"Srećko Horvat: In May, as a participant of the big international conference on Socialism, you are coming to a country which had an experience with the the Yugoslavian version of socialism in the last century. Could you explain why socialism in the 21st century?
Michael Lebowitz: Basically, I think there is no alternative. Capitalism has always been a system that treats human beings and nature simply as a means for the purpose of making profits. The logic of capital is the growth of capital and, as Marx pointed out, its tendency is to destroy both those original sources of wealth -- human beings and nature. But how long can that go on? Production under capitalist relations is so unfulfilling that it produces people who can only get satisfaction by purchasing and possessing things. At the same time, we know that in order to be able to sell the commodities produced, capital must constantly generate new needs. It is a lethal combination – consumerism is not an accident in capitalism. But can everyone in the world consume, consume? We can already see the result of growing demands upon natural resources, the competition between old capitalist countries and new emerging ones, the drive to emulate the consumption standards of the global North. After all, why should people in some parts of the world be privileged by the accident of their birthplace? How long can this continue? How long before there is a growing struggle over the limited resources – a struggle between those who currently control those resources and those who feel entitled to an equal share? I think barbarism is the direction that capitalism is going. And that our choice is between socialism and barbarism...." "Q: Do you think the current crisis of capitalism will lead to a rejection of capitalism in other parts of the world and the search for a socialist alternative? As we know, after the great depression of the 1930s, capital restructured itself and instead of a new and better world we got the Bretton Woods agreement and the International Monetary Fund and World Bank. Isn't the ongoing crisis only a new method for strengthening the old system? A: A crisis in capitalism is not the same as a crisis of capitalism. In the absence of subjects prepared to struggle to change the system, capitalism has a free hand to try to restructure itself. That is certainly what we see occurring as the G20 is invented to take the place of the G7; it’s a recognition that restructuring international capital involves the incorporation of the new capitalist actors (especially China, India and Brazil). Whether that attempt to restructure will succeed, on the other hand, remains to be seen. The more important question, though, is whether the attempt to make the working class pay for the deficiencies of capitalism will produce new actors who are increasingly oriented toward putting an end to capitalism. That was the pattern in Latin America, and we can see resistance at this time in Greece and I suspect we’ll see it elsewhere. I think that is important and has much potential. But resistance in itself can just raise the costs of particular measures to capital and may lead no further than to some reforms. To go further, I think it is necessary both to understand the nature of capital and also to have a vision of a socialist alternative. I think the first of these is beginning – as indicated by the growing interest in Marx in the context of the crisis. We need to work on the second, too, to make it clear that socialism is not about a state-controlled and -dominated society; rather, the socialism we need to struggle for must be about creating the conditions for real human development. Will the ongoing crisis be a new method for strengthening the old system? Only struggle will decide that." http://links.org.au/node/1729 -- You cannot build anything on the foundations of caste. You cannot build up a nation, you cannot build up a morality. Anything that you will build on the foundations of caste will crack and will never be a whole. -AMBEDKAR http://venukm.blogspot.com http://www.shelfari.com/kmvenuannur http://kmvenuannur.livejournal.com -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Green Youth Movement" group. To post to this group, send an 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.
