The Future within the Present: Seven Theses for a Robust Twenty-First-Century Socialism

Abstract

To meet today’s challenges, including successful mobilization around people’s most immediate needs, a rigorous and inspiring vision of a new society—socialism—is more necessary than ever. Without creating rigid or utopian schemes, we can affirm and develop some of the most essential elements in that vision: progressive transcendence of the alienating and polarizing content of spontaneous markets; democratic coordination and planning, at all levels from central to decentral; and creative engagement with the vast potentials of modern information technology. This project must also recover and embrace all of the lessons, both positive and negative, of the twentieth-century postcapitalist experience, especially that of the USSR.