Socialism

È uscito il volume A. Pascale, Ascesa e declino dell'impero statunitense, tomo 1 – Genesi di un regime elitario (dalle origini al 1945), La Città del Sole-L'AntiDiplomatico, Napoli 2022.
Il testo consta di 620 pagine ed è acquistabile al prezzo di 28 euro nelle migliori librerie e con uno sconto dai rivenditori online. 
Di seguito un breve abstract, l'Indice, una presentazione dell'Autore e la bibliografia utilizzata.

Il mito rappresenta [...] la forza sociale e sotterranea di una immensa rivoluzione che minava nel sottosuolo ovunque il mondo antico.

Era comodo procedere quando il Maestro faceva tacere e tremare tutti, regalando miracoli, sanando infermi, risuscitando morti, facendo cadere l'arma dalla mano dell'aggressore.

Gli operai vinceranno se capiranno che nessuno deve venire. L'attesa del Messia ed il culto del genio, spiegabili per Pietro e per Carlyle, sono per un marxista del 1953 solo misere coperture di impotenza.

La Rivoluzione si rialzerà tremenda, ma anonima.

Andrei Znamenski argues that socialism arose out of activities of secularized apocalyptic sects, the Enlightenment tradition, and dislocations produced by the Industrial Revolution. He examines how, by the 1850s, Marx and Engels made the socialist creed “scientific” by linking it to “history laws” and inventing the proletariat—the “chosen people” that were to redeem the world from oppression. Focusing on the fractions between social democracy and communism, Znamenski explores why, historically, socialism became associated with social engineering and centralized planning. He explains the rise of the New Left in the 1960s and its role in fostering the cultural left that came to privilege race and identity over class. Exploring the global retreat of the left in the 1980s–1990s and the “great neoliberalism scare,” Znamenski also analyzes the subsequent renaissance of socialism in wake of the 2007–2008 crisis

According to the Bible, Eve was the first to heed Satan’s advice to eat of the forbidden fruit. The notion of woman as the Devil’s accomplice is prominent throughout the history of Christianity. During the nineteenth century, rebellious females performed counter-readings of this misogynist tradition. Hereby, Lucifer was reconceptualised as a feminist liberator of womankind, and Eve became a heroine. In these reimaginings, Satan is an ally in the struggle against a patriarchy supported by God the Father and his male priests.

This study delineates how such Satanic feminism is expressed in a number of nineteenth-century esoteric works, literary texts, autobiographies, pamphlets and journals, newspaper articles, paintings, sculptures and even artefacts of consumer culture such as jewellery.

In the material, four motifs in particular are prominent: 1) interpretations of Eve’s role in the fall of man as something positive, 2) the witch as a proto-feminist figure, 3) the demon lover as an emancipator, 4) a feminised Satan contrasted with an oppressive male God. A fifth and less central motif is conceptions of Lilith, according to Jewish lore the unruly first wife of Adam, as the first feminist.

The analysis focuses on interfaces between esotericism and the political realm, as well as the interdependence of literature and the occult. New light is thus shed on neglected aspects of the intellectual history of feminism, Satanism and revisionary mythmaking. The study is informed by theories concerning counter-readings, counter-discourses and counter-myths, and in particular highlights the complex interplay of such phenomena and the hegemonic discourses that demonised feminism. A key theme in this context is the limits and paradoxes of inversion as a subversive strategy.

http://www.molinsorgenfrei.se/

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"Ginzburg severely criticised the idea of building in this new society being the same as in the old one, and to elaborate on this socialist architecture he formedThe OSA Group. The OSA Group generated progressive theoretic and practical work to make transitory socialist-aimed projects. Soon after establishing OSA Ginzburg declared that the “modus operandi of an architect, from one who traditionally had a craftsmanlike relation to his client ” had to change to a new type of specialist who would be a sociologist, politician and a technician. He then began to admit members from related fields into the group making OSA’s programmatic orientation rather different from that of the other Constructivist formations. In practical terms OSA was meant to cultivate the idea of a ‘social condenser’ and to implement a radical approach particularly in social housing schemes. These were the first moves to-wards creating the Narkomfin building."

