The Socialist Alternative: Real Human Development - Softcover

Lebowitz, Michael A.

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1583672141 ISBN 13: 9781583672143

Publisher: Monthly Review Press, 2010

Synopsis

“A good society,“ Michael Lebowitz tells us, “is one that permits the full development of human potential.” In this slim, lucid, and insightful book, he argues persuasively that such a society is possible. That capitalism fails his definition of a good society is evident from even a cursory examination of its main features. What comes first in capitalism is not human development but privately accumulated profits by a tiny minority of the population. When there is a conflict between profits and human development, profits take precedence. Just ask the unemployed, those toiling at dead-end jobs, the sick and infirm, the poor, and the imprisoned.

But if not capitalism, what? Lebowitz is also critical of those societies that have proclaimed their socialism, such as the former Soviet Union and China. While their systems were not capitalist and were capable of achieving some of what is necessary for the “development of human potential,” they were not “good societies.”

A good society as Lebowitz defines it must be marked by three characteristics: social ownership of the means of production, social production controlled by workers, and satisfaction of communal needs and purposes. Lebowitz shows how these characteristics interact with and reinforce one another, and asks how they can be developed to the point where they occur more or less automatically—that is, become both a society’s premises and outcomes. He also offers fascinating insights into matters such as the nature of wealth, the illegitimacy of profits, the inadequacies of worker-controlled enterprises, the division of labor, and much more.

About this title

About the Author:

Michael Lebowitz is professor emeritus of economics at Simon Fraser University in Vancouver, Canada, and the author of Beyond Capital: Marx’s Political Economy of the Working Class, winner of the Isaac Deutscher Memorial Prize for 2004, and Build It Now: Socialism for the Twenty-First Century. He is Director, Programme in Transformative Practice and Human Development, Centro Internacional Miranda, in Caracas, Venezuela.

About this edition

• Publisher: Monthly Review Press
• Publication date: 2010
• ISBN 10: 1583672141
• ISBN 13: 9781583672143
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 160