Few figures, excepting perhaps Adam Smith,[1] have received such scorn from the Left as has Nietzsche. The philosopher of ice and high mountains has all too assiduously been banished to the depths of rightwing reaction or derided as a brief flirtation only fit for male teenage angst.
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A FALSE REASSURANCE EXISTS AROUND THE YEAR OF 1917, equally for those who treat its legacy as a model and those who treat it as a question that has yet to be answered. As Rosa Luxemburg put it: the October Revolution posed a question that couldnât be answered in Russia.
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On September 26, 2019, Matt Cavagrotti and Spencer A. Leonard of the Platypus Affiliated Society conducted an interview via email with Dan La Botz, a longtime labor union activist and the author of A Troublemakerâs Handbook: How to Fight Back Where You Work â And Win! (1991), Rank-and-File Rebellion: Teamsters for a Democratic Union (1991), and What Went Wrong? the Nicaraguan Revolution: A Marxist Analysis (2016). What follows is a transcript of their exchange.
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WHEN CAPITALISM IS IDENTIFIED AS THE PRIMARY ILL facing society, the search for a time for it to be undone, exceeded or simply left behind, is inevitable. The idea of âno exitâ evokes a present that is both totalizing and enclosed, a kind of hall of mirrors found in classic horror films. Whichever way you turn, there is continuous multiplication, whether of space, objects or people. Without a potential escape, the critique of capitalism seems an argument without a conclusion.
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ALTERNATIVES TO CAPITALISM, WHICH HAD LONG BEEN DORMANT after the collapse of the Soviet Union, are now everywhere enjoying a resurgence. Extinction rebellions, black blocs and cooperatives everywhere are on the ascent, resisting neoliberal attacks on the poor with as much vigor as they resist those on the environment.
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