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Impossible not to respond to Andrew Stewart's query:
"Does anyone have a decent, understandable brief that explains the operation
of the Soviet economy at its best moment (what that is probably is going to
be a whole other debate)?"
Here was my entry: "Contradictions of 'Real Socialism': the Conductor
and the Conducted", published by Monthly Review Press in 2012 (with a
Cuban edition in 2015 and revised Spanish translations forthcoming in
Chile, Ecuador and Spain) and reviewed nicely by Louis at
http://www.counterpunch.org/2012/10/03/the-contradictions-of-real-socialism/
Contents and cover blurbs:
Preface
Introduction: New Wings for Socialism
Overture: The Conductor and the Conducted
Ch.1. The Shortage Economy
Ch.2. The Social Contract
Ch.3. The Nature and Reproduction of Vanguard Relations of Production
Ch.4. Contested Reproduction within ‘Real Socialism’
Ch.5. The Conductor and the Battle of Ideas in the Soviet Union
Ch.6. From Moral Economy to Political Economy
Ch.7. Towards a Society of Associated Conductors
Ch.8. Goodbye to Vanguard Marxism
Cover Blurbs:
The profound understanding in this new book of why 20th century attempts
at constructing socialism failed must be an essential element in the
socialist renewal emerging amid the first great capitalist crisis of the
21st century.
Leo Panitch, Editor, The Socialist Register
Lebowitz shows, theoretically and historically, that the socialism
practiced in the Soviet Union and Central Europe was doomed.There is a
lot to learn here.
Marty Hart-Landsberg
One doesn’t have to agree with all the theses presented in Michael
Lebowitz’s last book in order to acknowledge that this is a major
contribution to the international debate on the Socialism of the 21th
Century
Michael Löwy
What would Marx have thought had he lived to see the Soviet Union?
Nobody has interpreted Marx to greater advantage to answer this question
than renowned Marxist scholar Michael Lebowitz, who explains in /The
Contradictions of ‘Real Socialism’/ why Marx would not have been pleased!
Robin Hahnel
THE WELL WRITTEN BOOK WE NEED TO UNDERSTAND THAT SOCIALISM DID NOT DIE
WITH THE FALL OF THE BERLIN WALL
Francois Houtart
"Where fresh insights are rare, indeed, Michael Lebowitz provides a
bundle of them. While no one will (or perhaps should) agree with
everything here, the book provides rich material for badly-needed
discussion."
Paul Buhle, author of MARXISM IN THE UNITED STATES
A riveting exploration of what can be learned from the first attempts to
create socialist systems, specifically the period from 1950 through the
1980s. Required reading.
Fred Magdoff
-- --------------------- Michael A. Lebowitz Professor Emeritus
Economics Department Simon Fraser University 8888 University Drive
Burnaby, B.C., Canada V5A 1S6 Home: Phone 604-689-9510 Cell: 604-789-4803
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