
The Socialist Revival - brandonlc
https://americanaffairsjournal.org/2019/11/the-socialist-revival/
======
thundergolfer
This piece contains quite a good canvassing of the current socialist political
climate, but it appears lacking in discussion of Climate Change and it’s
relationship with a revival of anti-capitalist movement.

I have a lot of problems with Capitalism theoretically, but in practical terms
it’s most unquestionable error is in the role it played in decades of Climate
Change inaction and ecological destruction. Foster Wallace decried the
existential emptiness of capitalist consumer society, and yeah that sucks, but
if left alone by activists Capitalist systems would quite possibly destroy the
entire planet or if we’re lucky _only_ kill hundreds of millions of people who
had no part real part in the system’s insatiability.

Some left thinkers I respect a lot are saying we might be choosing between
socialism and ‘climate justice’ for the third world, or eco-fascism.

With Facebook recently installing Breitbart in their ‘quality news’ section,
I’m not happy just fence-sitting and letting capitalists reorganise society in
response to our climate emergency.

~~~
UglyToad
This is quite an interesting piece as a survey of some of the Left and its
relation to the climate crisis [https://www.versobooks.com/blogs/4404-eco-
fascisms-and-eco-s...](https://www.versobooks.com/blogs/4404-eco-fascisms-and-
eco-socialisms)

------
briandear
> As the Berlin Wall crumbled in 1989, so too, it seemed, did the dream of
> socialism.

Did the author actually live in East Germany? Nobody forced anyone to break
down the wall. That wall was a symbol of oppression. People died trying to
escape that damned “dream of socialism.” Not too many people died trying to
get _in_ to East Germany. Dream of socialism? More like a nightmare. I hate to
sound like a grandpa, but “kids these days..”

There is the constant refrain of “socialism (or communism) would be great if
it worked as designed.” But it never can work as designed because human beings
are involved. Orwell and Animal Farm was correct in the depiction of
socialism/communism.

“On ne fuit pas d'omelette sans casser des oeufs“

Of course the omelette never gets made, no matter how many eggs are broken.

~~~
rudiv
But Orwell himself was a socialist and did not conflate socialism with
communism, or either with authoritarianism or totalitarianism. If anything,
Animal Farm was a critique of Leninism and Stalinism. So, what, Orwell was a
näive idiot who just happened to write a good book?

