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In this text Mimmo Porcaro develops his presentation at the NALD seminar, Berlin, November 2012. It is an attempt at finding where we are situated in the development of party forms growing first from the Fordist phase of capitalist production, then from its neoliberal phase and, now, a possible party form suitable to the developing general social and economic crisis. More…

Here is William K. Tabb’s co-introduction to the first session – “Austerity Measures and Left Responses” – of the 2012 NALD Seminar.  More…

Here is William K. Tabb’s November 29, 2012 presentation at the NALD panel discussion “USA 2012: After the Elections” on the situation after the US presidential elections.  More…

Here is Jan Rehmann’s opening contribution to the 2012 NALD seminar.

More…

Hans Thie is a Scientific Advisor to Die LINKE’s Bundestag delegation.

Click here for Hans Thie’s presentation of die LINKE’s “Plan B” at the 2012 NALD seminar.

Hier die in „Blätter für deutsche und internationale Politik“ 12.2012 leicht gekürzte deutsche Übersetzung des in „The Nation“ 28.11.2011 erschienenen Artikels

“Capitalism vs. The Climate”, The Nation, November 28, 2012

What If?
Daily Politics and Post-Capitalism

William K. Tabb

In this contribution Tabb addresses and brings into relation many other contributions made in NALD seminars and in written contributions found on this site. More…

This article is published in Socialist Register 49 (2013).

 

Click here to read the full article.

This article has been published in Socialist Register 49 (2013).

 

Click here for the full article.

Pease click here for Margit Mayer’s tribute to Neil Smith

Here are some thoughts by Bill Fletcher, Jr. on the paper by Mimmo Porcaro posted on this site. More…

The following is the discussion document prepared by Sean Sweeney for the global union roundtable “Energy Emergency – Energy Transition” October 10 – 12, New York City:

Cornell University Global Labor Institute and Rosa-Luxemburg-Stiftung New York Office: Resist, Reclaim and Restructure: Unions and the Struggle for Energy Democracy

Here is a link to the fundamental statement of the strategy:

http://rdwolff.com/content/manifesto

More information can be had at the “Democracy at Work” site:

http://www.democracyatwork.info/

There is also a video produced by “Democracy at Work”:

YouTube Preview Image

 

 

 

 

In this paper the two national co-chairs of Die LINKE, elected at the party’s June congress, lay out a strategy for combatting austerity, countering the narrative of the crisis being one of public debt with a proposal for a residential housing cooperative, new forms of communication and meetings, etc. More…

http://www.alternet.org/election-2012/2012-elections-have-little-do-obamas-record-which-why-we-are-voting-him

 

Here is a concrete proposal for banking-system reform from the Bundestag group of Die LINKE.

Hersel – Troost – LINKE – How a socialisation of the banks might look

Here is Rick Wolff’s article on the problems of big banks and the logic of their socialization:

Wolff – Big Finance Pathology Oct 1 2012 Guardian UK

In this paper, Mimmo Porcaro comes to grips with the theory and practice of the modern democratic movement-based party, principally centered around the successes and failures of the experience of Rifondazione Comunista in Italy, and the problem of how to make a party based on these principles at least as strong, in its thinking and practice, as the traditional communist parties. More…

Click here for a video of the December 1, 2011 panel with Leo Panitch, Stephanie Ross, Albert Scharenberg and Bill Fletcher, Jr.

 Thursday Evening, December 1, Public Dialogue

Situations: The Left’s Responses to the Crisis in Europe & North America

Leo Panitch, Stephanie Ross, Albert Scharenberg, Bill Fletcher

 FRIDAY December 2 Global Crisis and Power Shifts

 9-10 Welcome to the seminar:

Ananya Mukherjee, Leo Panitch, Albert Scharenberg

10-12 Taking the Measure of the Global Crisis

Michael Krätke, Stephen Gill, Bill Tabb

Chair: Greg Albo

13- 15 Changes in the Balance of Forces? The US and German cases

Barbara Epstein, Ingar Solty, Mario Candeias

Chair: Rainer Rilling

15.30 – 17.30: The Twin Crises: Connect the Green and Social Questions

Greg Albo, Pierre Beaudet, Roger Keil, Hans Thie

Chair: Nancy Holmstrom

Dinner

 

SATURDAY December 3 The Question of Organization

 9-12 Movements, Unions, Parties: Principles and Challenges

Charles Post, Sam Gindin, Conny Hildebrandt, Giorgio Riolo, Steve Williams

Chair: Ingar Solty

13 –17 Movements, Unions, Parties: North American vs European Cases

Christina Kaindl, Bill Fletcher, Jan Rehmann

Chair: Margit Mayer

17.30-19 Exchange: Projects and Possibilities of Cooperation

 

SUNDAY  December 4 Taking the Measure of the Left

 9.30-12 The left’s political-conceptual responses to the new situation

Christoph Spehr, Vivek Chibber, Stephanie Ross, Leo Panitch, Bill Fletcher

Chair:  Barbara Epstein

13-14.15 Future of the NALD – organizational issues Rainer Rilling

 14.15 CLOSING MESSAGE/REMARKS: Greg Albo

 End: 2.30 pm

—————————–> where to go..and when! NALD 2011 – Mini-Guide

 

