For those of you patiently [or impatiently, as in my case] waiting for
my new book, I've just heard from MR Press that it is now out!
Virtual drinks on me!
michael
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Subject: The Contradictions of "Real Socialism" by Michael A. Lebowitz
From: Monthly Review Press <[email protected]>
Date: 7/26/2012 9:04 AM
To: <[email protected]>
New from MR Press!
The Contradictions of "Real Socialism"
The Conductor and the Conducted
by Michael A. Lebowitz
"The profound understanding in this new book of why twentieth-century
attempts at constructing socialism failed must be an essential element
in the socialist renewal emerging amid the first great capitalist crisis
of the twenty-first century."
---Leo Panitch, editor, Socialist Register
"Lebowitz shows, theoretically and historically, that the socialism
practiced in the Soviet Union and Central Europe was doomed. There is a
lot to learn here."
---Martin Hart-Landsberg, professor of economics, Lewis and Clark College
"One doesn't have to agree with all the theses presented in Michael
Lebowitz's latest book in order to acknowledge that this is a major
contribution to the international debate on socialism of the
twenty-first century."
---Michael Löwy, co-author, Che Guevara: His Revolutionary Legacy (with
Olivier Besancenot)
"What would Marx have thought had he lived to see the Soviet Union?
Nobody has interpreted Marx to greater advantage to answer this question
than renowned Marxist scholar Michael Lebowitz, who explains why Marx
would not have been pleased!"
---Robin Hahnel, professor of economics, Portland State University
"We need this well-written book to understand that socialism did not die
with the fall of the Berlin Wall."
---François Houtart, Executive Secretary of the World Forum for Alternatives
"Where fresh insights are rare, indeed, Michael Lebowitz provides a
bundle of them. Although no one will (or perhaps should) agree with
everything here, the book provides rich material for badly-needed
discussion."
---Paul Buhle, author, Marxism in the United States
"A riveting exploration of what can be learned from the first attempts
to create socialist systems, specifically the period from 1950 through
the 1980s. Required reading."
---Fred Magdoff, professor emeritus of plant and soil science,
University of Vermont
From the author's preface:
This is not a book for those who already know everything important
there is to know about "Real Socialism." For those fortunate souls who
have inherited or adopted the eternal verities of particular political
sects on the left, empirical footnotes that strengthen their claim to
leadership are the principal tasks of scholarship. As a result, the
central question about this book for them is likely to be, "Is he with
us or against us?" In short, is this book good for the chosen?
I presume, however, readers who begin with questions rather than
answers. What was this phenomenon known as "Real Socialism," or
"Actually Existing Socialism," a concept created in the twentieth
century by the leaders of countries in order to distinguish their real
experience from merely theoretical socialist ideas? What were its
characteristics? How was this system reproduced? And why did it
ultimately yield to capitalism without resistance from the working
classes who were presumably its beneficiaries?
Michael A. Lebowitz is professor emeritus of economics at Simon Fraser
University in Vancouver, Canada, and author of The Socialist
Alternative, Beyond Capital: Marx's Political Economy of the Working
Class (winner of the Isaac Deutscher Memorial Prize for 2004), Build It
Now: Socialism for the Twenty-First Century, and Following Marx: Method,
Critique and Crisis. He was Director, Program in Transformative Practice
and Human Development, Centro Internacional Miranda, in Caracas,
Venezuela, from 2006-11.
222 Pages | $15.95
--
---------------------
Michael A. Lebowitz
Professor Emeritus
Economics Department
Simon Fraser University
8888 University Drive
Burnaby, B.C., Canada V5A 1S6
Home: Phone 604-689-9510
Cell: 778-230-6137
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