Are Workers “Smart Enough” to Govern Under Socialism? ~~ Gordon Haskell

Gordon Haskell - 20 September 1948
https://www.marxists.org/history/etol/writers/haskell/1948/09/socdem.html
 
"In our present set-up the man who gets to the top is usually the man blessed by rich parents, good connections, or a willingness to grind his fellow humans under his heel."

“A few months ago,” says my friend Jack to me the other day, “you were telling me about how the workers and farmers and other people that do something useful will run things once they wake up and take over from the monopolists and politicians and the rest of the riff-raff that has the world by the tail these days.”

What Socialists Would Do in America—If They Could

- https://www.dissentmagazine.org

“Capitalism is dying,” wrote Michael Harrington forty years ago. “It will not, however, disappear on a given day, or in a given month or even year. Its demise will take place as a his­toric process that could lead to democratic so­cialism—or to a new kind of collectivist and authoritarian society.”

Michael Harrington ▪ Fall 1978

What Happens When People Find Out Capitalism Was a Lie?

(Or, the Age of Disintegration)

Umair Haque  -  https://eand.co/what-happens-when-people-find-out-capitalism-was-a-lie-78137aca7072

It’s hardly just America. In Britain, there is the spectacular folly of Brexit. Australia is burning, even while the government refuses to take climate change seriously. The world is destabilizing, fracturing, unravelling, coming undone. Why? And what does the future hold?

The truth, my friends, may be grimmer — and yet a little more hopeful, in a strange and funny way — than you might think. Let me start at the beginning.

UNRELIABILITY, SPINELESSNESS OF THE WESTERN ‘LEFT’

http://www.greanvillepost.com/2016/09/30/unreliability-spinelessness-of-the-western-left/

Andre Vltchek - Itinerant Philosopher and Journalist, 30 September 2016

It is tough to fight any real war. And it takes true guts, discipline and determination to win it.

For years and decades, the so-called ‘left’ in the West has been moderately critical of North American (and sometimes even of European) imperialism and neo-colonialm. But whenever some individual or country rose up and began openly challenging the Empire, most of the Western left-wing intellectuals simply closed their eyes, and refused to offer their full, unconditional support to those who were putting their lives (and often even the existence of their countries) on the line.

Socialism in the Era of Globalisation

 https://cpim.org/content/socialism-era-globalisation

by Sitaram Yechury

Globalisation, as the present phase of world capitalist development is known as, is a development that can be understood mainly on the basis of the internal laws and the dynamics of the functioning of the capitalist economic system. Karl Marx, in his seminal work Das Kapital, had shown us that as capitalism develops, it leads to the concentration and centralisation of capital in a few hands. As a result of this law, huge amounts of capital get accumulated. This, in turn, needs to be deployed to earn profits which is the raison d'etre of the system.

Can A Socialist Revolution Be Peaceful?

https://socialistparty.ie/2010/11/can-a-socialist-revolution-be-peaceful/

Author Not Transferred, Nov 1, 2010 

The question of violence and whether we can change the world through peaceful means is a question asked often of socialists. People are generally put off by the idea of conflict, and can find talk of revolution unsettling. It conjures images of armed struggle, civil war and chaos, things that any sane person would find distressing.

So how should socialists relate to the question of violence? Understanding the role of violence in social change requires an explanation of the forces that exist in capitalist society.