By Alberto Garzón Espinosa, Links International Journal of Socialist Renewal reposted from La-U
Ecosocialism
By Fourth International
23 February 2022 — Links International Journal of Socialist Renewal reposted from Fourth International — This text was presented to open a discussion on the international situation at the International Committee meeting and will form the basis for future elaboration.
By Richard Westra
October 23, 2021 — Links International Journal of Socialist Renewal reposted from Socialist Project — Before turning to the subject matter at hand two abiding issues in Marxist thinking need to be addressed. First, when Marx inveighed against Utopian Socialist futuristic model building, he never intended it to become a mantra dissuading socialists from thinking practically about socialist institutional design. Rather, Marx simply insisted that such endeavors only be undertaken after knowledge of the then forming capitalist economy had been produced. This is the task of Marx’s magisterial economic writing Capital that he devoted much of his life to completing. Second, while Marx’s pithy theory of historical materialism in the (in)famous Preface spells out in broad brush terms the general process of historical change: “At a certain stage of development, the material productive forces of society come into conflict with the existing relations of production,” in Capital Marx offers a far more precise means of conceptualizing the specific historical transformation from capitalism to socialism.
By Giacomo D’Alisa
March 11, 2021 — Links International Journal of Socialist Renewal reposted from Undisciplined Environments — In a recent article Michael Lowy ponders if the ecological left has to embrace the ecosocialist or the degrowth ‘flag’; a concern that is not totally new. Lowy is a French-Brazilian Marxist scholar and a prominent ecosocialist. Together with Joel Kovel, an American social scientist and psychiatrist, in 2001 he wrote An ecosocialist manifesto, a foundational document for several political organizations worldwide. Thus, entering into a discussion with Lowy is not a simple academic whim, but a demand that many politically-engaged people of the ecological left are wondering about.
By Luke Neal
December 11, 2020 — Links International Journal of Socialist Renewal reposted from Prometheus — “Our Green New Deal,” read the Labour Party’s 2019 manifesto, “aims to achieve the substantial majority of our emissions reductions by 2030 in a way that is evidence-based, just and that delivers an economy that serves the interests of the many, not the few.”[1] This was a central pillar of the election platform that suffered an historic defeat last December. As the ecological crisis continues unabated, the Green New Deal has solidified its place as the programmatic response among the left. Its core ideas have reappeared in the immediate economic crisis in the guise of a ‘green recovery’ and calls to ‘build back better’. This article argues that, from the perspective of Marxist ecology, the apparent path between a Green New Deal and an ecosocialism is confronted with several contradictions and strategic problems.
