The prospects of revolution in imperialist nations

[Questionable]

Who are some good Marxist theoreticians I can read regarding the situations and possible revolutions in well-developed imperialist nations such as America or Canada? Is there anyone that says it's possible and has good reasons for arguing so?

Preferably fairly recent. I know Marx wrote about this but the situation has changed since his death.

[Yuppie Grinder]

"Every revolution is impossible until it is inevitable." - Trotsky
Marxists historically have been too optimistic about revolution, in my humble opinion. We constantly spout that market economy has exhausted its potential for adaption and expansion and yet new economies are developed and exploitation prevails.
Capitalism is not infinitely sustainable, of course, but it is also a much more adaptive and flexible system then many leftists assume.
Pre-1918 Marxists were not fools for being so optimistic, though. Given the terrible barbarity of WW1 it made sense to see the prevailing state of things and think "This shit ain't gonna last long."

[Yuppie Grinder]

You might wanna check out Nihilist Communism. The silly name and writing style might turn you off, but it's a pretty good critique of fruitless optimism and messianic determinism within the western left.
http://nihilistcommunism.blogspot.com/

[blake 3:17]

I don't know of anyone of note arguing that there is an immediate or short term socialist revolution possible in the US or Canada. I do think that there is a possibility of serious revolutionary movements and crises of the state and corporate rule developing in the next few years as various social and ecological crises hit. I'd identify the Occupy movement, the Quebec student strike, and the recent Walmart strikes, and the movement against Tar Sand oil extraction as the most significant radical movements in recent years. I am too ignorant to comment on recent Mexican politics.

[Os Cangaceiros]

Who are some good Marxist theoreticians I can read regarding the situations and possible revolutions in well-developed imperialist nations such as America or Canada? Is there anyone that says it's possible and has good reasons for arguing so?

Preferably fairly recent. I know Marx wrote about this but the situation has changed since his death.

I think that there were some writings pertaining to this topic from Italy during the late 1960's. Stuff like "Strike One to Educate One Hundred" and some stuff from autonomist writers and such.

[Geiseric]

James P. Cannon wrote a bunch about the prospects of revolution in the U.S. during the general strikes in the 30's.

[Yuppie Grinder]

I don't know of anyone of note arguing that there is an immediate or short term socialist revolution possible in the US or Canada. I do think that there is a possibility of serious revolutionary movements and crises of the state and corporate rule developing in the next few years as various social and ecological crises hit. I'd identify the Occupy movement, the Quebec student strike, and the recent Walmart strikes, and the movement against Tar Sand oil extraction as the most significant radical movements in recent years. I am too ignorant to comment on recent Mexican politics.

The proletariat is not organized into a political organization of it's own, so those spontaneous acts of rebellion will be remain ineffectual.
Occupy was way to polluted with well to do students preaching their "Democratize capitalism!" shtick.
My sister who's an anarcho-primitivist squater was really involved in Occupy Portland and Occupy Oakland, and from her romanticized accounts of how leaderless and chaotic the whole thing was I gather nothing meaningful came of the whole thing.

[jookyle]

Revolution becomes harder (especially socialist revolution) in an imperialist country like the US because of the type education the capitalist state must use to preserve itself. Socialism is capitalism greatest enemy not just because it's aversion to markets and general economic ideas but because socialism has always been one of the strongest anti-imperialist movements in the 20th century. So the people born into a country of such a nature is fed lies from every direction about the history of socialism to discredit it and everything is done to cultivate nationalist feelings from a very young age. Revolution becomes much harder to cultivate when the people are decided against it with out knowing anything about it in the first place. I do not think it is impossible but, we have a lot of work to do.

[The Jay]

Read Democracy At Work by Richard Wolff. That is the closest that I can think of in regards to a fully thought out proposal made by a modern day marxist for a strategy to build towards fundamental change in modern industrial societies.

[l'Enfermé]

Canada the imperialist juggernaut with it's mighty empire and dozens of nations subjugated under it's heel, aye?

[Mr. Natural]

Questionable, There actually is a modern work that addresses your concerns: Joel Kovel's Enemy of Nature (2003). Kovel is now the main American spokesperson for ecosocialism, and Enemy conclusively deconstructs capitalism as an unredeemable evil and then outlines an "ecological," grassroots revolutionary process for the US (and Canada).

I am not aware of any other such work, and I've been looking. For that matter, little is written of value by the left nowadays. The triumph of capitalist globalization has created an entropic condition in which negations of the negation are disappearing. There has been a systemic triumph of a capitalism that is alien to life and community and radical thought.

Emmanuel Goldstein, have you ever produced a thread on Richard Wolff's
Democracy At Work? If so, please gimme a reference; if not, might this be a worthwhile project?

My red-green best.

My red-green best.

[fractal-vortex]

I think that if we take a hint from recent events in 2011, a global revolution may start in one of the Muslim countries, as we've seen in the "Arab Spring". Then, this may spread around the world, as we've seen with the "Occupy". The movement in the future should have a centralized party with a good theory.:)

[cynicles]

Canada the imperialist juggernaut with it's mighty empire and dozens of nations subjugated under it's heel, aye?
The Canadian government is heavily involved in protecting it's mineral assets globally, that's why 75% of all mining business is centrally located in Canada. Continuing a legacy of screwing over natives to get at resources. Mining is the Canadian imperialists raison d'etre one might say.