Magical realism is a genre constructed and developed during the late 19th and early 20th century which has continued to evolve today. The definitions of this genre have been closely associated with many similar literary movements such as the magic real or marvellous realism. Magical realism is defined as literature that is rooted in everyday occurrences and observed by the author and audience as “integrated into reality.” I will further define magical realism in the context of its development alongside these very similar iterations of magical realism. Latin America* has been one of the foremost contributors to the genre of magical realism as they have greatly contributed to the critical discourse of both defining and constructing this literature. The genre is closely associated with postcolonial and revolutionary movements. It has also served as a political tool for many revolutionaries to communicate anticolonial ideals and establish a Latin American identity outside of the restrictive and subjugating hand of western imperialism. As observed by Walter Mignolo in A Darker Side of Western Imperialism, Europeans dismiss and undermine cultures, traditions, and languages outside of their own. The history of imperialism is discussed by Roberto González Echevarría, a Cuban born literary critic of Latin American literature, as inspiring the modernismo literary movement that magical realism comes from. The feelings of “cultural difference” between colonial countries and Latin America produced the need to find a new way to communicate. In my paper I will analyze the ontonlogical and formal development of magical realism, that centered around a postcolonial identity, within the context of two Chilen writers: Maria Luisa Bombal and Isabel Allende. Each of these writers will demonstrate two major ideas. The first idea is that the Chilean iteration of magical realism needs to be read in its specific historical context, as "Latin American" is a broad, colonial term. The second idea being that by looking at the developments of Chilean magical realism that occur between these two authors, we can see both literary and historical insights.

Political revolutions are, by their very nature, contested events, and liable to remain the subject of conflicting interpretations long after they have turned the existing order upside down and spun it around. This is especially so when they have been violent in their making and then evolved through further cycles of violence and repression, leaving large numbers of people dead and even more traumatised and intimidated into silence. The Zanzibar Revolution is a case in point, and this edited volume, published in association with the French Institute for Research in Africa (IFRA), grapples with collective and individual memories of the events of 12 January 1964 and their aftermath, and the continuing reverberations of these in the everyday life of Zanzibaris both home and abroad.

Social Memory, Silenced Voices, and Political Struggle begins and ends with reflections on the official commemoration of the 50th anniversary of the revolution in 2014, firstly in the editors’ thought-provoking introduction (‘Memory, media, and Mapinduzi: alternative voices of revolution, fifty years later’), latterly in a series of 15 black-and-white photographs by Ania Gruca (‘Capturing the commemoration: a documentary photo essay on the 50th anniversary of the revolution’). Anniversaries provide the islands’ government with a regular opportunity to reproduce its founding narrative, just in case its name (Serikali ya Mapinduzi ya Zanzibar, the Revolutionary Government of Zanzibar) and longstanding slogan (Mapinduzi Daima!, Revolution Forever!) weren’t reminder enough.

Nel paese ove sarebbe in costruzione l'economia socialista non solo dunque esistono i rubli, coi quali il salario dei lavoratori viene pagato, ma esiste anche il risparmio sul salario, il deposito di esso nelle casse statali o nelle banche, la possibilità di investire l'accumulato risparmio in titoli fruttifero, da cui ogni sei mesi la salda mano dell'operaio, come quella delle vecchie signore che si affollano nei saloni delle banche, taglierà esitante la "cedola" dell'interesse, il borghesissimo "coupon". E con tutto ciò esiste del pari il pieno diritto di negoziare i titoli, venderli e comprarli, accumulare in quantità illimitata, e passare da stakhanovista a fannullonissimo "rentier".

Il saggio fornisce spunti e chiavi di lettura su due figure fondamentali della stampa satirica in Italia, Gabriele Galantara e Giuseppe Scalarini, i più importanti disegnatori politici dell’Italia tra fine Ottocento e avvio del Novecento. In parallelo, uno sguardo sul sodale di Galantara, il giornalista Guido Podrecca, con la traiettoria politica che lo portò dalle comuni posizioni socialiste all’irreparabile frattura ideale e personale. Di Galantara e Scalarini si esaminano anche le relazioni con le vicende dei giornali e periodici di riferimento, L’Asino e l’Avanti!. I due disegnatori sono protagonisti di una vera e propria lotta delle idee, per l’emancipazione sociale delle classi più umili. Vignette e iconografia diffondono tra grandi masse popolari, allora poco o punto alfabetizzate, elementi di immediata percezione ai fini della maturazione politica e della crescita culturale.

Works on the political and economic thoughts of Thomas Sankara have gained recent currency in the light of the resurgence of decolonization of knowledge in both the global North and South. This chapter works from the wide-ranging and pluriversal political and socioeconomic imaginaries elaborated upon by Sankara (through his speeches and actions) to tease out his particular political economy as one insistent upon building a society in which each person could work toward self-liberation and dignity. I consider some of the lessons learned from the implementation of these political philosophies during the revolution of August 1983 to October 1987. Finally, I conclude by sketching some of the ways in which contemporary pan-Africanists, decolonial thinkers, green socialists, and others have revived aspects of Sankara’s political economy of justice and “revolution [as] happiness.”

