======================================================================
Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message.
======================================================================
Michael Lebowitz's The Socialist Alternative
by Louis Proyect
Book Review
Lebowitz, Michael A.: The Socialist Alternative: Real Human
Development, Monthly Review Press, New York, ISBN
978-1-58367-214-3, paperback, 191 pages.
(Swans - June 6, 2011) Despite his identification with the
Venezuelan revolutionary process, Michael Lebowitz differs from
"20th Century Socialists" who hitched their wagon to an "actually
existing" system. For obvious reasons, Soviet, Maoist, and even
Cuban socialism has too often tended to foster the rigid pursuit
of a certain kind of model, either economically or
organizationally. There was an unfortunate but understandable need
to elevate Soviet-style planning or "Bolshevik" party-building
methods (even if they were never actually pursued by Lenin) into
some kind of catechism for the Marxist faithful to follow.
Obviously, none of this applies to Venezuela -- a country that is
still capitalist by strict definitions. Marxist theory is
challenged to describe the ever-shifting reality of a society
permeated by working-class power and institutions that represent
profound challenges to the existing system. Co-ops, for example,
are a principal medium for economic development outside the profit
system. If one has no patience for explaining contradictions, then
one might be advised to avoid Venezuela.
full: http://www.swans.com/library/art17/lproy70.html
________________________________________________
Send list submissions to: Marxism@greenhouse.economics.utah.edu
Set your options at:
http://greenhouse.economics.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