In Memory of Hermann Scheer

This text has been developed within the ISM’s steering committee together with the active participation of other colleagues. Our aim is to advance the process of programmatic and strategic agreement, which is already under way in the social and political left as well as in critical scholarship and culture and which has recently gained new impetus from the turn in nuclear policy. In this, we are less concerned with a possibly exhaustive listing of the various single steps toward a social-ecological reconstruction. Rather, we would like to make clear that such a reconstruction can only be designed as a comprehensive social, cultural and political project, in the end as a project of another society – of a solidariy modernity. For the ongoing elaboration and carrying out of such a project, a broad alliance of diverse protagonists has to evolve. Through a discussion of the present text we would like to open up a first opportunity for such an alliance. The text itself is therefore conceived as an invitation to participation. More…

The RLF Policy Paper by Hans Thie – a participant in the December 2011 NALD seminar in Toronto – can be found on the Rosa Luxemburg Foundation’s site at:

http://www.rosalux.de/fileadmin/rls_uploads/pdfs/Standpunkte/policy_paper/Policy_Paper_3-2011.pdf

(1) Foundation: 2008 in connection with the International Conference “After Bush” in Berlin. At present 25 to 30 people take part in its annual meetings. In the current NALD e-mail group there are 35 – 45 people. The number has been deliberately contained.

(2) Task: “The North-Atlantic Left Dialogue is an attempt to develop a continuous working relationship between left and socialist intellectuals and academics in Europe and North America (USA/Canada) for the purpose of discussing the distinctive challenges to the political, social and cultural left working and struggling in the highly developed northern capitalist countries”. The meetings are conceived as partly public, partly semi-open dialogue events among left intellectuals from universities, trade unions, parties and movements as well as media. Only on an exceptional basis does the circle of participants include colleagues “from the South” or East.

(3) Communication:
a. In preparation, the first two workshops developed a short series of questions to which participants sent back two- to three-page answers, which were then included in a ca. 120-page reader. In the two or three days of the workshops this reader served as the basis of a discussion. The reader was also made available on the NALD’s internet site.
b. Each of the seminars in Berlin, New York and again in Berlin were combined with a public event.
c. A blog -  http://left-dialogue.blog.rosalux.de/ – documents the seminars, preparatory discussions and public events.
d. Decisions / communication / planning among active NALD members (at first the initiators, since then additional people) has also occurred in New York in the week of the Left Forum.

(4) Substantive Focuses: in 2008 the focus was the change from Bush to Obama, in 2009 and 2010 the development of the left (strategic and organizational questions) with a special emphasis on the analysis of the crisis and assessment of its consequences.

(5) Perspectives: As a whole, through its seminars, the NALD has succeeded in building a discussion framework in the left of a type that does not otherwise exist. With the Toronto meeting 2011 the gradual expansion of the circle of participants has been realized.

Michael Brie discusses the strengths and weaknesses of Erik Olin Wright’s new book.  Click here to read the review.

This brochure contains rich discussions of actually existing partial attempts to replace GDP with other economic measurements and of the struggles around this. Here are excerpts – click here to read them. The full brochure can be seen at

http://www.transform-network.net/uploads/media/transform__the_left_between-growth_and_degrowth.pdf

In this key paper for Die LINKE’s strategic discussion on growth, GDP and green capitalism, Dieter Klein addresses the question of alternatives to GDP as an economic measurement. In this context he sees green conversion within capitalism as a moment that makes one last phase of growth possible while the left pushes for a transition to non-growth.

(A PDF of the article can be accessed here.)

For article in Word: More…

With the crisis now in its fifth year, it’s plain that the rich and powerful have restructured society toward ever-greater inequality. Guardian, May 27, 2011

Here are videos of panels organized by RLS/Transform at this year’s Left Forum in New York in March, along with an event at which the English edition of the Letters of Rosa Luxemburg were presented. The events include, among other people, Peter Hudis, Frieder Otto Wolf, Michael Krätke, Deborah Eisenberg, Annelies Laschitza, Gian Paolo Patta, Immanuel Ness, Florian Moritz, Gar Alperovitz, Bill Fletcher Jr., Harriet Fraad, Raquel Garrido, Sean Sweeney, Richard D. Wolff and Jan Rehmann.Rosa Luxemburg Foundation and Transform at Left Forum, New York 2011

In this succinct piece Cornelia Hildebrandt captures the contradictions in Die LINKE’s considerable potential, the various double binds it finds itself in, due to its mixed reality as a Volkspartei in the East and largely protest party in the West, along with the paradoxical implications of the crisis for the party. The statistical data help in forming an idea of the party’s reality. More…

Here you can find video-statements from Richard Wolff, Barbara Epstein, Bill Fletcher and Albert Scharenberg on the political situation in the United States (Debate in Berlin, RLS, November 22nd 2010).

You can find them as well on the YouTube-Channel (RLS).

The following Theses are a first attempt at sorting out the debate, as it has emerged so far. This is not supposed to close the debate, rather it should open it to broader horizons. More…

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