Market Socialism: The Impossible Socialism

The idea of combining some form of social equality with markets goes back to the very origins of socialist tradition and also underlies most of the proposals currently being presented as “alternatives” to the capitalist social order. However, taking as its axis the organic relationship between commodity circulation and capital, as revealed by Marx, it is possible to offer a critique of market socialism (choosing David Schweickart's version of Economic Democracy as a generic textual reference) to demonstrate its inconsistency as a project for social emancipation alternative to the capitalist mode of production. And this for reasons of: i) economy: due to market inefficiency in allocation, and its tendency toward social polarization; ii) politics: because markets prevent citizen self-government and block the free development of human capacities; and iii) ecology: the market is incompatible with a social metabolism that is sustainable with nature. The conclusion is that a market-based production structure is incompatible with the conscious, rational, and democratic regulation of the economy.

Marxism and the Concept of a Social Formation: An Immanent Critique of the Views of Jairus Banaji

Jairus Banaji associates the concept of a social formation (involving modal combination, or the articulation of modes of production) with “vulgar Marxism.” This includes both the Marxism of the Second International and the structuralist Marxism of Louis Althusser. Banaji is critical of those Marxists who employ the concept because in his view they are insufficiently sensitive to the complexities of history. His reasons for thinking this may be subjected to an immanent critique. Such a critique attempts to show that, given an argument's starting assumptions, a different (perhaps even the opposite) conclusion from that which is drawn by its author is possible. Applying this idea to the work of Banaji, it can be demonstrated that his rejection of the concept of a social formation is not required by his own theoretical assumptions and that endorsement of the concept is consistent with them.

The Yiddisher Kultur Farband in Argentina: Progressive and Communist Jews (1917–1956)

Progressive and Communist Jewish identity in Argentina flourished between the Russian Revolution of 1917 and the Cold War. In 1937, during the Popular Front period, Jewish Communist intellectuals organized an International Congress of Yiddish Culture in Paris. Twenty-three countries were represented, and the Congress formed the Yiddisher Kultur Farband (YKUF). In 1941, this Congress was replicated in Argentina, where the YKUF sponsored an important network of schools, clubs, theaters, socio-cultural centers, and libraries created by Yiddish-speaking Jewish immigrants from Eastern Europe. The Ykufist or Progressive Jewish identity reflects a particular construction that is as ethnic as it is political. As “Jewish,” it aimed to transmit the secular heritage of the Yiddishkeit devastated in Europe during World War II, but as “progressive,” “radical” or “Communist,” it postulated its yearning for integration into a universal socialism led by the Soviet model. Progressive Jewish identity was shaped in the antifascist culture and by permanent tensions between Jewish ethnicity and the guidelines of the Communist Party. Above all, it was framed by a fervent aspiration of the immigrants and their children to integrate into their Argentine society.

Comintern Aesthetics in the Andes: The Indigenous Revolutionary

The fight against imperialism and racism was central to the Comintern's political and cultural program of the interwar period. Although the more immediate interests of the Soviet state would come to overshadow such causes, the cultural and political connections forged during this time influenced later forms of organizing. Throughout the interwar period (1918-39), the Soviet Union served as the core location of a newly formed world-system of socialist and communist radicalism. The origin of Latin American Marxism in the work of the Peruvian theorist and political organizer José Carlos Mariátegui, as well as the politically committed literature associated with the interwar communist left in the Andean region of Latin America, shows how literature and theory devoted to the indigenous revolutionary contributed to interwar Marxist debates. The interwar influence of Mariátegui and César Vallejo makes clear the importance of resisting attempts to drive a wedge between the two authors and the broader communist movement at the time.