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Marxism appeared to have suffered a knockout with the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1989. It looked at the time like the postscript to Ronald Reagans long struggle against Communism, the struggle Peter Schweizer called Reagans War.

Now in what seems like the blink of an eye, Bernie Sanders has somehow become the most popular politician in the United States. By contrast with Reagan, here is a guy who has deeply felt what Vivian Gornick called The Romance of Communism. As we all have learned, Sanders merged the personal and the political when he spent his honeymoon in the Soviet Union. No honeymoon in Vegas for the class warrior from Burlington by way of Brooklyn.

In a recent column of great interest Joel Kotkin purported to explain Why socialism is back. Kotkin seemed to offer some political advice along with his explanation. These [leftist] economic positions could gain a majority, Kotkin counseled, but not if the progressives maintain their polarizing embrace of the most radical aspects of social identity and environmental policy.

The lefts identity politics replicates Marxist class struggle with racial categories. The lefts environmental policy serves up the rationale for state control of the means of production. They are both extensions of what the late Harry Jaffa the long arm of socialism. Kotkin advice to the contrary notwithstanding, they arent going anywhere. Kotkin to the contrary notwithstanding, under Democratic rule we are destined to get the full catastrophe good and hard.

The late Harry Jaffa cogently warned that the socialist temptation would survive the fall of the Soviet Union. If anything, the fall of the Soviet Union would enhance its appeal. The defeat of communism in the USSR and its satellite empires by no means assures its defeat in the world, Jaffa argued. Indeed, the release of the West from its conflict with the East emancipates utopian communism at home from the suspicion of it affinity with an external enemy. The struggle for the preservation of western civilization has entered a newand perhaps far more deadly and dangerousphase.

And here we are. Kotkin raises the question for the current popularity of of socialism or socialist remedies.

Socialism has certain permanent advantages over freedom. It preys on such enduring features of our character as ignorance and envy. See, for example, Publius in Federalist 10.

But what is behind the resurgence now? According to Kotkin, The primary driver is the global ascendency of neo-liberal capitalism, which in virtually all countries has accelerated inequality.

Americans, however, have rarely begrudged our fellow citizens their success so long as we have had something like an equal opportunity to achieve it. It seems to me that current barriers to opportunity have much more to do with the resurgence of the appeal of socialist bromides than what Kotkin calls neo-liberal capitalism except insofar as neo-liberal capitalism has erected such barriers.

Reaganite policies fostered the fantastic economic growth of its era. Reagan prevailed politically before the fall of the Soviet Union with the great economic growth that his policies fostered. We can achieve such economic growth again if we can lighten the governments heavy hand and continue to press the case for freedom against the claims urged on behalf of the same old serpent that says you work and I eat, you toil and I will enjoy the fruits of it.

NOTE: For much more on Jaffas contribution on the point above, see a certain new book by our own Steven Hayward.

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The socialist temptation - Power Line (blog)

Marxist professors, including some of recent notoriety, are preparing for the upcoming Socialism 2017 conference, where they will strategize to build the left and fight the right.

More than 1,500 professors, students, and left-wing activists from around the country are expected to gather in Chicago from July 6-9 in hopes of fighting injustice and oppression while resisting the political system that spawned Trump.

"It is ironic for professors to claim to support socialism and academic freedom and free speech."

[RELATED: Prof: To save American democracy, Trump must hang]

The four-day event will feature more than 100 meetings addressing topics such as misogyny, Islamophobia, immigration, racism, and much more from a socialist perspective.

A workshop called How Capitalism Works and How It Doesnt, for instance, will make the case that because capitalism is a system based on incessant accumulation based upon the exploitation of wage labor, it also therefore contains within it the seeds of its own demise.

Other offerings include Mapping the Enemy: What Is the Alt-Right?, Marxism and Cultural Appropriation, Strategies for Anti-Capitalists, and Shut it Down? How to Fight the Right.

[RELATED: Leftist Fight Club trains UCF students to fight Republicans]

Many of the lectures, including the opening plenary, will be delivered by university professors, some of whom have become the subject of recent controversies related to inflammatory political remarks.

Princeton University professor Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor will keynote the opening day of the conference with an address about Fighting Racism in Trumps America, during which she will deliver a speech that she had previously cancelled amidst backlash for comments she made about Donald Trump.

Speaking at Hampshire Colleges graduation ceremony in May, Taylor told graduating seniors that President Trump is a racist, sexist megalomaniac. Fox News subsequently picked up the story from Campus Reform, after which Taylor claims that she received more than 50 hateful, and sometimes threatening, emails that prompted her to cancel two previously-scheduled speaking engagements.

[RELATED: Prof tells grads Trump is a racist, sexist megalomaniac]

Syracuse University professor Dana Cloud will also be on hand to address a meeting sponsored by The Socialist Worker on the topic of Lies, Damn Lies, and Fake News, during which she will discuss the new presidents obvious disdain for the truth, which she believes has made right-wing outlets treat the credibility of government spokespersons with greater skepticism in their quest to do whatever they can to fuel the rights agenda.

