GESELLSCHAFTSANALYSE UND LINKE PRAXIS PREFACE 1 CONTENT 4 IT‘S TIME FOR SOMETHING NEW therefore Socialism Mario Candeias 24 THE WAY I CALL DEMOCRATIC SOCIALISM Bernie Sanders 34 THERE IS AN ALTERNATIVE Sarah Leonard 38 REVOLUTION MEANS TAKING CARE OF THE FUTURE Verónica Gago 42 SOCIALISM FOR THE 21. CENTURY four assumptions Etienne Balibar 44 WHY AND WHICH SOCIALISM? Ingar Solty 76 SOCIALISM AND ACCOUNTABILITY Alex Demirović PREFACE Do you want socialism and the future? to a socialist vision, especially in the US How can we still talk about socialism in and in Great Britain. Socialism is even these dystopian times? And how to fall being fought over again in Germany, silent upon this? Capitalism is devour- where the is a strong anti-communist ing our future—while the crises of our tradition. What does a SOCIALISM FOR time are literally heating up, it appears FUTURE, a socio-ecological revolution, that their resolution is all the more a green socialism look like? How does it absent. Furious ecological destruction, connect the various desires of the many? escalating military conflicts, the rise of What does a policy that creates hope the radical right as well as the private and brings real change look like? What is appropriation of the social wealth are to be done and where do we begin? putting the future into question. Plane- Socialism should first of all be obvious, tary boundaries and tipping points are self-evident, a matter of course… but it already reached, narrowing the temporal is also about producing exemplary, con- horizon for leftwing alternatives. More crete social conflicts while lampooning and more people are realizing that we are the propertied classes’ whine when little running headlong into catastrophe if we is taken from them. And moreover, there do not radically transform the economy are a good many ideas and proposals: and society quickly—Fridays for Future The Green New Deal put forward by and the global climate strikes symbolize Alexandra Ocasio-Cortez and Bernie this. Right now, it’s easier to imagine the Sanders being the most prominent. The end to the world than an end to capitalism neoliberal mantra »There is no Alterna- (Frederic Jameson). tive« was turned into its opposite: There Thoroughgoing and radical alternatives is no longer an alternative to radical (system change) are increasingly being transformation. Or, according to Veróni- called for—and more often. Young peo- ca Gago: socialism means taking care of ple are beginning to connect the future the future. PREFACE 3 IT’S TIME FOR SOMETHING NEW THEREFORE SOCIALISM MARIO CANDEIAS The German left party, DIE LINKE, sees itself as a party fighting for democratic socialism. For about the past eight years, we have been struggling to become more visible, socially effective and relevant, while pursuing a strategy of connective class politics and transformative organizing. That means becoming a party able to consciously and intentionally producing exemplary, concrete social conflicts around key social questions, building clear perspectives for new socialist practices and projects—also attempting to form a social bloc for a transformative left government in Germany. Actually existing socialism has failed: for Global inequality has reached previously good reason. Actually existing capitalism has unknown extremes, both between most also failed. Capitalism will not surrender countries and within them, with dra- as quickly as state socialism did. Socialism matic consequences for social cohesion, or barbarism—this was Rosa Luxemburg’s democracy and beyond: The process of watchword just as the world sank deeper accumulation now relies far more on into imperialism, colonialism, and the First upward redistribution than on production World War, and later into the Second World on an extended scale, blocking further War and the Holocaust. Now, as humanity economic development. The consequences faces an ever-growing mass of problems, of capitalist growth, which have provoked barbarism has once again become a real a planetary ecological crisis, come with and threatening possibility. this package, which produce further social 4 LUXEMBURG 2020 SOCIALISM FOR FUTURE conflicts and rapidly growing economic collapsed into isolated policy-making, damage in turn. These two trends, along demands and actions is needed. In times with war and destruction, over-exploita- of social polarization, a radical perspective tion of resources, asymmetrical trade is crucial in order to achieve this. It is not agreements, and unjust global economic simply a matter of defending the welfare relationships, have all contributed to state or returning to a nation-state model making the issue of global migration for regulating capitalism. We need to clear- a major challenge: there are currently ly say that we are working towards the end 71 million refugees in the world, a record of capitalism, towards a society that Bernie number. The vast majority are being taken Sanders blithely refers to as socialist. Quite