Any recent writing on revolution theory?

[harum scarum]

I am trying to keep up with current thought on revolution theory. One would think that there would be regular revisions of ideas about methods and prognosis for revolution as economies and nationalities develop and change. But I find very little that tackles these questions as directly as the classics like Lenin's State and Revolution or Trotsky's Permanent Revolution.

I have been recommended Build It Now: Socialism for the 21st Century by Michael A. Lebowitz and The World We Wish to See: Revolutionary Objectives in the Twenty First Century by Samir Amin. Does anyone have critiques about those or suggestions of something more pertinent that I have missed?

[harum scarum]

In answer to my own post, revolution theory, as opposed to social or political critiques of capitalist society or theories on the nature of an ideal socialist society, has withered away, and that in itself is interesting.

Lebowitz, like Fredric Jameson, is one of the few Marxists today who seems to have the breadth of thought to take on the task of analyzing the broad sweep of recent history. But he largely avoids this type of prognostic activity (understandably--he's an economist, not a historian). And his own recommendations for direct socialist action are piecemeal in spite of his arguments against the position that "you can change the world without taking power."

Amin also focuses on critiques of capitalism on one side of the divide and ideal socialist society on the other, skipping the interim stage of revolutionary change, saying little about the strategies of contemporary revolution or even about the missteps of previous revolutions.

I am still searching for works on such strategies, but I am not finding them.

[blake 3:17]

I like Build It Now quite a lot. I heard him speak at the Toronto launch of it, and was very impressed. I think he brings a fair bit of interesting experience, in government in Canada, studying Yugoslavian socialism, and as a guiding intellect in Venezuela. Take a look at Marta Harnecker's Rebuilding The Left

I know Amin solely as a commentator on relatively timely events (mostly as published in Monthly Review).


In answer to my own post, revolution theory, as opposed to social or political critiques of capitalist society or theories on the nature of an ideal socialist society, has withered away, and that in itself is interesting.

Outside of Latin America, there really hasn't been much in the way of positive revolutionary events accompanied by long standing Marxist, socialist, social democratic and anarchist intellectual currents and parties. The emergence of the Bolivarian revolution and ALBA bloc is tremendous, but there is much of interest coming from the comrades in Argentina, Chile, and Brazil.

[Mr. Natural]

Harum Scarum,
I'm brand-new to revleft, so please excuse any faux pas.
I left the San Francisco Bay Area in 1999 because I could not find anyone with whom I could discuss Marxism or deep ecology. I traveled the northwest in search of such persons and finally settled in Crescent City without finding a single person who could or would discuss the nature of the capitalist system.
I find it of the greatest significance that there are few Marxist works that touch upon revolutionary organizing theory, and that none of them speaks to our current situation. Let's face it: Marx and Engels didn't know how to organize, nor have the Marxists who followed.
Joel Kovel's fine work, The Enemy Of Nature (2002), is an exception to the above comments. Kovel, now at the head of American ecosocialists, gives readers a conclusive indictment of capitalism and offers an ecosystemic organlizing schema in response. But he doesn't know how to get his ecological, red-green movement of personal and social transformation started. So that's our job at revleft.
Capitalism has triumphed, but pride cometh before a fall.

[Paulappaul]

I like Gilles Dauve alot. Alot of his works deal with the notion that we can "Build the Socialist system within the Shell of Capitalist society" that is pouted by everyone from Social Democrats to Anarcho - Syndicalists. He argues aganist it saying that this reproduces Capitalist relations and is completely anti - spontaneous.

[harum scarum]

I'm pretty new here myself, so I wouldn't know a faux pas if I saw it. But thaks for your response. I will look into Kovel's work. I'm a Green Party refugee myself--still registered, but no longer doing party work since the sectarianism became too much to take.

I have been reading--for a couple years now--Fredric Jameson's writings on late capitalism. His goals are philosophical rather than pragmatic and revolutionary, but his analysis of up-to-the-minute changes in the relationship between economics and politics is revelatory. I'd would like to see someone--with a greater intellect than mine--use such insights as a basis for broad front action, critiquing the successes and failures of historic movements along the way.

[harum scarum]

I like Gilles Dauve alot. Alot of his works deal with the notion that we can "Build the Socialist system within the Shell of Capitalist society" that is pouted by everyone from Social Democrats to Anarcho - Syndicalists. He argues aganist it saying that this reproduces Capitalist relations and is completely anti - spontaneous.

Sounds good. I hear a lot of that "build within" talk in the San Francisco area, and what it amounts to is saying that we'll overthrow corporate power with boutique capitalism if it gives a little lip service to green or anarchist rhetoric. Old hippies never die; they just sell out to Unilever.

[Paulappaul]

Sounds good. I hear a lot of that "build within" talk in the San Francisco area, and what it amounts to is saying that we'll overthrow corporate power with boutique capitalism if it gives a little lip service to green or anarchist rhetoric. Old hippies never die; they just sell out to Unilever.

Well, the same is true basically for "Build it now" rhetoric. It's the kind of notion that we can just kinda build Socialism through parliamentary aka Capitalist Means. Like I said, the "Build within" talk holds true for not just the Syndicalist, Anarchist, Hippie, but also for the Social Democratic style Socialists.

[blake 3:17]

This is turning into a rehash of the Bernstein/Luxemburg debate. That debate happened before the emergence of soviets, and Luxemburg was basically arguing for the revolutionary party as be all and end all.

I'm suspicious of schemes which try to do away with capitalism through simple co-operatives, etc, but we can't wait for the magic apocalyptic moment to smash capitalism and pull socialist democracy out of thin air.

I've been involved in numerous co-ops and collectives trying to do things along egalitarian and democratic principles, and they always run into problems, but they do provide a useful education in both negative and positive lessons. If we don't try to do things differently until The Revolution, we aren't going to have a freaking clue what to do when it happens.

Perfect leaderships and perfect masses just don't exist. Socialist politics seem like a total joke when no immediate concrete steps or methods are advanced.

[MarxSchmarx]

I have never read this Dauve, but I think it misrepresents the advocats of the "new society from the shell of the old" argument. The view was never really that it would be a clean slate to build upon, but rather that it would provide the necessary pre-requisites for evolving, eventually, into a set of social institutions unburdened with the capitalist past. Even its fiercest advocates conceded that there was nothing stopping future, relatively more liberated generations from further perfecting these institutions and ridding them of capitalist vestiges.

Attempts to think up (much less implement) alternatives to capitalist-based institutions have never really worked. Moreover, this is not how capitalism evolved out of feudalism.

As far as recent authors, I think you should seek writers that are correct or at least insightful, rather than contemporary.

Having said that I would suggest Alan Woods, Raj Patel and George Monbiot as very original, insightful and semi-influential leftist thinkers with an eye towards concrete activism.

[Mr. Natural]

MarxSchmarx,

George Monbiot is a hopeless liberal who absolutely never identifies capitalism as our root problem.

I do like his statement, "Environmentalism has been won as an argument but lost as a practice." But why has environmentalism been lost as practice, George? Monbiot hasn't a clue--he's a liberal.

[MarxSchmarx]

MarxSchmarx,

George Monbiot is a hopeless liberal who absolutely never identifies capitalism as our root problem.

I do like his statement, "Environmentalism has been won as an argument but lost as a practice." But why has environmentalism been lost as practice, George? Monbiot hasn't a clue--he's a liberal.

Yeah, his politics are really lame.

But I think a lot of his writing is tied to his activism esp. around the land rights stuff is pretty concrete and he has put out some theory about that. I also think a lot of his polemics against anti-globalization protesters are steps in the right direction, though his solutions are a joke.