Author: Kristian Niemietz
Publisher: London Publishing Partnership
ISBN: 0255367716
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 401
Book Description
Socialism is strangely impervious to refutation by real-world experience. Over the past hundred years, there have been more than two dozen attempts to build a socialist society, from the Soviet Union to Maoist China to Venezuela. All of them have ended in varying degrees of failure. But, according to socialism’s adherents, that is only because none of these experiments were “real socialism”. This book documents the history of this, by now, standard response. It shows how the claim of fake socialism is only ever made after the event. As long as a socialist project is in its prime, almost nobody claims that it is not real socialism. On the contrary, virtually every socialist project in history has gone through a honeymoon period, during which it was enthusiastically praised by prominent Western intellectuals. It was only when their failures became too obvious to deny that they got retroactively reclassified as “not real socialism”.
Socialism: The Failed Idea That Never Dies
Author: Kristian Niemietz
Publisher: London Publishing Partnership
ISBN: 0255367716
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 401
Book Description
Socialism is strangely impervious to refutation by real-world experience. Over the past hundred years, there have been more than two dozen attempts to build a socialist society, from the Soviet Union to Maoist China to Venezuela. All of them have ended in varying degrees of failure. But, according to socialism’s adherents, that is only because none of these experiments were “real socialism”. This book documents the history of this, by now, standard response. It shows how the claim of fake socialism is only ever made after the event. As long as a socialist project is in its prime, almost nobody claims that it is not real socialism. On the contrary, virtually every socialist project in history has gone through a honeymoon period, during which it was enthusiastically praised by prominent Western intellectuals. It was only when their failures became too obvious to deny that they got retroactively reclassified as “not real socialism”.
Publisher: London Publishing Partnership
ISBN: 0255367716
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 401
Book Description
Socialism is strangely impervious to refutation by real-world experience. Over the past hundred years, there have been more than two dozen attempts to build a socialist society, from the Soviet Union to Maoist China to Venezuela. All of them have ended in varying degrees of failure. But, according to socialism’s adherents, that is only because none of these experiments were “real socialism”. This book documents the history of this, by now, standard response. It shows how the claim of fake socialism is only ever made after the event. As long as a socialist project is in its prime, almost nobody claims that it is not real socialism. On the contrary, virtually every socialist project in history has gone through a honeymoon period, during which it was enthusiastically praised by prominent Western intellectuals. It was only when their failures became too obvious to deny that they got retroactively reclassified as “not real socialism”.
It Didn't Happen Here
Author: Seymour Martin Lipset
Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
ISBN: 9780393322545
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 388
Book Description
Why socialism has failed to play a significant role in the United States - the most developed capitalist industrial society and hence, ostensibly, fertile ground for socialism - has been a critical question of American history and political development. This study surveys the various explanations for this phenomenon of American political exceptionalism.
Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
ISBN: 9780393322545
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 388
Book Description
Why socialism has failed to play a significant role in the United States - the most developed capitalist industrial society and hence, ostensibly, fertile ground for socialism - has been a critical question of American history and political development. This study surveys the various explanations for this phenomenon of American political exceptionalism.
