The Socialist Manifesto: The Case for Radical Politics in an Era of Extreme Inequality - Bhaskar Sunkara
Published in 2019 by Basic Books, New York, NY
276 pages
LCCN: 2018039872 (print)
LCC: HX73 .S86 2019 (print)
ISBN: 978-1-5416-4710-7 (paperback)
In the last half-decade, socialism has seen an unprecedented resurgence in popular discourse. While this is a word that many Baby Boomers and Gen X’ers thought would die away with the fall of the Soviet Union, the discourse around socialism has refused to stay buried. According to a recent Gallup poll, “49% of Millennials and Gen Zers have a positive view of socialism, contrasted with 39% of Gen Xers and a still lower 32% of baby boomers and traditionalists (those aged 55 and older).” Capitalism, it seems, is facing a renewed wave of intensive scrutiny and critique. When looking at Gen Z in particular, according to a newly released Axios/Momentum poll, “perceptions of capitalism are truly underwater: 42% have a positive view and 54% have a negative view.”
This should come to us as no surprise. These generations have witnessed several economic crises (the Dot Com bubble, the 2008 housing crash, the 2020 COVID crisis), are faced with the increasingly unstable job and housing markets that price minimum wage workers out of renting one-bedroom apartments in 93% of US counties, and are now reaping the consequences of decades of neoliberal policies that have devastated our environment and led to extreme economic inequality. Millennials and Gen Z’ers are now the new face of the gig economy, where freelance jobs promise flexibility, but only further exploit workers by eroding the distinction between work and life. These generations are skeptical about their prospects for the future, as they are delaying child-rearing due to insufficient incomes and the ever-increasing threats of climate change. Faced with a future defined by precarity, it is no wonder that the younger generation is looking around and thinking, “Surely there must be a better way.”
Following the reemergence of the word ‘socialism’ within mainstream American discourse by the Bernie Sanders campaign (and other political figures like Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and “The Squad”), the relative success and large followings of Leftist podcasts and streamers like Chapo Trap House and Hasan Piker, and the Democratic Socialists of America’s steadily growing membership, voices from the American left are just beginning to become more prominent in our national discourse (especially online). Despite the amount of infighting and division that occurs within the Left, this emerging progressive movement is slowly on the rise in the United States, decrying the actions of both Republicans and establishment Democrats in equal measure and advocating for policy measures such as Medicare for All and the Green New Deal.
Yet, since it has historically been bogged down in overly academic jargon, demonized by right-wing politicians and pundits, and suffered from a worrying detachment from the day-to-day concerns of the working class in recent decades, the Left has had an issue in clearly communicating its ideas to the average person. So, what exactly is socialism? What do those of us on the Left mean when we say we want socialism? Is there any precedent for such a Labor movement or a serious Socialist Party in the US? Is socialism forever tainted by the totalitarian legacies of the Soviet Union and China in the last century? In his 2019 book, The Socialist Manifesto: The Case for Radical Politics in an Era of Extreme Inequality, founder of the popular leftist magazine Jacobin and former vice-chair of the DSA Bhaskar Sunkara attempts to answer these questions and more as he lays out his case for democratic socialism in America.
Overview:
The Socialist Manifesto details the history of various socialist movements in the 20th century, seeking how socialism has both succeeded and failed in its goals of democratizing the workplace and lifting the working class. From these historical lessons, Sunkara posits, we can construct a progressive socialist movement that will supersede our current condition of capitalism and all the ills that it brings. Sunkara opens the book by describing a hypothetical scenario in which a worker begins to realize their exploitation at the curry pasta sauce manufacturer Bongiovi (owned by Jon Bon Jovi’s father).
In this thought experiment (titled “A Day in the Life of a Socialist Citizen”), the workers unite in solidarity, electing a left-wing populist Bruce Springsteen to the presidency, who institutes social democratic reforms that make life more stable for all workers. In this hypothetical case study, Sunkara gives us an accessible and whimsical way of imagining a world where companies are collectively controlled by the workers while startup capital and lending are handled by the state. In this world, businesses still compete with one another, but the motive to provide maximum profits for the sole interests of shareholders is eliminated in favor of worker profit-sharing. Here, Sunkara provides a picture of the United States moving from its current capitalist system to a democratic socialist nation, explaining what socialism is to the common reader without getting bogged down in dense political theory.
For the bulk of the book, which is organized both chronologically and by region, Sunkara gives us a crash-course history of socialism, starting with the life and work of Karl Marx, the power struggle within the German SPD, the rise and fall of the Soviet Union, the development of social democracy in Sweden, the development of communism in China and its gradual transition to political capitalism, and the history of socialist parties in the United States during the early twentieth century. In these chapters, we are taken into the inner workings of the socialist parties of the era and introduced to a wide array of historical actors, including Marx, Engles, Kautsky, Bernstein, Trotsky, Luxemburg, Lenin, Stalin, Palme, Mao, Debs, Haywood, and many others.
