Portside

If there’s a lesson to be derived from Gary Dorrien’s account of American socialism, it’s that the movement’s open participation in and with the broad democratic left benefits the socialist cause.

DSA’s six-year growth spurt has fundamentally changed the organization. To resolve the deep issues it faces, it needs to meet the organizational challenges this change poses.

Even among Marx-friendly economists, the labor theory of value has fallen out of favor. But its technical validity is less important than the core message: workers are exploited because the value they create is undemocratically taken by capitalists.

Piketty’s new book, “A Brief History of Equality,” is perhaps his most optimistic work. Piketty proposes a truly radical policy agenda — a universal minimum inheritance, worker control over the boards of corporations and “confiscatory” levels of wealth and income taxation — that he calls “participatory socialism.”

Reader Comments: Uvalde School Shootings - Ban Assault Weapons; High Rents; Latin America Summit; Medicare Advantage; 2022 Elections; Thomas Piketty; 40 Years - June 12, 1982 Anti-Nuclear War Protests; more....

For years, Thomas Piketty has articulated a cogent critique of 21st-century capitalism. He now appears to be moving beyond just critique to call for a 21st-century socialism.

Reader Comments: Uvalde Murders; Democracy, Judiciary, Abortion, Voting Rights, Gun Control, Supreme Court Expansion; Ameericas Summit; Ukraine War; Socialism in Our Time - International Conference; more ....

Reader Comments: Uvalde School Shootings; Attack on Teachers, on Education, on Public Schools; Starbucks Union Winning; Strategy for Change - DSA and Electoral Politics of the Left; Ozark - What Was it About; Resources; Announcements; more....

Will the social necessity for the state "wither away"?

Reader Comments: Ending Ukraine War; Ukraine and the Left; Grad Students; Who Is Working-Class; Amazon Rainforest; Jackie Robinson; Amazon Rally Sunday; May Day; Global Green New Deal; Labor Notes Conference; Teaching Socialism; Mark Rogovin; more...