Re: Good Read

Dear WSN,

        THE SPIRAL OF CAPITALISM AND SOCIALISM may well be the most
important book of the year 2000.  Read it.  Think.  Ponder.  Social
scientists are infamous for criticizing and analyzing and dissecting and
deconstructing.  These are worthwhile enterprises, within reason, but
what we need above all are visions:  visions of sane alternatives, visions
of wiser paths.  Chase-Dunn and Boswell supply such visions.

        Warren


On Mon, 22 May 2000, Pat Loy wrote:

> 
> Dear WSN,
> 
> I have just finished reading "The Spiral of Capitalism and Socialism," by
> Terry Boswell and Christopher Chase-Dunn (Rienner Publishers, 2000). I
> think the book would be of interest to many people on this list. 
> 
> In a recent ZNet Commentary, Michael Albert laments the fact that nearly
> all of the writings of the left concentrate on what is wrong with the
> current system, and very few tackle the job of specifically describing the
> kind of system that would be both possible and desirable. I agree with
> Albert, and my own impression is that the gap between what now exists ­- 
>an
> exploitive, unjust, corporate-dominated world-system ­- and what we would
> like to see ­- an egalitarian, just, people-oriented world-system ­- often
> seems a blurry chasm filled with agitational slogans, hyperbole, and 
>vague,
> disjointed images of a "better way," while being devoid of any specific,
> realistic model of what the world could look like.
> 
> Now comes Terry Boswell and Chris Chase-Dunn with a book that goes a long
> way in bridging this chasm, replacing the blurred images with a vision of 
>a
> future that derives many of its characteristics from existing 
>institutions,
> and is specific enough to provide the foundation for a first-round debate
> on both goals and tactics. The model advanced in "Spiral" is based on the
> idea of "market socialism," a concept promoted by John Roemer in his 1994
> book, "A Future for Socialism" (Harvard Press). Boswell and Chase-Dunn
> substantially tweak Roemer's notion, and present their own model in the
> context of the movement for global democracy.
> 
> The first part of "Spiral" deals with a world-systems perspective on the
> development of anti-systemic movements, and the "spiraling interaction"
> between them and global capitalism. Much attention is given to how 20th
> century state socialism fits into a broad, historical schema, and the
> lessons to be learned from this experiment. The last part explores the
> future of the world-system, and the possibilities that confront us. 
> 
> I found it to be a good read.
> 
> Patrick Loy
> Baltimore, MD 
> 
>