While he highlights the various wins and progressive reforms that socialists made in the 20th century, Sunkara also holds no punches in elaborating on how these movements and characters fell short of their goals, as well as how many of them slipped into authoritarianism (particularly in the Soviet Union and China). For example, in many cases of communist authoritarianism (especially Maoist China), we see an attempt to impose socialism upon the population from above, even though the preconditions to build a socialist society were not in place. Instead of sugar coating or downplaying the atrocities and failures of these authoritarian states, Sunkara honestly examines and critiques them, seeking to avoid the pitfalls and mistakes of the twentieth century.
We also see the internal divisions within the socialist parties of the early twentieth century, as each group is inevitably divided between reformers (who want to placate private interests to secure their hard-fought gains) and revolutionaries (who want to overturn the capitalist system altogether and build a more democratic and egalitarian society). Here, Sunkara demarcates the core tension and differentiation between social democracy and democratic socialism. Social Democrats are in favor of progressive reforms (such as strong worker rights, social welfare, etc), yet remain within the bounds of the capitalist system, hoping to gradually reform it over time to make it fairer. On the other hand, Democratic Socialists (as well as communists and anarchists) view capitalism as a system that inherently creates and exacerbates inequality and can never be reformed. Therefore, they seek to dismantle capitalism at its root in favor of a more egalitarian and democratic system.
Sunkara favors the latter approach, as the history he outlines is replete with more moderate social democrats trying to compromise with capitalists, only to have their hard-fought progressive reforms rolled back and dismantled in the interest of capital. Yet, Sunkara also points out the tension between the idealism of more radical socialists and the more quotidian interests of more moderate trade unions and their workers. This internal division, as well as immense external pressure, have led most socialist states to either dissolve completely or turn increasingly authoritarian. Sunkara argues that by learning from the mistakes of the past, we can avoid such pitfalls and build a lasting, socialist society in which all workers have dignity in their work and democratically control the means of production.
In the final section of the book (titled “How We Win”), Sunkara outlines fifteen lessons that young socialists can utilize to help us overthrow capitalism and build such a socialist society. These strategies include moving quickly from social democracy to democratic socialism to keep progressive reforms from being rolled back, forming a unified leftist coalition (consisting of leftists across the ideological spectrum) to create a distinctly leftist political party, abolishing the filibuster and Electoral College, and creating a universalist political movement centered on working-class economic concerns instead of remaining fixated on identity politics. For Sunkara, while the history of communist movements of the twentieth century provide plenty of lessons (namely, “the difficulties of central planning, the importance of civil rights and freedoms, what happens when socialism is transformed from a democratic movement from below into an authoritarian collectivism” (236)), he also places hope in the political potential of the Sanders and Corbyn campaigns, as well as the fact that “pluralism and democracy are ingrained not only in civil societies in the advanced capitalist world but within the socialist movement itself” (237). Sunkara, in the end, is much more concerned with the anti-democratic power of capitalism and how it smothers any democratic, pro-worker reforms, and therefore pins his hopes for a better future on the emerging young socialist movement.
Commendations:
As one of those young socialists myself (to be fully transparent, I am best represented as a Christian democratic socialist, although I have common sympathies with social democrats as well), I found much in this volume that is worth commending. In the brief space of just under 250 pages, Sunkara provides a generally accessible and concise history of twentieth-century socialism. This work offers a useful and insightful counter-weight to many anti-leftist narratives that are commonly taught in history books (especially in the post-Cold War US), while also holding the legacies of Stalinism and Maoism to account for their atrocities and failures. Sunkara rightly points out the dangers of rapid socialist change solely from above, as brutal authoritarian regimes have utilized Communism as a transcendent, teleological, and quasi-metaphysical ideological cause that justifies any amount of sacrifice to achieve. Despite Sunkara’s socialist background and praise for the social democratic reforms of Scandinavian countries such as Sweden, he does not employ the Leftist cliche of defending the worst actions of the Soviet Union and China.
He also highlights the tensions between moderate reformers and more radical revolutionaries within the socialist parties of each region, a lesson that proves instructive to today’s divide within the American Democratic party. Instead of trying to court moderate Republicans, Democrats need to construct a policy platform that embraces (rather than rejects) the left-wing of the party. Even if it is merely adopting a social democratic agenda, Democrats need to give up their attempts to appease Republicans and instead adopt popular economic policies that empower the working class and drive change from the bottom up. Sunkara’s delineation between these two groups (democratic socialists and social democrats) is an accurate and useful corrective to inane conservative talking points that try to paint anything left of the Republican party as “socialist.” Socialism contains a broad spectrum of economic and political ideas, and Sunkara’s narrative helps to make these distinctions all the more clear.
