Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

It's Capitalism, Stupid!: The Theoretical And Political Limitations Of The Concept Of Neoliberalism, Bryant William Sculos

Class, Race and Corporate Power

This polemical essay explores the meaning and function of the concept of neoliberalism, focusing on the serious theoretical and political limitations of the concept. The crux of the argument is that, for those interested in overcoming the exploitative and oppressively destructive elements of global capitalism, opposing "neoliberalism" (even if best understood as a process or a spectrum of "neoliberalization" or simply privatization) is both insufficient and potentially self-undermining. This article also goes into some detail on the issues of health care and climate change in relation to "neoliberalism" (both conceptually and the material processes and policies that this term refers …

Politics Of Marx As Non-Sectarian Revolutionary Class Politics: An Interpretation In The Context Of The 20th And 21st Centuries, Raju Das

Class, Race and Corporate Power

This article is condensed from three chapters of my Marxist Class Theory for a Skeptical World (Haymarket, 2018) and from a longer article based on these chapters. It is based on a talk on Marx’s politics’ delivered at ‘A Bicentenary Conference: Karl Marx at 200’ at Brock University, St. Catharines, Ontario. Canada. I am thankful to the participants at this conference for their comments.

Put simply, Marx’s politics is about class struggle for state power to build socialism, a society of popular democracy, by overthrowing capitalism. In this short article, I will explore different aspects of this single idea, from …

A New Gilded Age: Corporate Power And Socialism In The 21st Century, Eljeer Hawkins

Class, Race and Corporate Power

Building on the author’s experience and accumulated knowledge from years as a left activist, this essay articulates the similarities between our current moment and the original Gilded Age of the late 19^thand early 20^thcenturies. The conclusion presented here is that when there is extreme wealth inequality, increased exploitation, and attempts to normalize oppression and bigotry, resistance emerges. This is precisely what we have been seeing around the world, most notably in the US. The eventual successes or failures of the developing socialist movement will be determined by how well we learn from history, rearticulate our theories, …

The Significance And Shortcomings Of Karl Marx, Chris Wright

Class, Race and Corporate Power

In this essay I explain both why Karl Marx remains an important thinker and why he is in some respects inadequate. I focus on the central issue of 'materialism vs. idealism,' and briefly explore ways in which contemporary intellectuals still haven't assimilated the insights of historical materialism. In the last section of the paper I examine the greatest weakness of Marxism, its theory of proletarian revolution, and propose an alternative conceptualization that both updates the theory for the twenty-first century and is more faithful to historical materialism than Marx's own conception was.

Socialism & Universal Basic Income, Bryant W. Sculos

Class, Race and Corporate Power

The idea of universal basic income (UBI) has taken on new life as people experience greater inequality and greater exploitation than ever before—combined with the recurrence of the historically-cyclical fear of mass unemployment driven by rapid advancements in automation technologies. But the idea of providing every person with a certain amount of money, regardless of their socioeconomic status or (in)ability to or (dis)interest in working, is far from universally-accepted by socialists. This essay offers replies to three common socialist criticisms of various basic income proposals, in an effort to defend the radical potential of UBI; a potential that is consonant …

The Pitfalls And Possibilities Of Socialist Transformation: The Case Of Greece, Martin Hart-Landsberg

Class, Race and Corporate Power

With its 2015 electoral victory in Greece, Syriza became the first left political party to lead a European government since the founding of the European Union. As such, its eventual capitulation to the demands of the Troika was a bitter development, and not only for the people of Greece. Because the need for change remains as great as ever, and efforts at electoral-based transformations continue, especially in Europe, this paper seeks to assess the Greek experience, and in particular Syriza’s political options and choices, in order to help activists more effectively respond to the challenges faced when confronting capitalist power. …