other liberal influences which help to explain the sectarian attitude adopted by the Social Democratic Federation towards organised labour; and it establishes an alternative genealogy for Fabian socialism.
Socialism: Past andFuture is prominent thinker Michael Harrington's final contribution. He composed a thoughtful, intelligent, and compassionate treatise on the role of socialism in modern...
Socialism has made a dramatic comeback in the 21st century. In the wake of financial crisis, mounting inequality and social decay, it seems more relevant than ever. Nobody who seeks to understand contemporary politics can ignore it. In this book, leading scholar Peter Lamb identifies the key ideas and principles of socialism and explores different (often conflicting) interpretations that have appeared in Europe, Asia, Africa and the Americas, from the early nineteenth century until today. He explores the different ways that socialist thinkers have conceptualised community, equality and liberty and shows how, despite overlap with other traditions, socialists have combined these ideas in common and distinct ways that make the socialist tradition uniquely valuable. Lamb goes on to trace the recent re-emergence of these ideas, and explain what will be required for such a revival to be popular, powerful and sustained. This book will be invaluable to any student or scholar interested in political theory, socialism, communism or political ideologies, as well as to general readers striving to understand contemporary politics throughout the world.
For historians of the international labour movement, the decades before 1914 were the golden age of Marxist thought. In this flowering of socialist thinking, Britain seemingly had no part, and the question has been asked instead: 'Why was there was no Marxism in Britain?' The selections in this volume confirm that Marxist ideas in Britain were not always pitched at the highest theoretical level. There are also examples of the reductionism to which leading exponents were sometimes prone. Nevertheless, there is also a richness and outspokenness across wide and varied themes that belies the caricature of arid economic determinism. Marxists believed they carried on the tradition of home-grown movements of struggle such as Chartism. They also identified with the new spirit of internationism whose ideas and personalities filled the pages of their periodicals. Behind such well-known names as William Morris, James Connolly and Tom Mann, a wider movement of contrarians remains to be discovered.
The idea of socialism has given normative grounding and orientation to the outrage over capitalism for more than 150 years, and yet today it seems to have lost much of its appeal. Despite growing discontent, many would hesitate to invoke socialism when it comes to envisioning life beyond capitalism. How can we explain the rapid decline of this once powerful idea? And what must we do to renew it for the twenty-first century? In this lucid, political-philosophical essay, Axel Honneth argues that the idea of socialism has lost its luster because its theoretical assumptions stem from the industrial era and are no longer convincing in our contemporary post-industrial societies. Only if we manage to replace these assumptions with a concept of history and society that corresponds to our current experiences will we be able to restore confidence in a project whose fundamental idea remains as relevant today as it was a century ago the idea of an economy that realizes freedom in solidarity. The Idea of Socialism was awarded the Bruno Kreisky Prize for the Political Book of 2015.
We live in a world of poverty, war, and environmental devastation. A world where living standards for working people plummet while an elite few enjoy lives of unbelievable wealth and power. Something differentan alternative to capitalismis desperately needed. But what should replace it? This book proposes socialism. A society built from the bottom up through the struggles of ordinary people against exploitation, oppression, and injusticeone in which people come before profit. A society based on the principles of equality, democracy, and freedom. ""This is a vivid, fluent, and rare book about socialism for those uninterested in tracts and excited by new prospects"" John Pilger, author of Freedom Next Time: Resisting the Empire ""Is socialism an impossible, discredited dream or the only realistic path for human survival? If you're not sure of the answer, or are just curious about what the left really believes in, you need to read Maass. He's the Tom Paine of the contemporary American left.
The first detailed reconstruction of the late work of John Rawls, further developing his ideas of 'justice-as-fairness'.