Finally, Sunkara also does well to make the practical application of this work (namely, the introduction and conclusion) easy to understand and accessible. His hypothetical scenario of a pasta sauce factory worker awakening to class consciousness is written with stunning clarity and a dash of good humor. In these sections, Sunkara is able to communicate the ways in which capitalism is inherently exploitative and how a socialist workplace might be organized in a way that is never loaded down in overly-academic jargon or dense political theory. It is a great way to describe to the average person what socialism entails (especially in regards to democratizing the workforce), and it is these sections that the average reader will find the most useful.
Critique:
On the other hand, The Socialist Manifesto is a bit of a misnamed book. While Sunkara provides a hypothetical socialist society and steps to achieving it in the introduction and conclusion, ¾ of this book is not a manifesto at all, but rather a basic history of socialist movements in the twentieth century. While this section of the book is detailed and well-researched, it is also quite dry. Depending on the chapter, it is simultaneously somehow both over and under detailed, such as when he describes the complex intricacies of the interwar SPD in Germany while glossing over socialism in Latin America in just two pages.
This latter point is particularly disappointing, as it would have been instructive to analyze more recent socialist movements in Chile, Nicaragua, Venezuela, and Cuba, and what lessons we can learn from them as well (including foreign interventions from the US and Soviet Union, as well as their administrative failures). There’s also very little analysis on the history of anarchism within the greater socialist movement, which is a bit of a missed opportunity in fleshing out the broad spectrum that exists on the Left. I understand that condensing such a broad historical narrative into just under 250 pages is a difficult task; yet, there seems to be too much detailed information to be of great interest to the average layperson, yet not enough detailed analysis and novel interpretations of the historical record to be of much use for those already familiar with the material.
Bouncing between humorous and relatable examples and incredibly detailed and dry historical writing, it’s difficult to know exactly who this book was written for. On one hand, It seems like those who have no background in socialist history might have the most to gain from this book. By presenting the majority of socialist history as one of continual failures and false starts, however, it does not make for the most inspiring texts for the future of socialism. While I commend Sunkara for his unflinching and honest analysis of the missteps of socialist movements, it's a bit odd to write a socialist manifesto that is centered on the tragic ways in which communism has failed. This too often gives too much ammunition to confirm the biases of conservatives and neoliberals, and it is far from the positive, progressive vision that we need to build a unified, cohesive coalition.
Finally, there’s a distinct lack of detailed analysis regarding socialism in our world today. While Sunkara offers a fifteen-point plan to build political power in our current system, many of the proposals seem much more unrealistic and difficult, especially with the hindsight we have two years after the book’s publication. Sunkara places so much hope on the political momentum of the Sanders and Corbyn campaigns. Knowing of their failure to secure executive positions of power and the return to the neoliberal status quo here in 2021, it is rather heartbreaking to read of Sunkara’s optimism for these progressive campaigns. His plan for building a lasting socialist movement has various seeds of possible ways forward (ex. refocusing on working-class economic concerns over identity politics, building coalitions with leftists across the ideological spectrum, winning small reforms in the here and now that we can work toward securing in the longer run, etc), yet he never fully addresses how we can keep such a system from either being rolled back by capitalist interests or turning authoritarian (especially since he also proposes for a stronger federal government and unicameral legislature). Sunkara seems to place an unrealistic amount of faith in our civil society’s current commitments to pluralism and democracy to keep authoritarianism in check, which seems baffling to me in our current political climate defined by intolerance, inequality, and an increasing erosion of democratic institutions. To build a truly democratic socialist society, we also need to establish mechanisms to ensure that such a society remains democratic through and through.
Conclusion:
Overall, The Socialist Manifesto is an accessible introduction to the history of socialism and communism in the 20th century. Although it is much more of a historical retelling than a practical manifesto, Sunkara’s even-handed approach to the history of socialism will resonate with those who have been energized by the recent resurgence of socialism, yet do not know where to start on its history. Those who are well versed in the history of socialism and Marxist theory won’t find much new here and might find the lack of analysis and glossing over details frustrating. While it might be a bit odd to focus on the failures of communism to advocate for a socialist future, Sunkara hopes to outline ways in which socialists in the twentieth-first century can work to build a truly emancipatory and democratic society. In the end, Sunkara makes a solid, if messy attempt to harness the energy of the young socialist movement and give a vague blueprint to building a relatively viable and hopefully long-lasting political force.