Cloud came under fire earlier this month for a tweet that she sent out during a local March Against Sharia in Syracuse, which she counter-protested along with masked antifa demonstrators. As the tense standoff began to wind down, Cloud boasted that we almost have the fascists in[sic] on the run while calling for Syracuse people to come down to the federal building to finish them off.

Cloud has denied that her tweet was intended to incite violence against the conservative demonstrators, but the organizer of the march countered that from her perspective, it was clear that Cloud was trying to shut down free speech and incite violence against us.

[RELATED: Protest leader insists Syracuse prof was inciting violence]

Turning Point USA spokesperson Matt Lamb told Campus Reform that he finds it ironic for professors to claim to support socialism and academic freedom and free speech, pointing out that socialist nations such as North Korea and Venezuela are notorious for denying their citizens even basic freedoms while simultaneously impoverishing them through misguided government policies.

The government cannot be trusted to redistribute goods and services, Lamb remarked. This is why Venezuelans have to eat pigeons and dogs.

[RELATED: UMass courses promote resistance to capitalism, patriarchy]

Professor Paul Le Blanca longtime social justice activist from La Roche College who will be speaking at a Socialism 2017 workshop called Imagine: Living in a Socialist USAresponded to Lambs argument by contending that North Korea and Venezuela are not true models of socialism because they are subject to elitist rule, and thus are not an accurate indication of what socialism would look like in the USA.

Le Blanc told Campus Reform that he believes the U.S. could achieve socialism through a mass social movement that would be politically independent of any pro-capitalist politicians, even going so far as to suggest that socialism could arise through a Third American Revolution.

That won't be easy, he acknowledged, but we believe it is worth the effort.

Conference organizers are particularly invested in attracting college studentsto the event,encouraging them to plaster their campuses with posters and brochures promoting Socialism 2017 and offering a 50 percent discount on registration fees.

Campus Reformreached out to request comment from professors Cloudand Taylor, as well as the organizers of Socialism 2017, butno responses were forthcoming.

Follow Campus Reform on Twitter: @CampusReform

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Profs gather to 'fight the right' at Socialism 2017 conference - Campus Reform

Dear Reader, we make this and other articles available for free online to serve those unable to afford or access the print edition of Monthly Review. If you read the magazine online and can afford a print subscription, we hope you will consider purchasing one. Please visit the MR store for subscription options. Thank you very much. Eds.

Presidium of the Second Northern Oblast Congress of Soviets, 1 August 1918. Seated: Uritskii, Trotsky, Sverdlov, Zinoviev, and Lashevich. Standing: Kharitonov, Lisovskii, Korsak, Voskov, Gusev, Ravich, Bakaev, and Kuzmin. St. Petersburg Institute of History, Russian Academy of Sciences. (The Bolsheviks in Power, p. 325)

This article will be made available online on August 7.

Russell was both a liberal and a socialist, a combination perfectly comprehensible in his time, but almost unthinkable today. As a liberal, he opposed concentrations of power in all its military, governmental, and religious manifestations. But as a socialist, he equally opposed the concentrations of power stemming from the private ownership of the means of production, which therefore had to be put under social control.|more

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Bertrand Russell and the Socialism That Wasn't - Monthly Review

Conservatives routinely attack millennial leftists for getting their political knowledge from twitter or the Daily Show rather than actually reading a book.

This perception is validated with the reviews of Harrison Lievesleys book Why Socialism Works, posted on Amazon. Obvious lefties have praised the work in gushing terms.

One called it a gripping account of this complex ideology and awarded it 5 stars. Another reader praised the research involved:

A perfect introduction to the crux of the matter without any messing around. In depth research backs up the argument presented. Top notch.

Another reviewer by the name of Conor Burn complimented the readability of the work by saying, Im sure this will go down as one of the greatest texts ever written on the subject. I found myself furiously consuming the words on each page, totally engrossed in the text. It seemed I couldnt turn the pages fast enough!

But the problem is that the book is not a warm and researched endorsement of collectivism; on the contrary, it is a one sentence parody of it. The book, clocking in at 169 pages, has only the two-word attack against socialism listed on every page of It doesnt.

The reader celebration of this obviously unread book affirms the shallowness of fist-clenching leftists who, rather than cracking open a book, take their politics from slogans over research.

The reviewers on Amazon have taken the common charge lodged at book reviewers of, at best, only reading meager portions of the booktheyre usually accused of skimming the first and last chaptersto a new low.

The reviewers of Why Socialism Works have not even skimmed the book. Had they read beyond the cover, they would have attacked Lievesley for being unable to muster a reasoned argument, evidenced by his two-word sound bite, replicated 169 separate times against socialism in his book.

It is difficult to find a similar instance of extremists being so easily duped. The closest is probably the fraudulent tome, Protocols of the Elders of Zion, which detailed a dubious worldwide conspiracy of Jews bent on taking over the world. The book was deemed factual enough for Henry Ford, a noted anti-Semite, to financially back the printing of 500,000 copies in the United States during the 1920s. Moreover, the Nazis used it as an elementary school book.

