#67- March 2015
This journal was born at a moment when developments in the Soviet Union put a spotlight on the relationship of democracy to socialism. For that brief period in the 1980s, the experience of Glasnost (openness) raised hopes that...
Democracy movements arose in most regions of the globe during the late 20th and early 21st centuries. Students of social change have studied many of these movements, but, remarkably, have so far failed to look at that of the United...
For a long time now, socialists have insisted that their system must be democratic. That has always meant that everyone should participate in decisions affecting them. Participation is said to be a central characteristic of socialist...
1. George Snedeker
Richard Schmitt’s article, “Socialist Democracy and Solidarity,” poses some interesting questions concerning participatory democracy and what he calls “reason-giving.” A theory of solidarity...
Articles
Over the decades, much has been written and revealed about the continuity of economic and political elites in the transition from German fascism to post-war West Germany. This understanding pertains mostly, however, to the spheres of...
1. Introduction
The concept of sustainable development1 has been weakened and even rejected after decades of failed attempts to meet environmental and social objectives. This rejection comes from...
One of the most important features of Gramsci’s social theory was his analysis of the distinction between war of maneuver and war of position. In the context of a relatively underdeveloped civil society such as found in the ‘East,’ he...
The defendants’ actions undercut the fundamental purpose of the United States’ program in Russia – the creation of trust and confidence in the emerging Russian financial markets and the promotion of openness, transparency, the rule...
Review Essays
Naomi Klein, This Changes Everything: Capitalism vs. The Climate (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2014)
Barnstorming through the US and Canada, speaking to audiences of thousands at a time, with almost...
Ariel: You ever heard of the Masada? For two years, 900 Jews held their own against 15,000 Roman soldiers. They chose death before enslavement. The Romans? Where are they now? Tony Soprano...
Book Reviews
Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz, An Indigenous Peoples’ History of the United States (Boston: Beacon Press, 2014)
This book should be widely read, discussed, and diffused. Building on generations of struggle and...
Stephen Eric Bronner, Modernism at the Barricades: Aesthetics, Politics, Utopia (Columbia University Press, 2012)
One of the crucial features of Modernism is that artistic, literary, and intellectual...
Heather L. Gumbert, Envisioning Socialism: Television and the Cold War in the German Democratic Republic (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2014)
When movements for socialism gain power,...
Steve Early, Save Our Unions: Dispatches from a Movement in Distress (New York: Monthly Review Press, 2013)
Over the last forty years the American labor movement has suffered some bitter defeats. From...
John Tully, Silvertown: The lost story of a strike that shook London and helped launch the modern Labor Movement (New York: Monthly Review Press, 2014)
In the long tradition of Marxist...
Costas Lapavitsas, Profiting without Production: How Finance Exploits Us All (London: Verso, 2013)
Lapavitsas's Profiting without Production is a tour de force, covering the subject of...
Samir Amin, Three Essays on Marx’s Value Theory. (Monthly Review Press, 2013);
Samir Amin, The Implosion of Contemporary Capitalism (Monthly Review Press, 2013)
In these...
Roderick D. Bush, The End of White World Supremacy: Black Internationalism and the Problem of the Color Line. (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 2009).
In The End of White World Supremacy,...
Marc Frank, Cuban Revelations: Behind the Scenes in Havana (Gainesville: University Press of Florida, 2013)
Marc Frank is a journalist for Reuters, The Financial Times, and ABC News, residing in...
George Ciccariello-Maher, “We Created Chávez”: A People's History of the Venezuelan Revolution (Durham: Duke University Press, 2013)
It has been over a year since Hugo Chávez died, but so much has...
Gerd Callesen and Svetlana Gavril’čenko, eds., Friedrich Engels: Briefwechsel Oktober 1889 bis November 1890. Vol. 30 of Karl Marx / Friedrich Engels: Gesamtausgabe (MEGA) (Berlin: Akademie Verlag, 2013)....
James Pattison, The Morality of Private War: The Challenge of Private Military and Security Companies [PMSCs] (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2014)
In the past couple of decades the market for...
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Daniel Egan is Professor of Sociology at the University of Massachusetts Lowell. His principal areas of work are political sociology and social theory. He is currently writing a book on Gramsci's concepts of war of...