Socialists Don't Sleep
Author: Cheryl K. Chumley
Publisher: Humanix Books
ISBN: 1630061484
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 257
Book Description
"Socialists Don't Sleep is one of those timely books that just points out the roots of what's gone wrong in America, how we can get our country back on track to what founders envisioned and the Judeo-Christian community that holds the key to America's long-term successes." — Gov. Mike Huckabee, New York Times Bestselling author & Host of Huckabee Socialists Don't Sleep: Christians Must Rise or America Will Fall is about all the sneaky ways the secular left has pressed Socialism into American politics and life – AND WHY CHRISTIANS ARE THE ONLY ONES WHO CAN STOP IT! Socialists Don't Sleep tells how America has gone from a country of rights coming from God – NOT government – to a country that embraces Socialism – where the US government is now expected to pretty much provide from cradle to the grave. Cheryl K. Chumley, an award-winning journalist and contributing editor to The Washington Times, explains how to return the country to its glory days of God-given, and why Christians, more than any other group, are best equipped to lead the way. “Bernie Sanders, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez — when it comes to socialism in America, these two aren't the problem. Per se. They're simply symptoms of the real problems that usher in Socialism: a dysfunctional entitlement-minded society, a propaganda-pushing school system, a decayed culture, a sieve-like border. As Cheryl Chumley points out in Socialists Don't Sleep, we can't root out socialism unless we first address the real problems.” — Michael Savage, New York Times Bestselling author & host of The Savage Nation
Publisher: Humanix Books
ISBN: 1630061484
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 257
Book Description
"Socialists Don't Sleep is one of those timely books that just points out the roots of what's gone wrong in America, how we can get our country back on track to what founders envisioned and the Judeo-Christian community that holds the key to America's long-term successes." — Gov. Mike Huckabee, New York Times Bestselling author & Host of Huckabee Socialists Don't Sleep: Christians Must Rise or America Will Fall is about all the sneaky ways the secular left has pressed Socialism into American politics and life – AND WHY CHRISTIANS ARE THE ONLY ONES WHO CAN STOP IT! Socialists Don't Sleep tells how America has gone from a country of rights coming from God – NOT government – to a country that embraces Socialism – where the US government is now expected to pretty much provide from cradle to the grave. Cheryl K. Chumley, an award-winning journalist and contributing editor to The Washington Times, explains how to return the country to its glory days of God-given, and why Christians, more than any other group, are best equipped to lead the way. “Bernie Sanders, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez — when it comes to socialism in America, these two aren't the problem. Per se. They're simply symptoms of the real problems that usher in Socialism: a dysfunctional entitlement-minded society, a propaganda-pushing school system, a decayed culture, a sieve-like border. As Cheryl Chumley points out in Socialists Don't Sleep, we can't root out socialism unless we first address the real problems.” — Michael Savage, New York Times Bestselling author & host of The Savage Nation
Socialist Realism
Author: Trisha Low
Publisher: Coffee House Press
ISBN: 1566895596
Category : Literary Collections
Languages : en
Pages : 153
Book Description
When Trisha Low moves west, her journey is motivated by the need to arrive “somewhere better”—someplace utopian, like revolution; or safe, like home; or even clarifying, like identity. Instead, she faces the end of her relationships, a family whose values she has difficulty sharing, and America’s casual racism, sexism, and homophobia. In this book-length essay, the problem of how to account for one's life comes to the fore—sliding unpredictably between memory, speculation, self-criticism, and art criticism, Low seeks answers that she knows she won't find. Attempting to reconcile her desires with her radical politics, she asks: do our quests to fulfill our deepest wishes propel us forward, or keep us trapped in the rubble of our deteriorating world?
Publisher: Coffee House Press
ISBN: 1566895596
Category : Literary Collections
Languages : en
Pages : 153
Book Description
When Trisha Low moves west, her journey is motivated by the need to arrive “somewhere better”—someplace utopian, like revolution; or safe, like home; or even clarifying, like identity. Instead, she faces the end of her relationships, a family whose values she has difficulty sharing, and America’s casual racism, sexism, and homophobia. In this book-length essay, the problem of how to account for one's life comes to the fore—sliding unpredictably between memory, speculation, self-criticism, and art criticism, Low seeks answers that she knows she won't find. Attempting to reconcile her desires with her radical politics, she asks: do our quests to fulfill our deepest wishes propel us forward, or keep us trapped in the rubble of our deteriorating world?