However fraudulent, disgusting, and racist its charges, Protocols was an actual book, rather than a two-word dismissal. And those who peddled the libelous screed had actually read it.

The same cannot be said for the reviewers of Why Socialism Works. For them, the very word socialism is education enough. Of course, the reviewers could be jokinga parody response to a parody book. But given the lack of sense of humor on the Left (evidenced by the all too-serious and homicidal-minded Rosie ODonnell), the more probable conclusion is that they did not even bother to read the book.

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Why Socialism Works? - The Liberty Conservative

Millennials voted in surprising numbers during the U.K. general election turning their frustration with tax and spend policies into impact at the polls. A pied piper captured the attention of a generation that feels betrayed by promises made to older citizens, but for which theyll have to pay. America should pay attention. That could and is happening here too.

One exit poll shows that 56 percent of 18-34 year olds turned out to vote, up 12 points from turnout in 2015. According to Sky Data, an overwhelming majority (63 percent) of millennials voted for Labour and 27 percent for Conservatives. The prevailing view of millennials being politically apathetic clouded the clear signs i.e. the spike in registered young voters that youth turnout would be high.

Millennials have surpassed Baby Boomers are the largest living generation and the largest voting bloc if they vote. While they self-identify as Independents, they are embracing socialist philosophy and anti-establishment dogma that will continue to cause heartburn for traditional parties. There are three reasons to think that what happened in Great Britain is happening here in the U.S.

First, millennials are enchanted with socialism in a way that older generations dont understand. A 2015 Reason-Rupe survey found that over half (58 percent) of Americans under 30 have a more favorable view of socialism than capitalism. Nearly 70 percent of 18 29 year olds were willing to vote for a socialist according to Gallup. Socialism is in vogue, but its a gentler version that offers a big public safety net that provides basic needs for people (to include higher education) just without political repression and human rights abuses. Its Sweden or Denmark rather than the Soviet Union.

Pied pipers Bernie Sanders and Jeremy Corbyn are taking that open invitation to lure away young people with promises of inclusiveness and equal outcomes. Never mind that those outcomes are mediocre and limit the potential of individuals.

Second, when we look at Corbyn and Sanders we see that youthfulness, charisma, and diversity are no longer prerequisites for revolutionary leadership among millennials. The Barack Obamas have been traded for white, well-off septuagenarians as gender, race, and charisma have taken a back-seat to style. Plain-talk wins over platitudes as two out of three global millennials like straight talk in their leaders according to Deloitte. While young people in developed countries are generally opposed to their political leaders taking controversial or divisive positions (64 percent), in the UK nearly half of millennials (48 percent) welcome it in politicians. This makes us wonder whether the Obama of 2008 would still motivate millennials?

Third and most critically, general wealth redistribution and a lack of economic mobility have created the dissatisfaction with what millennials perceive as a system robbing them of a better future than their predecessors. There is growing pessimism among millennials in developed countries about their futures. Deloitte also found that just a third (36 percent) of those in mature markets predict they will be financially better off than their parents and 31 percent think theyll be happier.

British young people mobilized last week in response to student debt, a housing crisis, a lack of secure jobs, falling wages, and social security. Older U.K. millennials have an average wealth of 27,000 each compared to 53,000 for those born in the 1970s had by the same age. British Baby Boomers at age 30 were 50 percent more likely to own their home than a millennial at the same age.

Add to that youth resentment over Brexit. Seventy-five percent of 18-24 year olds voted for the UK to remain in the EU compared to 56 percent of 25-49 year olds, 44 percent of 50-64 year olds, and just 39 percent over those over 65. UK youth are angry about the fiscal plans that will take 1.7 billion from millennials but given 1.2 billion to Baby Boomers in the next four years in pensions. So angry they took to the polls.

Meanwhile, U.S. millennials shrug their shoulders about the consequences of $20 trillion national debt driven by unfunded liabilities at the federal level. Only six percent expect to receive Social Security benefits, but 100 percent of workers watch one-eighth of their salaries disappear in the federal coffers.

Sanders and Corbyn recognized the angst of this generation and offered freebies including college tuition to appease this generation. Unfortunately like promising government-funded retirement security to seniors this will only grow costly and unsustainable without tackling the issue of affordability.

It would be nave for Americans to shake our heads and think that could never happen here. Young Americans are restless with their condition and have an appetite for change. If we do nothing about our nations long-term fiscal problems, many more millennials will hearken to the tune of these pied pipers and disappear into the dark caves of socialism.

We also need to get serious about correcting the record. Capitalism holds the record as the greatest anti-poverty program in history. When socialism bleeds into government overreach, it drains countries of prosperity and gumption. If we dont, and if Millennials overcome political apathy, the political landscape will change over the next decades into something we might not recognize.

Patrice Lee Onwuka is a senior policy analyst at the Independent Womens Forum.

The views expressed by contributors are their own and are not the views of The Hill.

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Why UK millennials voting for socialism could happen here, too ... - The Hill (blog)