in by countries in the global South. But obviously, this project will include things the societies of the North, too, have turned like free health care and education, as well into immigration societies, whether they as affordable housing for all; free-of-charge like it or not. Isolationism can only be public services, from libraries to public achieved by trampling on human rights transport; the restructuring of cities, and the values the left holds dear to. In transport, energy, and agriculture along short, humanity faces problems spelling ecological lines; a great deal more time for out the failure of capitalism, far beyond one another and for simply living; real de- the organic crisis of the neo-liberal project. mocracy and real participation in political The rise of authoritarianism across the decision making. Socialism should first of world expresses this. In the interregnum, all be obvious, a matter of course. these new forms of authoritarianism are This is where the still-unsettled a function of the specific mechanisms (»unabgegolten«, Bloch) legacy of of capitalisms’ crisis and the need to previous future oriented imaginations win back and secure power. They have come in—from the French and Russian potentials that are incalculable in terms of Revolutions to 1968 or 1989. As Corbyn their destructive power. says: »For us it might have been the same thing for the last 40 years, but for the Socialism should first of all younger generation it’s brand new.« Thus be obvious. the word socialism once more becomes something that can be said. People notice An alternative is necessary: a renewed it, look it up on Wikipedia, get informed. democratic socialism, a green socialism.1 There is an already-existing desire for a A perspective proceeding through a mili- more radical critique, for system change, tant process of experimentation, reuniting for alternatives; not least, the desire for our different political initiatives across social-ecological alternatives—a wish that a range of fields, so that things aren’t sometimes might not be very concrete. MARIO CANDEIAS 5 We should not lag behind in using this investments are going to become old-yet-new word, this not-yet-settled word, necessary (even the Federation of German to name our ideas of a solidarity-based, Industries is talking about giving up on democratic, feminist, anti-racist, post- the so-called »black zero« or debt break). growth alternative to the present system, Not for the maintenance of the old, but and arguing, together, for what that rather for use in building the new! In a word should mean in the 21st century. certain sense, this will be an entry-project Socialism—a good, just society, based on that operates on a progressively increasing solidarity; the simple thing that seems so scale, because it is a matter of nothing hard to achieve. Not everyone among the less than developing a new social model. broader left and the social movements will The current crisis and its concomitant sign on to this, but it should be accepted polarization can provide momentum to as self-evident that a transformative left shift the balance of power in this direction, stands for socialism. Depending on the in the face of rapid movements and context, it can be called »green«, »demo- changes of terrain. We should seize the cratic«, or »feminist« socialism—but in moment. the end it should be a matter of socialism sans phrase (no ifs or buts). WHY SOCIALISM? THE METHOD The word is not really the point, The concept of socialism attempts to bring but what else would be a positive word diverse interests and movements together for system change—since it is a matter into the spirit of a »revolutionary Real- of nothing less. We should be clear in politik«, such that it not »only sets itself stating that the aforementioned problems achievable goals that it pursues to obtain of humanity cannot be dealt with by by the most effective means in the shortest adjusting a few screws here and there: the time«, but rather goes »in all the parts of depth and the speed of change initially its endeavors beyond the bounds of the will have to be something comparable to existing order in which it operates«.2 Roosevelt’s New Deal. This might seem exaggerated, but historically, such change …aiming towards concrete has been accomplished in the context of social conflicts as revelators. harsh conflicts—and today, the challenges are at least as daunting as during the What should be aimed for in politics? Where epoch of crisis and the war economy. is the appropriate point to realize a con- The latter underlines, once more, the crete break with capitalism, and/or which indispensably leading role that the state is the political field where quantitative will have to play. The fast-approaching changes could be driven so far that they recession makes it even clearer: massive constitute a real qualitative change? 6 LUXEMBURG 2020 SOCIALISM FOR FUTURE In the first place, it is a matter of con- with local forms of organization.