The Socialist Manifesto: The Case For Radical Politics In An Era Of Extreme Inequality
by
Bhaskar Sunkara

[All underscored emphasis in my own. JH]

And yes, there is a Right calling for the restoration of capitalism, but its support diminishes over time, much like monarchism slowly lost supporters in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. p. 25-26.

At its core, to be a socialist is to assert the moral worth of every person, no matter who they are, where they’re from, of what they did. With any luck, future generations will look back at this time when life outcomes were accidents of birth with shock and disgust, the same way we look back on more extreme forms of exploitation and oppression—slavery,feudalism and so on—that have already been done away with. If all human beings have the same inherent worth, then they must be free to fulfill their potential to flourish in all their individuality.

In order to realize this kind of expansive freedom, we need to guarantee at least the basics of a good life to all. And given the opportunity to thrive, people can contribute to society and create the conditions in which other can do the same. Freedom for working people today, however, means limiting the freedom of those who benefit from the inequities inherent in class society. Socialism is not so much about trading in freedom for equality but rather posting the question: Freedom for whom? p. 26-27.

There is an ideological motivation for a more radical socialism, the more idea that the exploitation of people by other people is a problem in desperate need of a solution. Capitalism both creates the preconditions for radical human flourishing and prevents its ultimate fulfillment. for socialists, to the extent that some hierarchies linger, they have constantly justified and held in check. Think about the authority a parent wields over a child. By most people’s lights (including most socialists’) this authority is reasonable, but it is also regulated by law. You can’t beat your child, and you can’t keep them out of school or prevent them from leaving home when they become adults. p. 27-28.

Social democracy is a step in the right direction, then, but ultimately not enough, owing to its vulnerability. Of course, we should be so lucky to find ourselves living under social democracy today. Neoliberalism is the watchword of our age. Most people are saddled with debt, have few job protections, can’t comfortably afford health care and housing, and don’t believe that their children will fare any better than they do. In this new gilded age, they’re unwilling philanthropists, subsidizing the lavish lifestyles of the rich. p. 28.

But even if we can’t solve the human condition, we can turn a world filled with excruciating misery into one where ordinary unhappiness reigns. Maybe we could even make some progress on that front. As Marx put it, with our animal problems solved, we can begin to solve our human ones. p. 29

Books like this often start by telling you, the reader, what’s wrong with the world today. For much of capitalism’s history, radicals have been sustained less by a clear vision of socialism than by visceral opposition to the horrors around them. Instead of making the case for socialism, we made the case against capitalism. I have tried to do something different by presenting what a different social system could look like and how we can get there. p. 29.

We can also learn that we can’t rely on the professed good intentions of socialist leaders: the way to prevent abuses of power is to have a free civil society and robust democratic institutions. This is the only socialism worthy of the name. p. 30.

The best social democrats today might want to fight for macroeconomic policies from above to help workers. But while not rejecting all forms of technocratic expertise, the democratic socialist knows that it will take mass struggle from below and messy disruptions to bring about a more durable and radical sort of change. p. 30-31.

[The Communist Manifesto’s] most important legacy was in laying out definitions of capitalism and communism (an association in which free development of each is the condition for the free development of all) and describing the working-class agent at the heart of future transformations. p. 42-43.

In the aftermath of 1848, [Marx] advocated that workers fight for their rights in new organizations, sometimes allied with, but fundamentally independent of the erstwhile liberal bourgeoisie. [In 2020, that would be the Democratic National Committee and the elites controlling that organization, JH.]

The [Erfurt Program of 1891] concluded with a list of demands, ranging from proportional representation and universal suffrage to political freedoms and free medical care to the replacement of Germany’s standing army with a militia. It also advocated workplace reform such as the eight-hour day, an end to child labor and the prohibition of night work. p. 58.

It is the task of the Social Democratic Party to shape the struggle of the working class into a conscious and unified one and to point out the inherent necessity of its goals. p. 59.

The [Social Democratic Party] wasn’t just a party: it was an alternative culture, where workers could educate themselves in a day school or through reading seventy-five affiliated papers, play in sports leagues or gymnastic clubs, and find friends and lovers at picnics and party taverns. This sense of collective belonging cemented by lectures, rallies and rituals. p. 61.

The young, Polish-born radical [Rosa Luxemburg] didn’t reject the daily fight for reform or the importance of trade unions, seeing them as vital to building class consciousness. But she argued that a socialist society would emerge only after a decisive rupture with capitalism. She likened the struggle of those who tried to gradually bring about change within capitalism to the plight of Sisyphus. They make progress up the hill, only have to start again when their reforms are rolled back. In other words, without the structural leap to socialism, all that is won is the momentary suppression of the abuses of capitalism instead of suppression of capitalism itself.