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In this important study, Raju J Das, Jamie Gough and Aram Eisenschitz provide a Marxist critique of new social democracy as the dominant contemporary strategy for local economic and social development.In both the global North and South, new social democracy seeks to develop social capital, strengthen civil society, build not-for-profit enterprises, encourage self-help, and foster community ties. It seeks participatory forms of local politics to achieve a local class consensus. It promises to improve people's economic and social conditions in the face of neoliberal capitalism, and to empower them. The authors argue that this strategy is severely limited by, and internalizes, its capitalist environment. They show that social enterprise can be developed in socialist ways, and contribute to a local politics based in class struggle. But social capital cannot replace the struggle of the exploited and oppressed against capitalism and for a socialist society, a strategy which the authors outline for the local scale.
List of contents
Acknowledgements
List of Figures and Tables
1 Introduction
Raju J. Das, Jamie Gough and Aram Eisenschitz
2 Associationism: the New Social Democracy from Below
Jamie Gough
3 Social Capital and Class: a Critical Theoretical Examination
Raju J. Das
4 Social Capital in the Spaces of Civil Society
Raju J. Das
5 Social Capital at the Zone of Interaction between the State and Civil Society
Raju J. Das
6 The Social Economy and Socialist Strategy
Aram Eisenschitz and Jamie Gough
7 Rooting Working Class Struggle in Locality, and Taking It beyond
Jamie Gough and Aram Eisenschitz
Index
About the author
Raju J. Das is Professor at York University, Toronto. His teaching and research interests are in political economy, class relations, the state, uneven development, poverty, and politics of the Right and the Left. His most recent book is
The Challenges of the New Social Democracy (Brill, 2023).
Summary
In this important study, Raju J Das, Jamie Gough and Aram Eisenschitz provide a Marxist critique of new social democracy as the dominant contemporary strategy for local economic and social development.
In both the global North and South, new social democracy seeks to develop social capital, strengthen civil society, build not-for-profit enterprises, encourage self-help, and foster community ties. It seeks participatory forms of local politics to achieve a local class consensus. It promises to improve people's economic and social conditions in the face of neoliberal capitalism, and to empower them. The authors argue that this strategy is severely limited by, and internalizes, its capitalist environment. They show that social enterprise can be developed in socialist ways, and contribute to a local politics based in class struggle. But social capital cannot replace the struggle of the exploited and oppressed against capitalism and for a socialist society, a strategy which the authors outline for the local scale.
Foreword
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