This book argues for a twofold transformation to mitigate environmental catastrophe, avert war and overcome poverty and authoritarianism: a struggle for democratic, peace-oriented, social and ecological changes within the framework of a post-neoliberal, but still bourgeois-capitalist society, and a drive towards entry-level projects aimed at a great transformation beyond capitalism.
Calling for the embrace of core values and institutions aligned with solidarity as opposed to capitalism, it advances four guiding ideas for the pursuit of such a path: redistribution of life chances and power, socio-ecological restructuring, redesign of democratic institutions, and reversal from confrontation to peace through international cooperation and solidarity.
A presentation of the fundamental elements of a left strategy for socioecological transformation, this volume will appeal to scholars of social, political and economic theory with interests in post-capitalist futures.
1. The Twofold Transformation – The Challenge
The Challenge
Transformation as an Emulation of Western Structures: One Strand of the Dominant Discourse
Transformation as a Vague, Innocuous Cliché: Another Strand in the Dominant Discourse
2. Five Possible Futures
Scenario I: More of the Same Neoliberalism
Scenario II: "More of the Same"—Only in a More Authoritarian and Less Civilized Manner
Scenario III: State-Intervention-Modified and Green-Modernized Neoliberal capitalism
Scenario IV: A Socially and Ecologically Regulated Form of Post-Neoliberal Capitalism (the Green New Deal)
Scenario V: A Solidarity-Centred Society in Harmony with Nature; or, a Green Democratic Socialism
3. The Theoretical Foundations of a Twofold Transformation
Historical Experiences
The Revolutionary Rupture
The Reformist Path
Transformation as a "Sublation" of Two Opposites
Erik Olin Wright’s Socialist Theory of Transformation
Ruptural Strategies
Interstitial Strategies
Symbiotic Strategies
The Concept of a Twofold Transformation and a Consultation of Ernst Bloch
"Pre-Appearance", "Process-Reality", and "Not-Yet"
An Orientation Towards the "Novum" Instead of the Catch-All Term "Transformation"
What Is at the Heart of Democratic Socialism? The Archimedean Point of a Socialist Theory of Transformation
The Freedom to Pursue Self-Development and Real Individual Ownership on a Collective Basis
Empowerment as the Starting Point of a Socialist Theory of Transformation
Free Individuality at the Centre of Socialist Transformation Theory
4. The Outlines of a Twofold Transformation: A Modern Left-Wing Narrative
Objections to the search for a narrative outlining a project for an alternative society
The "four Rs"
First guiding idea of a modern left-wing narrative: equitable redistribution of life opportunities and power
More life opportunities in the world of production and wage labour
The multidimensional nature of inequality and valuing the sphere of reproduction in the everyday world
Reclaim the Public!
Second guiding idea of a modern left-wing narrative: a social-ecological redesign of economy and society
Ways of living together in solidarity
Third guiding idea of a modern left-wing narrative: a democratic redesign of economy and society
Fourth guiding idea of a modern left-wing narrative: A Reversal of Confrontation into Peace through International Cooperation and Solidarity
The Endgame of Leftist Strategy – An Interim Conclusion
5. A Strategy of Perseverance
Lengthy transformational process and ruptures of revolutionary proportions
The Political Advantages of the Idea of a Twofold Transformation
6. Positive Approaches for an Alternative Transformational Prospect
Transformation and the Development of Productive Force
Environmental Technologies as a Growth Area for Capital Accumulation and an Opportunity for Transformation
Excess Monetary Capital as a Potential Source of Funding for Transformation Projects
The Transformative Potential of the Intrinsic Logic of Social Subsystems
Contradictions Within the Bourgeois State and Transformation
A Shift in Public Consciousness
Gateway Projects: Practical Entry Points into an Emancipatory Process of Transformation
7. Eight Building Blocks of a Left-Wing Strategy on the Path Towards a Solidarity-Based Society
First Partial Strategy: Self-Empowerment "From Below"
Second Partial Strategy: Broadening Solidarity-Based Alliances
Third Partial Strategy: A Unifying Narrative
Fourth Partial Strategy: Public Discourse
Fifth Partial Strategy: The Path Towards a Twofold Transformation
Sixth Partial Strategy: Taking Advantage of Fragmentation within the Ruling Power Bloc
Seventh Partial Strategy: Capturing State Power
Eighth Partial Strategy: Overhauling the Political Culture and the Emancipating the "Human"
Biography
Dieter Klein is a German social scientist and currently Senior Fellow at the Institute for Social Analysis of the Rosa Luxemburg Foundation. His work focuses on transformation research, multiple crisis of neoliberal capitalism, and narratives of the modern left. Klein was born in 1931 in Berlin. He studied economics in 1951-1955 at the Humboldt University in Berlin. In 1961 he earned a doctorate on "Integration of Finance Capital in Western Europe". In 1964, he obtained his habilitation on "Planification and Strategic Action in the EEC" and was appointed to the chair of Political Economy of Capitalism. From 1964 to 1977, he was the director of the Institute for Political Economy at the Faculty of Economics of the Humboldt University. In the Institute, the departments of sociology and demography were formed, which were among the nuclei of these disciplines in the GDR. Afterwards, he was prorector for social sciences of the Humboldt University until 1990. From February 1990 to July 1991, he was also the director of the Institute for Interdisciplinary Civilization Research, which had emerged from the work of those involved in the critical reform project "Modern Socialism Theory". Since 1990, he held the chair of Economic Foundations of Politics at the Institute of Social Sciences of the Humboldt University until his retirement in 1997, although he continued to give lectures until 1999. Since the early 1990s, he voluntary worked in the later Rosa Luxemburg Foundation and from 2000 to 2012 was a member of its board. He established the Foundation’s Future Commission and managed it until 2008. He is also a member of the Willy Brandt Circle.
