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A review by betcoboi
The Socialist Manifesto: The Case for Radical Politics in an Era of Extreme Inequality by Bhaskar Sunkara
4.0
If you're at all interested in leftist politics this isn't a bad starting point. Sunkara goes over a few previous experiments, revolutions, and movements around the world, and why he thinks each one failed or didn't get off the ground.
All in all he argues that you can't impose change strictly from above sustainably, and you can't neglect the working class in your leftism. However, he seems overly critical of decentralized and leaderless movements. Towards the end when presenting some potential paths to move us away from capitalism, Sunkara makes a few comments about how leaderless movements are bound to fall apart, without seemingly acknowledging several liberation and leftist movements that were attempted within the US that were completely shut down by imprisoning or straight up assassinating the leaders.
The section on US socialism would have been greatly improved by at least some discussion of liberation movements like that of Fred Hampton's Rainbow Coalition, as opposed to focusing largely on trade unionism (not that that should have been cut).
Further, I am extremely skeptical of Sunkara's hope that the US is a prime area to move away from capitalism as nearly every system of the US is predicated on modern day imperialism and colonialism. Due to the degree that which even the more oppressed classes in the United States benefits from these systems, I doubt a truly liberatory movement is possible. However, we could likely see a movement towards state-capitalism, where the tools of capitalism is controlled by the state (not the people), which despite what the CCP may say is not really communism. Or we could see a swath of safety net policies put in places that are built off of the foreign workers and lands that the US draws much of it's wealth from.
That being said, Sunkara believes that these safety net policies are just a first step and if we continue to demand more after the theoretical success of these movements, we could see larger steps away from capitalism. Though I'm skeptical.
All in all he argues that you can't impose change strictly from above sustainably, and you can't neglect the working class in your leftism. However, he seems overly critical of decentralized and leaderless movements. Towards the end when presenting some potential paths to move us away from capitalism, Sunkara makes a few comments about how leaderless movements are bound to fall apart, without seemingly acknowledging several liberation and leftist movements that were attempted within the US that were completely shut down by imprisoning or straight up assassinating the leaders.
The section on US socialism would have been greatly improved by at least some discussion of liberation movements like that of Fred Hampton's Rainbow Coalition, as opposed to focusing largely on trade unionism (not that that should have been cut).
Further, I am extremely skeptical of Sunkara's hope that the US is a prime area to move away from capitalism as nearly every system of the US is predicated on modern day imperialism and colonialism. Due to the degree that which even the more oppressed classes in the United States benefits from these systems, I doubt a truly liberatory movement is possible. However, we could likely see a movement towards state-capitalism, where the tools of capitalism is controlled by the state (not the people), which despite what the CCP may say is not really communism. Or we could see a swath of safety net policies put in places that are built off of the foreign workers and lands that the US draws much of it's wealth from.
That being said, Sunkara believes that these safety net policies are just a first step and if we continue to demand more after the theoretical success of these movements, we could see larger steps away from capitalism. Though I'm skeptical.