What should today?s Communist Manifesto look like? Modern working class and its program

modern-workersIt has been repeated many times that the traditional industrial working class in the West has been declining over the last decades. Nevertheless, it is still a substantial minority. On a world scale the traditional working class is actually growing.

What we see developing in Western Europe, North America, Australia and many parts of Asia, is the so called knowledge society, where cognitive and creative skills are becoming more and more important and where the old methods of the stick and the carrot do not work anymore. On the other hand, more and more work in the service sector becomes also routine-based and is exported to the countries of the underdeveloped world: certain kinds of accountancy, computer programming, etc.

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Peer-to-peer revolution — Challenging traditional capitalist business models

ID-10018651One could have long arguments over the exact definition of socialism if it?s posed as an abstract future-construction. However such a discussion will acquire different quality if we are to base it upon real processes which we can observe in the present reality which are already undermining and (or even outplacing in certain conditions) the established models.

Why not start with Wikipedia and other examples of so-called peer production that are challenging traditional hierarchical capitalist business models? Wikipedia is a profoundly anti-capitalist and even communist way of producing and distributing knowledge. It is based on the principle to each according to need, from each according to ability. The contributors or editors are not paid and the users are not charged, which again flies in the face of all capitalist logic. Furthermore, Wikipedia is egalitarian produced on the basis of horizontal reciprocities rather than hierarchical control.

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Which road for Greece? (part 1)

SYRIZA-logoPublished: 13 Feb 2013
Author: Pat Byrne

In many EU countries, the economic debt crisis and the austerity measures introduced by the main parties have provoked large scale strikes, mass street protests and significant shifts in electoral support. In particular, the tendency of the social democratic parties to go along with the shifting of the debts of the banks on to working people has opened up a vacuum to the left. Thus we have seen rising support for the Left Bloc of Portugal, the Front Gauche of France and most dramatically for the Coalition of the Radical Left in Greece, more commonly known by its initials SYRIZA.

The following is a two-part examination of this Greek phenomenon and its potential. Part 1 examines how the crisis has helped the rise of SYRIZA. Part Two looks more closely at SYRIZA?s programme and organisation and discusses what measures are needed to overcome the crisis in Greece in favour of working people.

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What future for Greece and Cyprus?

The Euro was bound to be a disaster for the weaker economies of the Eurozone. Without the ability to control their own fiscal policies these economies were catastrophically exposed to the vagaries of the world economic situation. As long as the going was good heavy borrowing could sustain their economies and provide a reasonable growth rate. This in turn provided near-full employment and a rising standard of living for the general population.

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Peer(-to-peer) review of Marxism

Marxists and peer-to-peer activists discuss about the new society.

The following is a revised transcript of a discussion that took place on May 3, 2012 between Michel Bauwens, Jonathan Clyne, Alex Dirmeier, Lena Hanno and Jean Lievens on peer-to-peer and Marxism.

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