Review by Choice Review
Written in the midst of a personal battle with the cancer that took his life and at a time when the conservative politics of Reagan, Thatcher, and Kohl have seemingly swept social democracy from the political stage, Harrington's last book exhibits a kind of grim optimism. It is grim in its description of the failures of the socialist project and the current world situation. Harrington describes the various world socialisms--utopian, scientific, authoritarian, Keynesian, Third World, and so on--which, despite their ultimate failure, have in his view done more for humanity over the last 100 years than other social movements. Harrington's evaluation of social democracy is roughly similar to Adam Przeworski's Capitalism and Social Democracy (1985). The difference is that Przeworski, while seeing no alternative to social democracy, does not believe that it leads to socialism. Harrington argues that the Western capitalist countries have reached the end of an accumulation cycle based on the Keynesian welfare state and a "Fordist" economy. Political and economic renewal can be achieved by encouraging glasnost and perestroika in both East and West. This requires a political movement of social democrats, feminists, "greens," and others. Finally, a "Marshall Plan" for the Southern Hemisphere is necessary to further unify the global economy. Such changes would be the first steps in the decades-long process of transformation to socialism. This book is a valuable summary of the ideas of one of America's leading social democrats. Always the political outsider within the conservative US, Harrington adds an American-accented voice to the essentially European social democratic political movement. College, university, and public libraries. -J. Bearden, SUNY College at Geneseo
Copyright American Library Association, used with permission.
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review
By ``democratic socialism,'' Harrington means something vastly different from the Soviet or Chinese systems, which he regards as ``bureaucratic collectivisms.'' Calling socialism the major hope for human freedom and justice in the 21st century, the author of The Other America and The New American Poverty demands meaningful worker-involvement in decision-making, reorganization of markets away from pure profiteering, decentralization and a move toward an egalitarian global economy. Today's ``free market'' economies, he argues, are controlled by socially authoritarian, militarist, debt-financed regimes like those of Reagan and Thatcher. Harrington is a nondogmatic thinker, and this succinct, readable synthesis of the various strands of his thought conveys a sense of urgency deepened by his struggle with inoperable cancer. His blueprint for a ``visionary gradualism'' deserves a reading. (July) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
(c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Review by Library Journal Review
As this may be Harrington's last major work (he is battling inoperable cancer), it is worthy of careful attention even though it covers some familiar territory. It is both a condensation of and a sequel to his massive theoretical study Socialism ( LJ 6/1/72), and it also refines and supports arguments put forth in writings such as Toward a Democratic Left ( LJ 3/15/68) and The Next Left ( LJ 1/15/84). He argues that socialist renewal is the only hope for progress and freedom in the next century and he tries to clear away the ``deadwood of the socialist past.'' He is convincing in his application of classic socialist theory to current economic situations, and he examines the validity of the idea of ``visionary gradualism'' in bringing about a socialist agenda. Recommended for all academic libraries.-- Thomas A. Karel, Franklin & Marshall Coll. Lib., Lancaster, Pa. (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
(c) Copyright Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Review by Kirkus Book Review
Here, veteran socialist Harrington (The Other America, The Next Left, The New American Poverty, etc.) offers a summary of socialism, an apologia for its failures, and a cry from the heart for a bright future under its banner. Harrington has reviewed socialism's past before (e.g., in Socialism) and has recently essayed its future (The Next Left, 1987). But he isn't one to be beaten down by such apparent late-20th-century expressions of socialism's demise as glasnost, China's slow transformation into a free-enterprise zone, Thatcher's successes, or Poland's caving in to Solidarity. Instead, it is the major hypothesis of this work that ""the political impulse and movement represented by those bewildered, half-exhausted democratic-socialist parties continue to be the major hope for freedom and justice."" So how does Harrington propose to breathe new life into socialism to enable it to ensure freedom and justice in the 21st century? Simply stated, he calls for a bottom-up rather than a top-down socialism, one that shirks socialism's traditional affiliation with authoritarian regimes in favor of a true democratic movement from below. Harrington takes the reader on an intellectual roller-coaster ride through the history of socialism--Saint-Simon, Fourier, Owens, Marx, Kautsky, Lenin--before investigating hopes for the future. Occasionally, he seems to stand on the brink of a major reformulation (as when he states that ""nationalization can no longer be seen as the sovereign socialist remedy""), but more often the work reverts to the expected. Honorable, but adds little to Harrington's long and distinguished career at the intellectual/political barricades. Copyright ©Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
