For the sake of our planet and our species, we need to remember what was good in the old socialist dreams
In recent decades, socialism has been challenged from all directions. The influential German sociologist Ralf Dahrendorf was right when he wrote that Francis Fukuyama’s proclamation of “liberal democracy as the final form of human government” was “a caricature of a serious argument”, but he agreed with its core premise: “socialism is dead, and none of its variants can be revived for a world awakening from the double nightmare of Stalinism and Brezhnevism.” From the left, Andre Gorz echoed that sentiment: “As a system, socialism is dead. As a movement and an organized political force, it is on its last legs. All the goals it once proclaimed are out of date.”
Gorz’s frustrations were directed at the workers’ movement as a whole. It hadn’t fulfilled its revolutionary destiny, though socialists were still wedded to it and its failures. Capitalism has proved remarkably durable. But from a different perspective, the history of working-class politics since the days of Marx and Engels has been a stunning success. God rested on the seventh day; the labor movement gave us the sixth off. We went from an era when capital ruled unchallenged to one with powerful limits on its conduct – the 40-hour week, labor and environmental regulations and more. These reforms, and the broader progress on women’s liberation and racial equality, are under constant siege, but they happened.
Continue reading...from US news | The Guardian http://bit.ly/2UUK9mI
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