21st Century Socialism

Reinventing the Project, 2nd edition

Edited by Henry Veltmeyer

The growing polarization between the rich and powerful and the poor and powerless, the yawning social and developmental divide and the multidimensional systemic crisis of capitalism have given rise to a fundamental problem of our times: barbarism or socialism? Will we continue on the path of capitalist barbarism or move to a more just socialist system? Bringing together a passionate group of socialists, 21st Century Socialism participates in the emerging and critical debate concerned with reinventing and rebuilding socialism. Revisiting concepts of class and capital, reinventing Marx, problematizing party politics, re-examining alternative forms of socialist politics and learning lessons from Venezuela’s Bolivarian Revolution, 21st Century Socialism explores how socialism needs to be re-imagined to make it relevant to 21st-century.

Contents

• Preface
• Why Socialism?
• Introduction
• Socialisms of the 20th and 21st Centuries (James Petras)
Part 1 – Reinventing Socialism: Reinventing Socialism and Recovering Marx (Michael Lebowitz)
• Cloistering Criticism or Breaking Bonds? (Errol Sharpe)
• Western Ideology: Modernisms and the Attack on Marxism (Thom Workman)
• Crisis, Movements, Counter-Hegemony: In Search of the New (Bill Carroll)
Part 2 – Organization and Strategy: The Political Instrument for Socialist Transformation (Marta Harnecker)
• Class Organization (Mauro Casadio & Luciano Vasapollo)
• Socialist Strategy, Yesterday and Today (Murray E. G. Smith & Josh Dumont)
Part 3 – Prospects and Limitations
• The Prospects for Socialism: A Question of Capital and Class (Hugo Radice)
• Venezuela Under Chavez: Prospects and Limitations for Socialism (Jeffrey Webber)
• Conclusion: Socialism or Barbarism? (James Petras & Henry Veltmeyer)

About the Author

Dr. Veltmeyer lived and worked for six years in south America before coming to Canada to pursue a doctoral program in Political Science and subsequently (in 1976) beginning his academic career in the Sociology Department at St. Mary’s University. He has participated in the university’s Atlantic Canada Studies program and founded the program in International development in 1985. He also served for eight years as Coordinator of this program in addition to eight years as chair of the Sociology Department. Currently he has an academic appointment in the PhD program of Development Studies at the Autonomous University of Zacatecas, Mexico and annually engages in an extended program of research and public lectures across Latin America.

He is the Editor-in-Chief of the Canadian Journal of International Development Studies and serves on the editorial board of Studies in Political Economy and a number of international journals in his major field of research-the political economy of international development.

Dr. Veltmeyer conducts research, writes and teaches about diverse issues related to the political economy and sociology of development, with a particular focus on issues of Latin American development, globalization processes, government policies, alternative models and approaches and social movements. Since 2000 he has authored/co-authored and edited 13 books and 25 scholarly refereed articles that have been published in Canada, the US, the UK, Mexico, Argentina, Brazil and Ecuador. Several of these books, written in English or Spanish, have received awards and have been translated into other languages – among them Portuguese, Italian, Tugalese and German.

In addition to these scholarly books, several of which have achieved international recog-nition and/or special awards and distinctions, 25 of Dr. Veltmeyer’s scholarly articles since 2000 have been published in some of the most prestigious academic journals in his field or by the United Nations Research Institute for Social Development. Places of publication include Canada, the US, the UK, Australia, Argentina, Mexico, the Netherlands and Switzerland.