---------- Forwarded message ---------- From: Sayan Bhattacharyya <[email protected]> Date: Mon, 1 Jun 2009 19:42:05 -0400 Subject: Michael Lebowitz: "We need a rejuvenation of Marxism" [Michael Lebowitz is a Canadian Marxist economist. He is the director of the “Transformative practice and human development” program at the Caracas-based left-wing think tank, the Centro Internacional Miranda. He is professor emeritus of economics at Simon Fraser University and author of _Build it Now: 21st Century Socialism_ and the 2004 Isaac Deutscher-prize winning _Beyond Capital: Marx's Political Economy of the Working Class_.]
Interviewer: You have talked a lot about a 21st century socialism as a rejuvenation of the socialist project. Do we also need a 21st century Marxism as a part of this? Michael Lebowitz: Absolutely, we need a rejuvenation of Marxism — in many respects a return to the Marxism of Karl Marx. We have to go back to Marx’s premise and goal, which was the concept of human development. It is no accident that the Communist Manifesto, written in 1848 with Frederick Engels, talked about how the free development of each depends upon the free development of all. By free development, they meant the development of human potential and capacities. In Marx’s writings from 1844 through 1858, and in Capital, he kept talking about developing a rich individuality and rich human beings. He argued that capitalism distorted human development, while socialism was necessary for it. We lost that in the 20th century. Marxism became interpreted as having to do with a way to develop the productive forces, in which the question of economic development became everything. The question of the nature of the relations between people in economic production, the nature of the circumstance in which we function, became forgotten or ignored. One of the key parts of Marx’s emphasis on human development is that it only occurs through practice. That’s the concept of revolutionary practice — the simultaneous changing of circumstances and self-change. And if you understand this key link in human development, then you understand that you cannot build socialism, a new society, without workers’ management in workplaces, without community control — without control from below over society. This is not because it is nicer or more efficient, but because it is the only way people transform and develop themselves, thus making a new society possible. Full: <http://links.org.au/node/1073> -- http://venukm.blogspot.com/ --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Green Youth Movement" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/greenyouth?hl=en-GB -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
