Socialism in a new era
Alan Maass examines a discussion about the relevance of socialism today taking place at the Nation magazine.

THE S-WORD is back.

You're still most likely to hear it as a term of abuse flung around by Republicans trying to smear a far-from-radical president with the lingering scare effects of McCarthyism. Or, alternatively, from media commentators grasping at the first handy label to attach to government policies that deviate, however slightly, from the neoliberal orthodoxies they preached for so long.

But beyond the fear-mongering and foolishness, a more serious discussion of socialism is reviving, as a consequence of the profound crisis of capitalism.

Several weeks ago, the hardest ticket to find in London was for a conference on "The Idea of Communism," with Slovenian Marxist philosopher Slavoj Žižek as the featured speaker. The event was organized not by some small radical group, but the University of London's Birkbeck College. Žižek got a full-page write-up in the Financial Times.

Link to con.