REVOLUTION, ACCELERATION, OR ESCAPE? LEFT-WING STRATEGIES AGAINST CAPITALISM
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.17072/2218-1067-2025-2-15-23Keywords:
capitalism, left-wing criticism, left-wing accelerationism, communization, post-capitalism, GemeinwesenAbstract
Leftist thinker Fredric Jamieson once said, “It's easier to imagine the end of the world than the end of capitalism.” Nevertheless, leftist movements at present are in a massive crisis, ranging from organisational to ideological. The main issue noted here can be summed up as what Slovenian philosopher Slavoj Žižek refers to as the “culturalization of politics” — a situation in which cultural differences are elevated to an absolute level, as opposed to political methods of struggle. Such a strategy leads to the left focusing excessively on its own differences, replacing political practice with them. In this regard, this article focuses on completely different theories belonging to the left discourse. We address both the legacy of the past and modern attempts to respond to the strategic crisis of the left. The question that is the cornerstone of all political activity for the modern left is whether it is possible to think about the “future” again, to form an alternative, as it was at the beginning of the 20th century. The answer to this question lies in the theories chosen as the subject of the research: the 'Gemeinwesen' of French thinker Jacques Camatt; the theory of communization by Gilles Dauvé; and the theory of left accelerationism.References
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