The Socialist Manifesto
Author: Bhaskar Sunkara
Publisher: Verso Books
ISBN: 1786636921
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 325
Book Description
The success of Jeremy Corbyn's left-led Labour Party and Bernie Sanders's 2016 presidential campaign revived a political idea many had thought dead. But what, exactly, is socialism? And what would a socialist system look like today? In The Socialist Manifesto, Bhaskar Sunkara, editor of Jacobin magazine, argues that socialism offers the means to achieve economic equality, and also to fight other forms of oppression, including racism and sexism. The ultimate goal is not Soviet-style planning, but to win rights to healthcare, education, and housing and to create new democratic institutions in workplaces and communities. The book both explores socialism's history and presents a realistic vision for its future. A primer on socialism for the 21st century, this is a book for anyone seeking an end to the vast inequities of our age.
Publisher: Verso Books
ISBN: 1786636921
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 325
Book Description
The success of Jeremy Corbyn's left-led Labour Party and Bernie Sanders's 2016 presidential campaign revived a political idea many had thought dead. But what, exactly, is socialism? And what would a socialist system look like today? In The Socialist Manifesto, Bhaskar Sunkara, editor of Jacobin magazine, argues that socialism offers the means to achieve economic equality, and also to fight other forms of oppression, including racism and sexism. The ultimate goal is not Soviet-style planning, but to win rights to healthcare, education, and housing and to create new democratic institutions in workplaces and communities. The book both explores socialism's history and presents a realistic vision for its future. A primer on socialism for the 21st century, this is a book for anyone seeking an end to the vast inequities of our age.
The Socialist Temptation
Author: Iain Murray
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 1684510759
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 167
Book Description
IT'S BACK! Just thirty years ago, socialism seemed utterly discredited. An economic, moral, and political failure, socialism had rightly been thrown on the ash heap of history after the fall of the Berlin Wall. Unfortunately, bad ideas never truly go away—and socialism has come back with a vengeance. A generation of young people who don’t remember the misery that socialism inflicted on Russia and Eastern Europe is embracing it all over again. Oblivious to the unexampled prosperity capitalism has showered upon them, they are demanding utopia. In his provocative new book, The Socialist Temptation, Iain Murray of the Competitive Enterprise Institute explains: Why the socialist temptation is suddenly so powerful among young people That even when socialism doesn’t usher in a bloody tyranny (as, for example, in the Soviet Union, China, and Venezuela), it still makes everyone poor and miserable Why under the relatively benign democractic socialism of Murray's youth in pre-Thatcher Britain, he had to do his homework by candlelight That the Scandinavian economies are not really socialist at all The inconsistencies in socialist thought that prevent it from ever working in practice How we can show young people the sorry truth about socialism and turn the tide of history against this destructive pipe dream Sprightly, convincing, and original, The Socialist Temptation is a powerful warning that the resurgence of socialism could rob us of our freedom and prosperity.
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 1684510759
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 167
Book Description
IT'S BACK! Just thirty years ago, socialism seemed utterly discredited. An economic, moral, and political failure, socialism had rightly been thrown on the ash heap of history after the fall of the Berlin Wall. Unfortunately, bad ideas never truly go away—and socialism has come back with a vengeance. A generation of young people who don’t remember the misery that socialism inflicted on Russia and Eastern Europe is embracing it all over again. Oblivious to the unexampled prosperity capitalism has showered upon them, they are demanding utopia. In his provocative new book, The Socialist Temptation, Iain Murray of the Competitive Enterprise Institute explains: Why the socialist temptation is suddenly so powerful among young people That even when socialism doesn’t usher in a bloody tyranny (as, for example, in the Soviet Union, China, and Venezuela), it still makes everyone poor and miserable Why under the relatively benign democractic socialism of Murray's youth in pre-Thatcher Britain, he had to do his homework by candlelight That the Scandinavian economies are not really socialist at all The inconsistencies in socialist thought that prevent it from ever working in practice How we can show young people the sorry truth about socialism and turn the tide of history against this destructive pipe dream Sprightly, convincing, and original, The Socialist Temptation is a powerful warning that the resurgence of socialism could rob us of our freedom and prosperity.