This book argues that 'social democratic criminology' is an important critical perspective which is essential for the analysis of crime and criminal justice and crucial for humane and e ective policy. The end of World War II resulted in 30 years of strategies to create a more peaceful international order. In domestic policy, all Western countries followed agendas informed by a social democratic sensibility. Social Democratic Criminology argues that the social democratic consensus has been pulled apart since the late 1960s, by the hegemony of neoliberalism: a resuscitation of nineteenth-century free market economics. There is now a gathering storm of apocalyptic dangers from climate change, pandemics, antibiotic resistance, and other existential threats. This book shows that the neoliberal revolution of the rich pushed aside social democratic values and policies regarding crime and security and replaced them with tougher 'law and order' approaches. The initial consequence was a tsunami of crime in all senses. Smarter security techniques did succeed in abating this for a while, but the decade of austerity in the wake of the 2008 fi nancial crisis has seen growing violent and serious crime. Social Democratic Criminology charts the history of social democracy, discusses the variety of confl icting ways in which it has been interpreted, and identifi es its core uniting concepts and infl uence on criminology in the twentieth century. It analyses the decline of social democratic criminology and the sustained intellectual and political attacks it has endured. The concluding chapter looks at the prospects for reviving social democratic criminology, itself dependent on the prospects for a rebirth of the broader social democratic movement. Written in a clear and direct style, this book will appeal to students and scholars of criminology, sociology, cultural studies, politics, history, social policy, and all those interested in social democracy and its importance for society.

Es war wie das gleichsam letzte Aufflackern des "roten Jahrzehnts" der 1970er Jahre, als in den Jahren 1983 und 1984, vor nun einem Vierteljahrhundert, zwei Aufsatz-Bände des politischen Psychologen und Theoretikers Peter Brückner im Westberliner Wagenbach-Verlag erschienen. Die dort versammelten Aufsätze und Artikel bilden einen nicht unwesentlichen Teil des denkerischen Nachlasses des 1982, kurz vor seinem 60.Geburtstag viel zu früh verstorbenen Vordenker der westdeutschen Neuen Linken.

Ernst Bloch-ist das nicht der linke Philosoph mit der Pfeife und dem »Prinzip Hoffnung«? Das dürfte-jenseits der kleinen, aber eingeschworenen Bloch-Forscher und-Anhänger, die sich weitgehend abseits von der bürgerlichen Öffentlichkeit austauschen-das erste und wahrscheinlich auch einzige Bild sein, das sich die meisten Menschen machen, die seinen Namen nicht mit dem erfolgreichen Fernsehkommissar Bloch verwechseln. Auch hier gilt noch immer das bekannte Diktum Hegels, dass, was bekannt, zumeist noch nicht erkannt ist.

Powerful and scientifically truthful, such is the Biblical story from the Old Testament relating about the 40 years spent by the people of Israel in the desert until all the nation, that is, all the men who were born in slavery, perished. Since the end of the socialist regime in Bulgaria, only about thirty years have passed, and the short time-span makes writing about this period complicated: not enough time has elapsed so our emotions are still too strong.
On the other hand, no researcher should be scared of their emotions; rather, they should strive to overcome emotion and remain objective. Even when it comes to the sweetest (bittersweet actually!) emotion possible – nostalgia. This is why, I’d like to draw your attention to my thoughts and observations on the mechanisms of the changes occurring in culture and language back in the times of ‘socialist’ Bulgaria, especially in relation to important everyday-life concepts like “work” and “home”, as well as other cross-referencing concepts.

Building a socialist feminist movement in Sri Lanka is not solely in the interests of women but is a condition for the development process itself. By combating authoritarian relations in the home, violence against women, and a gender division of labour which fails to socialise boys and men into caring and nurturing roles, it would on the one hand counteract tendencies towards large-scale violence and human rights abuses, and on the other enable a more rational use of human resources through the optimum development of everyone's talents and abilities.

