Author: icsswpadmin

The Bolivarian Revolution in Venezuela has provided international leadership to the anti-imperialist struggle and a promise that a better world is possible. Consequently, it has been targeted for regime change by the US, which has illegally blockaded the country causing immense human suffering. The extreme right opposition will be participating in the November 21 mega-elections, rather than boycotting, for the first time in years.

Rick Sterling was an observer in Nicaragua’s election last week. He will be reporting back on what he saw, US intervention in Nicaragua, and the upcoming election in Venezuela.

This talk will include the plans by the nuclear industry to establish nuclear-rockets to Mars and nuclear-powered mining colonies on the planetary bodies. Included will be a review of US attempts to destroy the United Nations Outer Space and Moon Treaties as Obama in 2015 signed a new law giving US corporations the ‘right’ to make land claims for mining the sky in violation of those treaties. This will result in moving the war system into space as other nations will not allow the US to act as the ‘Master of Space’.

Back in 1967, when millions of Americans were in the streets protesting the war in Vietnam, Che Guevara told us, “I envy you North Americans. Yours is the most important struggle of all. You live in the Belly of the Beast.” What would Che tell us in 2021, when we have a bipartisan beating of the drums of war and our domestic politics are, well, interesting?

What does socientific socialism have to say about the prospects for a socialist revolution in the U.S.? Anthropologist and Scientific Socialist Eugene E Ruyle will discuss this topic folowed by discussion.

Cooperative economics are an alternative to both capitalism with its inexorable inequality and existing models of state socialism and central planning. Experience with worker-owned cooperatives around the world has shown that worker participation in decision-making can work, hierarchy is substantially reduced but not eliminated, worker satisfaction is qualitatively enhanced, and labor productivity and innovation can be competitive with capitalist enterprises. But can worker-owned cooperatives be scaled up to achieve economies of scale? What are the different models of cooperatives? What can we learn from cooperative bubbles like Tahrir Square, Occupy, Gezi Park, Rojava, Burning Man, or sharing economies? How do we understand the relations of production in worker-owned cooperatives and their relations of exchange? Can we imagine a global economic system dominated by cooperative economics?

Sharat G. Lin, PhD is research fellow with Human Agenda and the Initiative for Equality. He writes and lectures on global political economy, labor migration, social movements, and public health. He has studied producer-owned cooperatives in Spain, Cuba, Venezuela, India, and the U.S. He has observed first-hand many temporary experiments in self-organization as well as state enterprises in both capitalist, socialist, and hybrid states.