Socialism Sucks
Author: Robert Lawson
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 1621579468
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 165
Book Description
The bastard step-child of Milton Friedman and Anthony Bourdain, Socialism Sucks is a bar-crawl through former, current, and wannabe socialist countries around the world. Free market economists Robert Lawson and Benjamin Powell travel to countries like Venezuela, Cuba, Russia, and Sweden to investigate the dangers and idiocies of socialism—while drinking a lot of beer.
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 1621579468
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 165
Book Description
The bastard step-child of Milton Friedman and Anthony Bourdain, Socialism Sucks is a bar-crawl through former, current, and wannabe socialist countries around the world. Free market economists Robert Lawson and Benjamin Powell travel to countries like Venezuela, Cuba, Russia, and Sweden to investigate the dangers and idiocies of socialism—while drinking a lot of beer.
Remains of Socialism
Author: Maya Nadkarni
Publisher: Cornell University Press
ISBN: 1501750194
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 154
Book Description
In Remains of Socialism, Maya Nadkarni investigates the changing fates of the socialist past in postsocialist Hungary. She introduces the concept of "remains"—both physical objects and cultural remainders—to analyze all that Hungarians sought to leave behind after the end of state socialism. Spanning more than two decades of postsocialist transformation, Remains of Socialism follows Hungary from the optimism of the early years of transition to its recent right-wing turn toward illiberal democracy. Nadkarni analyzes remains that range from exiled statues of Lenin to the socialist-era "Bambi" soda, and from discredited official histories to the scandalous secrets of the communist regime's informers. She deftly demonstrates that these remains were far more than simply the leftovers of an unwanted past. Ultimately, the struggles to define remains of socialism and settle their fates would represent attempts to determine the future—and to mourn futures that never materialized.
Publisher: Cornell University Press
ISBN: 1501750194
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 154
Book Description
In Remains of Socialism, Maya Nadkarni investigates the changing fates of the socialist past in postsocialist Hungary. She introduces the concept of "remains"—both physical objects and cultural remainders—to analyze all that Hungarians sought to leave behind after the end of state socialism. Spanning more than two decades of postsocialist transformation, Remains of Socialism follows Hungary from the optimism of the early years of transition to its recent right-wing turn toward illiberal democracy. Nadkarni analyzes remains that range from exiled statues of Lenin to the socialist-era "Bambi" soda, and from discredited official histories to the scandalous secrets of the communist regime's informers. She deftly demonstrates that these remains were far more than simply the leftovers of an unwanted past. Ultimately, the struggles to define remains of socialism and settle their fates would represent attempts to determine the future—and to mourn futures that never materialized.
The Romance of American Communism
Author: Vivian Gornick
Publisher: Verso Books
ISBN: 178873551X
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 335
Book Description
“Before I knew that I was Jewish or a girl I knew that I was a member of the working class.” So begins Vivian Gornick’s exploration of how the world of socialists, communists, and progressives in the 1940s and 1950s created a rich, diverse world where ordinary men and women felt their lives connected to a larger human project. Now back in print after its initial publication in 1977 and with a new introduction by the author, The Romance of American Communism is a landmark work of new journalism, profiling American Communist Party members and fellow travelers as they joined the Party, lived within its orbit, and left in disillusionment and disappointment as Stalin’s crimes became public. From the immigrant Jewish enclaves of the Bronx and Brooklyn and the docks of Puget Sound to the mining towns of Kentucky and the suburbs of Cleveland, over a million Americans found a sense of belonging and an expanded sense of self through collective struggle. They also found social isolation, blacklisting, imprisonment, and shattered hopes. This is their story--an indisputably American story.
