(P/B) ANTI-CAPITALISM

Παρουσίαση

Any young person who enters the world of progressive politics has had this experience. You meet an arch-conservative and you decide to convince him to join your side. You argue passionately against the powers that be, bringing up labor abuses, unnecessary wars, political corruption, simple commonsense injustice at every level of society. Your conservative interlocutor agrees with you: these are all problems. But, he asserts: exactly what do you intend to replace capitalism with? Capitalism is, after all, the best system we have.
In Anti-capitalism, activist and scholar Ezequiel Adamovsky gives the lie to the assertion, telling the story of the long-standing effort to build a better world, one without an abusive system at its heart. Backed up by arresting, lucid images from the radical artist group United Illustrators, Adamovsky details the struggle against rising corporate power, as that struggle unfolds in the halls of academia, in the pages of radical newspapers, and in the jungles and the streets. From Marx through the Battle of Seattle and beyond, Adamovsky traces the beliefs and politics of the major figures in the anti-capitalist tradition and explores modern experiments in building different ways of living, in the process providing an indispensible primer for anyone interested in finding alternatives to the so-called "best system we have" - and anyone interested in joining the fight. (From the publisher)

Περιεχόμενα

THE ANTI-CAPITALISTS
What is Capitalism?
An oppressive society (Power; oppression, patriarchy)
A class society (Class domination; institution of domination)
The classes under capitalism: the bourgeoisie
The subaltern classes
Class struggle; the inherent crisis of capitalism
Private property
Commodities, salary and market (Surplus value; economic coercion)
The "original accumulation" (Means of production; violence)
A global and expansive system
Nation-states (Nationalism; uniformity and division; unification of the internal market)
Imperialism (Colonialism; assimilation; racism)
Globalization (Transnational businesses; Empire)
Internal expansion (Privatization, commercializing nature and private life; consumption; fashion)
The State? ("relative autonomy")
Guaranteeing accumulation (Regulation of the economy)
Ensuring legitimacy (The illusion of neutrality)
The State is one of the social functions
State derives from society
A machine of divisions and hierarchies
Global society, enclosed rights (Nationalist ideology, foreign status)
Public and private
But why don't we change things!?
False democracy
It is not a "people's government"
A dictatorship of capital
Hegemony of the dominant class
Capitalism's ideology (Liberalism; community and individual; natural rights)
The culture of capitalism: individualism
Competitiveness, productivity, consumerism
Conformism and passivity
A total system?
FROM RESISTANCE TO ANTI-CAPITALISM
A little history
The "revolution" of Humanism (Transcendence to immanence; modernity)
Rebels, Utopians, enlightened, and romantics
A revolutionary tradition is born: the English Revolution
The French Revolution
Echoes of the Revolution: anti-racism, national self-determination and feminism
The Industrial Revolution: rise of the proletariat
The birth of the Socialist tradition
Anarchism
Marxism
First International
The first socialist parties (The Second International)
Reform or revolution? Social Democracy splits up
The Russian Revolution: the first anti-capitalist revolution Bolsheviks in government
Leninism (The Third International)
Heirs to Leninism: Stalinism and Trotskyism (The Fourth International)
Maoism
Guevarism
National Liberation Movements
Failure of the Communist project
Failure of the social democratic project
The failure of the national liberation project
Neoliberalism's advance and the "end of history"
The rise of a new anti-capitalism
TEN DIFFERENCES BETWEEN THE TRADITIONAL LEFT AND NEW ANTI-CAPITALISM
Taking power? (Bio-power, popular power, counter-power)
Autonomy (power-over; power-to; potential; resistance; heteronomy)
Revolution is today ("Communism here and now"; event)
Horizontalism ("Democratic centralism"; representation-substitution; vanguard; sectarianism; means and ends)
Network structures (Centralism; node; creativity; alliances; rhizome; accumulation-multiplication)
Multiplicity (Subject; people; working class and multitude; negotiation of differences; mutual recognition; consensus)
Political action tailored for every situation (Programs, models and slogans; experience; true "objective" and "not knowing")
Globalizing the struggle (Internationalism; Empire; local/global; national culture)
Direct Action and civil disobedience (Plurality of tactics; legitimacy of actions)
Creativity and happiness (Culture of war/culture of creation; private life; "frivolity tactic"; art and politics)
ANTI-CAPITALISM'S NEW MOVEMENTS, NETWORKS, AND ACTIONS
Indigenous people enter the stage: the Zapatistas (Peoples' Global Action)
Peasants defend their way of life: Landless Workers Movement and Via Campesina
Workers refuse to live in exclusion: the Piqueteros and Occupied Factory Movement
Women against exploitation and patriarchy: World March of Women
Ecologists defend the planet and public spaces: Save the Narmada and Reclaim the Streets
Immigrants challenge borders and racism [...]
NO "PROGRAMS," BUT LOTS OF IDEAS
OPEN ENDING