Michael A. Lebowitz

Venezuela: A Good Example of the Bad Left of Latin America

Fair wages, a fair days work! Through their struggles within capitalism, it has often been possible for workers and citizens to secure themselves some share of the benefits of social labor. Capitalist globalization and the offensive of neoliberal state policies, however, have encroached upon all those gains from past struggles; and the answer to those who were surprised to find those victories ephemeral was the mantra of TINA—there is no alternativeThis article can also be found at the Monthly Review website, where most recent articles are published in full.Click here to purchase a PDF version of this article at the Monthly Review website.

Ideology and Economic Development

Economic theory is not neutral, and the results when it is applied owe much to the implicit and explicit assumptions embedded in a particular theory. That such assumptions reflect specific ideologies is most obvious in the case of the neoclassical economics that underlies neoliberal economic policies. This article can also be found at the Monthly Review website , where most recent articles are published in full. Click here to purchase a PDF version of this article at the Monthly Review website.

What Keeps Capitalism Going

I want to address a very simple question: What keeps capitalism going? or, in the somewhat more technical language of Marxists, How does capitalism as a system reproduce itself?This article can also be found at the Monthly Review website, where most recent articles are published in full.Click here to purchase a PDF version of this article at the Monthly Review website.

Exploring the Dialectic of the Bolivarian Revolution

Iain Bruce, The Real Venezuela: Making Socialism in the 21st Century (London: Pluto Press, 2008), 240 pages,

What Makes the Working Class a Revolutionary Subject

27.90, paperback. “When Chavez speaks, we listen. But we don’t listen to those around him.” This comment by a community activist interviewed by Iain Bruce, and integrated into his wonderful exploration of the Bolivarian Revolution from below, points to an essential characteristic — the unique link at present (“por ahora”) between Hugo Chavez and the exploited and excluded of Venezuela. This article can also be found at the Monthly Review website , where most recent articles are published in full. Click here to purchase a PDF version of this article at the Monthly Review website.

Referendum and Revolution in Venezuela. Interview with Michael Lebowitz.

Those who conclude that the working class is not a revolutionary subject because capitalism has changed the working class reveal that they do not understand the ABCs of Marxism. The working class makes itself a revolutionary subject through its struggles—it transforms itself. That was always the position of Marx—his concept of “revolutionary practice,” which is the simultaneous changing of circumstances and self-change. The working class changes itself through its struggles. It makes itself fit to create the new world. This article can also be found at the Monthly Review website , where most recent articles are published in full. Click here to purchase a PDF version of this article at the Monthly Review website.

Only Capitalist Laws of Motion?; The Editors Reply

The following interview of Michael Lebowitz, a long-time friend of MR now residing in Venezuela where he has been a close observer and commentator on that country’s Bolivarian Revolution, originally appeared in shorter form on the Seven Oaks Web site, www.SevenOaksMag.com. It was conducted prior to the August 15 referendum-election on the presidency of Hugo Chavez. Our printing schedule makes it impossible to provide in this issue any discussion of the outcome of the election, which has not yet taken place as we go to press. But we wanted to offer MR readers this interview, which provides the context in which to judge the election results. We will be providing a full assessment of the Venezuelan election in an upcoming issue. —The Editors. This article can also be found at the Monthly Review website , where most recent articles are published in full. Click here to purchase a PDF version of this article at the Monthly Review website.

Proposing a Path to Socialism: Two Papers for Hugo Chávez

Is it possible to talk about laws of motion within existing socialist societies comparable to those of capitalist society? Both Harry Magdoff and Paul M. Sweezy have recently argued that in doing so one loses sight of the characteristics which are unique and specific to capitalism. Magdoff, for example, has proposed that the assertion of the existence of objective economic laws within the USSR reflects not the result of scientific analysis but, rather, the imperatives of the ruling ideology.This article can also be found at the Monthly Review website, where most recent articles are published in full.Click here to purchase a PDF version of this article at the Monthly Review website.

The Unifying Element in All Struggles Against Capital Is the Right of Everyone to Full Human Development

Everyone understands that it is impossible to achieve the vision of socialism for the twenty-first century in one giant leap forward. It is not simply a matter of changing property ownership. This is the easiest part of building the new world. Far more difficult is changing productive relations, social relations in general, and attitudes and ideas.… To transform existing relations into the new productive relations, we need first of all to understand the nature of the existing relations. Only then can you identify the mechanisms by which the new relations can be introduced. At this time, there is a great variety of experiments and approaches to changing productive relations which are being pursued. There is no attempt to set out specific proposals here but only to provide the framework in which such changes should be explored in order to move toward socialist productive relations.This article can also be found at the Monthly Review website, where most recent articles are published in full.Click here to purchase a PDF version of this article at the Monthly Review website.

The Only Road Is Practice: After the Venezuelan Referendum Defeat

[In my] examination of struggle…from the side of workers.… I constantly came back to the Marxist concept of revolutionary practice, that simultaneous changing of circumstance and human activity or self-change—how people transform themselves through their struggles. But not only through struggles; they produce themselves through their daily activity. People are formed by what they do. So, for example, a person who is a wage laborer under capitalism is produced and produces himself in a certain way, as a person who is alienated, as a person who simply wants to consume because of the emptiness of capitalist production. We always have to ask the question, “what kinds of people are produced under particular relations of production?” What kinds of people are produced in an exchange relationship, which is “I will do this for you, if you do that for me” as opposed to functioning in a communal society in which people act in solidarity? You produce certain kinds of people under those conditions. This article can also be found at the Monthly Review website , where most recent articles are published in full. Click here to purchase a PDF version of this article at the Monthly Review website.