Rev Left Radio - The Long Transition Towards Socialism and the End of Capitalism

Episode Date: December 23, 2024

Torkil Lauesen joins Breht to discuss his newest book "The Long Transition Towards Socialism and the End of Capitalism". Together they discuss the book, why capitalism is ripe for replacement, the importance of historical and dialectical materialism, the history of socialist movements and revolutions, each revolutions unique contributions to the historical process of socialism, the core and periphery and their connection to colonialism, the ongoing crisis of imperialism and how it relates to the end of the neoliberal era, the differences between capitalist and socialist modes of production, Torkil's vision of the next few decades, and much more!    Get the book or download the free PDF HERE Check out previous Rev Left episodes with Torkil HERE Check out Guerrilla History's latest James Connolly episode HERE --------------------------------- Support Rev Left and get bonus episodes on Patreon Make a one-time donation to Rev Left at BuyMeACoffee.com/revleftradio Follow RLR on IG HERE Learn more about Rev Left HERE

Hello everybody and welcome back to Rev Left Radio. All right, we have a very special, fascinating episode for you today. We have back on the show, the one and only Torkel Lawson, who just released a new book through Iskra called The Long Transition Towards Socialism and the End of Capitalism. So we talk about the capitalist and socialist modes of production. We talk about the current crisis of imperialism, the end. ending of the neoliberal period. Socialism as a historical process with unique contributions made to it by every iteration, every revolution going all the way back to at least 1848 up through the current day. We give an overview of the global history of capitalism and socialism. We talk

about the role of contradiction, how to find meaning and the effort and the contributions to a socialist future for posterity and the ripeness of capitalism to be overthrown the ecological limits of the capitalist mode of production and so much more. This is a fascinating book that I highly recommend people check out and this is of course a wonderful discussion. We've had Torcalon twice in the past once to talk about Sweden's integration into the imperialist world system and over four years ago we had them on an episode called the principal contradiction applying dialectical materialism. So if you enjoy this conversation and you want to hear more from Torkel, you have those options. And I also wanted to give a huge shout out to our comrades over

at Gorilla History. Of course, I used to be the co-host for guerrilla history for many years because so much was going into my life, I had to step back from that. But they're continuing forward with the full head of steam and doing wonderful work. And they are going to have Torkel on in the spring to talk about this book as well as his new book coming up about unequal exchange and the prospects of socialism centered around socialism in the imperial core, the movement for socialism, what we can do to help build socialism, etc. So I'm really looking forward to that book. And guerrilla history also just released a really fascinating conversation on the early writings of James Connolly, you know, that I highly recommend people check out.

You know, the Irish struggle has a particular place in my heart. And so it was a really cool discussion that I recommend people check out. So I just wanted to mention as well that on the website for IskraBooks, isiscribooks.org, I'll link to it in the show notes. You can buy the book. You can support Torkel. But you can also get a free download of the PDF. This is a book of over 400 pages.

Fascinating, fascinating, highly worth reading. And for people that are short on funds, they've offered a free download, which is such a wonderful, wonderful thing for them to offer. So go check that out. Go support our friends and comrades over at guerrilla history. Keep an eye out for their upcoming conversations with Torkel. And in the meantime, you can check out their latest episode on the early writings of James Connolly. Highly, highly, highly recommend it.

Torkel is an absolute treasure. We have so much to learn from him. He is an elder of the movement with the experience of practice to back it up. I mean, you know, he talks about being sentenced to 10 years in prison for his revolutionary activity. and he has spent every year since putting out these really important works that deepen our analysis inspire us to keep up the fight, et cetera. And so he's just a wise elder that we have a lot to learn from, and he continues to produce important work and continues to inspire us.

And so, you know, hats off to Torkel. And just quickly, before we get into the conversation itself, if you like what we do here at RevLeft Radio, you can support us at patreon.com forward slash RevLeft Radio. you get multiple bonus episodes we have a back catalog i think now of over 300 bonus episodes on patreon um for for supporters to go and listen to and go through always producing new stuff i experiment on the patreon feed a lot um with like listening to youtube videos and responding to them reading articles going on you know um rants um giving my analysis of current events etc um so i hope there's a lot there that people can get out of it and so just in exchange for five dollars a month you get access

to all of that and more. And I always tell people that the one place that I've set aside to make sure I respond to comments is the comment section of our Patreon post. Every episode public or Patreon exclusive goes up on the Patreon and I do my absolute best to respond to or at least read every single comment in the comment section. So I'm not always able to check my social media, not always able to check my DMs, not always able to keep up with my emails, to be honest. I'm a father of three trying to, I'm going to school. I have multiple podcasts. My life is a tornado whirlwind of hecticness and stress. But I have set aside the Patreon comment section as the place that I commit myself to interacting with our audience.

