Socialism: Past and FutureThis is the definitive text on the role of socialism throughout history which Publishers Weekly calls “succinct, readable” and the New York Times says “has a lively air of optimism and boldly challenges traditional ideas.” On learning his cancer was inoperable, renowned intellectual Michael Harrington simply asked the doctors to keep him alive long enough “to complete a summary statement of the themes I had thought of throughout an activist life.” And they did. Socialism: Past and Future is prominent thinker Michael Harrington’s final contribution: a thoughtful, intelligent, and compassionate treatise on the role of socialism both past and present in modern society. He is convincing in his application of classic socialist theory to current economic situations and modern political systems, and he examines the validity of the idea of “visionary gradualism” in bringing about a socialist agenda. He believes that if freedom and justice are to survive into the next century, the socialist movement will be a critical factor. Harrington draws on a lifetime of thinking and politicking to reject much that has passed for socialism and to define the new forms that will make it the only “hope for human freedom and justice” (Foreign Affairs) in the twenty-first century. |
Contents
Hypotheses | |
Socialisms | |
Authoritarian Collectivisms | |
The Realpolitik of Utopia | |
The End of Socialism? | |
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Common terms and phrases
American analysis argued authoritarian basic became become Bolsheviks bourgeois Bukharin bureaucratic capitalism capitalist central century collectivization Communist conservative corporations countries created crisis critical Crosland Das Kapital decisions democracy democratic socialism dictatorship economic Edward Bernstein eighties employment Engels enormous enterprises Erfurt Program Europe factory force Fordist freedom French future German global growth Hilferding human Ibid important industrial investment John Maynard Keynes Karl Karl Kautsky Karl Marx Kautsky Keynes Keynesian labor Lenin liberation major Marcuse Marx Marx's Marxist mass organized ownership Party peasants percent planning political possible postwar poverty problem production profits proletariat radical reform repression result revolution revolutionary Saint-Simonians sector seventies simply social democrats social-democratic compromise socialist movement society Soviet Union Stalin strategy structure of accumulation struggle Swedish theory Third World trade transformation trend Trotsky United utopian wages welfare workers York