richard-day-gramsci-is-dead

50 Gramsci is DeadAt the same time, he explicitly acknowledges the failures of actuallyexisting socialism, and wonders what, at the end of the twentiethcentury, ‘could be said to remain of the [marxist] socialist project’ (1).He is able to see that the groups that came together to create People’sGlobal Action (PGA) are anarchistic in their approach, in that they arecommitted to decentralized, non-hierarchical forms of organization(181). He also shows an awareness of the shift towards direct action,in noting that networks like PGA are not ‘putting forward a seriesof demands that can be negotiated within the given institutionalframeworks of globalization’ (179). In an uncommon gesture for acommitted marxist, he even admits to being impressed by the ‘sightof steelworkers declaring solidarity with anarchists on the streets ofSeattle’ (179).It seems clear that Panitch’s vision of a new socialism is driven byan honest attempt to grapple with contemporary realities, includingthe rise of the newest social movements. At the same time, however,he remains committed to most of the central tenets of marxistsocialism. The ‘revolutionary possibilities of the working class’ (10)are his central concern, and he believes that ‘the salience of class willhave to be brought more centrally back to the analysis and strategyof the Left’ (11). Explicitly following the lead of Marx and Engelsin the Communist Manifesto, he stresses the need for a ‘new type ofsocialist internationalism’ (11), based on ‘strategically coordinatingeconomic decision-making’ (6). For him, rather tellingly, ‘the keylong term condition for an alternative to globalization is democraticinvestment control within each state’ (182). Thus Panitch’s ‘alternativeto globalization’ appears to be a kinder, gentler sort of capitalism,tamed by state control—hardly a renewal of marxist socialism, andhardly a goal shared by the anarchistic elements of radical socialmovements today.A special issue of the marxist journal Monthly Review (52:3, 2000)displays a similar ambivalence. This issue is devoted to discussingthe anti-globalization movement which, like Panitch, the editors seeas heralding a ‘new internationalism’. They note, accurately, thatSeattle was not the first ‘large militant protest’ against the policies ofthe WTO, IMF and World Bank. These had been going on for manyyears in the global South, where they escaped the notice of the massmedia in the G8 countries. But they do give a certain pride of placeto Seattle, in that it refuted the ‘carefully cultivated, widely projectedimage of the United States as hegemonic power lacking internal socialcontradictions’ (Sweezy and Magdoff 2000a: 1–2). That is, it gave lie