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Book

Understanding socialism

Call Number

  • 335.43 W8559 (CEN)

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Publication Information

Chicago, Illinois : Haymarket Books, 2025.

Physical Description

xiv, 156 pages ; 21 cm

Summary

"Understanding Socialism is a plainspoken text that disarms false narratives, confronts past failures, and offers a path to a fresh and modern understanding of socialism, by outlining what democracy in the workplace could look like. Wolff not only explains what socialism is and has meant to its various proponents, he also looks at the transition from feudalism to capitalism as a model to help us visualize an evolution from our current socioeconomic state. Understanding Socialism explores how socialist theory was used and applied to help shape the histories of countries such as Russia and China, and beyond. Wolff also analyzes the successes and defeats of those countries, the world's reactions to them, and how they offer important lessons for the building of a democratic, worker-controlled 21st-century socialism" -- Publisher marketing.

Notes

First published in 2019 by Democracy at Work.

Contents

  • A brief history: how socialism got to its here and now
  • What is socialism?
  • Capitalism and socialism: struggles and tranistions
  • Russia and China: major experiments in constructing socialism
  • Two anti-socialist purges: fascism and anti-communism
  • Socialism's future and worker co-ops.

Subjects