»Die ›Idee‹ blamierte sich immer, soweit sie von dem ›Interesse‹ unter-schieden war« (MEW 2, 85). Mit diesen Worten beginnen in den vierziger Jahren des 19. Jahrhunderts die jungen Karl Marx und Friedrich Engels ihren Feldzug gegen jene frühsozialistischen Denker, die mit moralischen, religiösen oder philosophischen Ideen zum Aufbruch aus dem irdischen Jammertal des Frühkapitalismus aufrufen. Dabei klären Marx und Engels auch ihr eigenes Denken und schaffen die für ihr Werk originäre metho-dische Basis. Ideen werden demnach nicht mehr allein aus sich selbst er-klärt, sondern in Bezug gesetzt zu den Bedingungen, in denen sie entste-hen, und zu den Interessen, die sich in ihnen ausdrücken. Das spezifisch Menschliche wird nicht mehr in einem hypothetischen Wesenskern des Menschen gesucht (wie dies teilweise auch der junge Marx noch getan hat), sondern in der Lebenspraxis und in den gesellschaftlichen Beziehungen. Die Vorstellungen, die sich die Menschen von ihrer gesellschaftlichen Lage machen, bleiben überdies im Regelfall in der Lebenswirklichkeit verhaftet und können diese nur beschränkt überschreiten. Das Bewusstsein, auf das die Frühsozialisten und Frühsozialistinnen damals setzten, könne nach Marx/Engels »nie etwas anderes sein als das bewusste Sein, und das Sein der Menschen ist ihr wirklicher Lebensprozess« (MEW 3, 26). Folglich ist es zunächst erforderlich, den Geheimnissen dieser Lebensprozesse auf den Grund zu gehen, um die Kräfte zu entschlüsseln, die die Menschen an ihre gesellschaftliche Lage binden. Denn allein mit idealen Vorstellungen einer besseren Gesellschaft lassen sich die realen Lebensprozesse nicht aus den Angeln heben. Deshalb betonen Marx, Engels und die ihnen folgenden MarxistInnen die Geschichtlichkeit sowohl ihres Gegenstandes (der Gesellschaft) wie auch ihrer Erkenntnismethode (der materialistischen Dialektik). Nicht mehr um ein absolut verstandenes Wesen des Menschen und der Dinge soll es gehen, sondern um das historisch Konkrete, das Spezifische und Veränderliche: Um die Erkenntnis der Struktur und der Bewegungsge-setze einer bestimmten menschlichen Gesellschaft, der bürgerlich-kapita-listischen Gesellschaft-und dies unter der Massgabe ihrer so notwendigen wie möglichen Veränderung. Diese radikale Hinwendung zum historisch Konkreten, diese Absage an ein spekulatives Philosophieren über die Natur des Menschen und seiner

There is widespread discussion both within and outside Cuba concerning what direction the Cuban economy will go under its new interim president Raul Castro. This short paper is intended to contribute two pieces of information that are needed to intelligently discuss that issue- where Cuba’s economy stands today, and what type of reforms Cuba’s political and economic leadership say they intend to implement. Its goal is to compactly present current information on some of the key economic issues Cuba faces in regards to both the present and the near future, and thereby give a solidly information-based picture of Cuba’s current economic reality. It presents two central conclusions. First, that the evidence supports that there indeed has been real and meaningful accelerated improvement in the Cuban economy in recent years, and at the same time Cuba remains far from being able to meet many of its citizens’ economic needs in accord with its own principals of human development. Second, that...

The writings of key Marxist thinkers and revolutionary processes are examined with focus on their understanding of the relation between anti-imperialism and socialism. As a result of the class structures associated with imperialist domination, and the deficiencies within approaches that emphasize the need of a capitalist development stage prior to socialist transition, the analysis points toward the feasibility and strategic superiority of moving directly from direct or indirect imperialist domination into the transition to socialism.

Discussions of the British Left and the First World War have often focused on strikes, conscientious objection and the anti-war movement. Yet this focus on opposition to the conflict obscures the important actions taken by the labour movement to protect the most vulnerable from the worst effects of the war. Central to the Left’s actions during the war was the War Emergency: Workers’ National Committee (WNC). This body – incorporating the broad spectrum of the labour movement – campaigned against the erosion of living conditions, represented ordinary Britons at the very highest levels of power, acted as a conduit for information from the localities to the centre, and ensured labour cohesion across the draining years of the war. On issues from food prices to rent controls, military pensions to wage levels, the WNC campaigned on behalf of the ordinary men and women of the home front. It is argued in this essay that the Committee made a vital and undervalued contribution to the actions of the labour movement during the war, ensured that the Left remained cohesive and relevant throughout the conflict, and contributed to Labour’s emergence in 1918 as more a united and purposeful party than it had been in 1914.

Thanks to my book, Neither Poverty nor Riches: A Biblical Theology of Possessions, and smaller follow-up studies on related topics, I was invited twice in the last year to participate in panel discussions on economics at national conferences, once for a society of Christian economists and once for a much larger secular counterpart. In both contexts, various economists lamented that, while they tried to be very cautious in weighing in on religious or theological topics about which they knew comparatively little, it seemed to them that biblical scholars and theologians did not return the favor, making confident but simplistic pronouncements on complex economic issues that deserved much more careful study. I believe I was aware of this danger before this past year but now, as a result of these conferences, I am particularly sensitive to it and hope that I can avoid meriting a similar charge after delivering this paper.