Publisher: Verso Books
ISBN: 178873551X
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 335
Book Description
“Before I knew that I was Jewish or a girl I knew that I was a member of the working class.” So begins Vivian Gornick’s exploration of how the world of socialists, communists, and progressives in the 1940s and 1950s created a rich, diverse world where ordinary men and women felt their lives connected to a larger human project. Now back in print after its initial publication in 1977 and with a new introduction by the author, The Romance of American Communism is a landmark work of new journalism, profiling American Communist Party members and fellow travelers as they joined the Party, lived within its orbit, and left in disillusionment and disappointment as Stalin’s crimes became public. From the immigrant Jewish enclaves of the Bronx and Brooklyn and the docks of Puget Sound to the mining towns of Kentucky and the suburbs of Cleveland, over a million Americans found a sense of belonging and an expanded sense of self through collective struggle. They also found social isolation, blacklisting, imprisonment, and shattered hopes. This is their story--an indisputably American story.
A Socialist Defector
Author: Victor Grossman
Publisher: Monthly Review Press
ISBN: 1583677380
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 352
Book Description
The rise and successes, the travails, and the eventual demise of the German Democratic Republic told in personal detail by activist and writer Victor Grossman The circumstances that impelled Victor Grossman, a U.S. Army draftee stationed in Europe, to flee a military prison sentence were the icy pressures of the McCarthy Era. Grossman – a.k.a. Steve Wechsler, a committed leftist since his years at Harvard and, briefly, as a factory worker – left his barracks in Bavaria one August day in 1952, and, in a panic, swam across the Danube River from the Austrian U.S. Zone to the Soviet Zone. Fate – i.e., the Soviets – landed him in East Germany, officially the German Democratic Republic. There he remained, observer and participant, husband and father, as he watched the rise and successes, the travails, and the eventual demise of the GDR socialist experiment. A Socialist Defector is the story, told in rare, personal detail, of an activist and writer who grew up in the U.S. free-market economy; spent thirty-eight years in the GDR’s nationally owned, centrally administered economy; and continues to survive, given whatever the market can bear in today’s united Germany. Having been a freelance journalist and traveling lecturer – and the only person in the world to hold diplomas from both Harvard and the Karl Marx University – Grossman is able to offer insightful, often ironic, reflections and reminiscences, comparing the good and bad sides of life in all three of the societies he has known. His account focuses especially on the socialism he saw and lived – the GDR’s goals and achievements, its repressive measures and stupidities – which, he argues, offers lessons now in our search for solutions to the grave problems facing our world. This is a fascinating and unique historical narrative; political analysis told with jokes, personal anecdotes, and without bombast.
Publisher: Monthly Review Press
ISBN: 1583677380
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 352
Book Description
The rise and successes, the travails, and the eventual demise of the German Democratic Republic told in personal detail by activist and writer Victor Grossman The circumstances that impelled Victor Grossman, a U.S. Army draftee stationed in Europe, to flee a military prison sentence were the icy pressures of the McCarthy Era. Grossman – a.k.a. Steve Wechsler, a committed leftist since his years at Harvard and, briefly, as a factory worker – left his barracks in Bavaria one August day in 1952, and, in a panic, swam across the Danube River from the Austrian U.S. Zone to the Soviet Zone. Fate – i.e., the Soviets – landed him in East Germany, officially the German Democratic Republic. There he remained, observer and participant, husband and father, as he watched the rise and successes, the travails, and the eventual demise of the GDR socialist experiment. A Socialist Defector is the story, told in rare, personal detail, of an activist and writer who grew up in the U.S. free-market economy; spent thirty-eight years in the GDR’s nationally owned, centrally administered economy; and continues to survive, given whatever the market can bear in today’s united Germany. Having been a freelance journalist and traveling lecturer – and the only person in the world to hold diplomas from both Harvard and the Karl Marx University – Grossman is able to offer insightful, often ironic, reflections and reminiscences, comparing the good and bad sides of life in all three of the societies he has known. His account focuses especially on the socialism he saw and lived – the GDR’s goals and achievements, its repressive measures and stupidities – which, he argues, offers lessons now in our search for solutions to the grave problems facing our world. This is a fascinating and unique historical narrative; political analysis told with jokes, personal anecdotes, and without bombast.