Is industrial civilization compatible with economic democracy, or is democratic socialism impossible in a globalized industrial society? This presentation will examine the powerful material conditions that have frustrated every effort to replace capitalism with genuine democratic socialism. Hopefully, this will become the starting point for a discussion about what kinds of energy sources and technologies are most conducive to democratic control.
Strongly suggested background reading:
https://www.counterpunch.org/2018/11/30/democratic-socialism-the-impossible-dream/
https://www.counterpunch.org/2019/02/01/why-did-socialism-fail/
Craig Collins, Ph.D. is the author of Toxic Loopholes (Cambridge University Press), which examines America’s dysfunctional system of environmental protection. He teaches political science and environmental law at California State University East Bay and was a founding member of the Green Party of California.
His forthcoming books: Marx & Mother Nature and Rising From the Ruins: Catabolic Capitalism & Green Resistance reformulate Marx’s theory of history & social change and examine the emerging struggle to replace catabolic capitalism with a thriving, just, ecologically resilient society.