So if that is at all interesting to you, you can support us there. We deeply appreciate it. Me and Dave both have children. We both have families. And this show keeps our family's heads above water. And so we can never thank you enough for your support. So without further ado, here's my. my conversation with Torco Lawson on his newest book, The Long Transition Towards Socialism,

and the End of Capitalism. Enjoy. living in Copenhagen in Denmark and since the late 60s I have been an anti-imperalist activist and writer from 69 to 89 I was a member of a communist group here in Copenhagen supporting the anti-imperalist struggle in the third world especially in Palestine both by legal and unlegal means in In 1989, I was sentenced to 10 years of imprisonment for robberies, benefiting the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine. However, while in prison, I received a master's degree in political science by self-study.

Being released from prison, I have joined an organization called the International Forum. It's a broad anti-imperalist organization based here in Copenhagen. and it's also currently very active in the Solidarism Movement with the Palestine Stroth. Besides that, I'm a board member of something called the Angiri Emanuel Association, which is dedicated to development and spreading the knowledge of the late Emmanuel's work on political economy. Yeah. So that's about all. Well, wonderful, and welcome back.

You know, you really have dedicated huge swaths of, your life to this movement to build a better world. And, you know, it's an honor and a pleasure to have you on the show once again. The book we're going to be discussing today is your newest book from Iskra Books. Shout out to Iskra. The book is titled The Long Transition Towards Socialism and the End of Capitalism. I think it's a really important, insightful, deep work that is incredibly relevant to our time today and important, I think, for anybody who considers themselves, a socialist, an organizer of any sort, or anybody interested in building a better world other than the increasingly horrific world that capitalism has built and is continuing

to build for us. So a true, genuine pleasure to have you on the show, Torkel. But before we dive into the substance of the book itself, I'm just kind of wondering why you wanted to write this book personally and how you find meaning and purpose as a human being through your contributions to the global effort to build a socialist future for posterity. Sure. Thank you from the kind words. Well, most of my previous writing have been concerned with a critique of capitalism and imperialism. And sometimes I have been confronted with the question, well, I share your critique of capitalism,

but what about the alternative? There have been many attempts to build socialism in the past, but they have not been very successful, neither in terms of delivering material goods or democracy and so forth. So what do you think about this? So this is one of the reasons writing the book to respond to this kind of argument or line of argument. But when one tries to write the history about and the efforts to build socialism, you are not only writing up against 100 years of European,

sense of superiority and anti-communism, you're also writing up against some kind of disillusioned socialists whose ideal they think have been betrayed. Well, if you go back to the 60s and 70s, there were millions who would die for socialism. And today, many are becoming disillusionized and pessimist and even thinking that socialism is not possible. But I am not a pessimist, actually. The possibilities are much better than they are in the 60s. At that time, the optimism for the transition

to socialism was grounded in a very strong revolutionary spirit. But this is an act of will. This is certainly necessary for creating a transition. But it's not enough. And I think today the material economic conditions and the political conditions actually for transition is much better. I think the objective,

situation is very positive, and that's important. The problem for the moment is the subjective forces, but I think it's a problem which is possible to solve. And the book is intended, in all modesty, to be a contribution to the development of these subjective forces. Because in the long struggle for socialism, I believe in continuous, in the effort, not only in your own life, but also between generations of the communist. It's very important to pass on what you have learned and to pass it on to the next struggle in their effort to develop new strategies for the future struggle. And to be part of this process, to be this tiny cockwheel in the big machinery of the

long transformation. And to give it a little push in the right direction, it's very meaningful for me. And it's not, of course, a meaning founded in some kind of religious belief, but I think in historical materialism. Yeah, absolutely. And I think your life is a wonderful testament to the dual nature of Marxism and that it requires both theory and praxis, right? Both intellectual understanding and work and contributions in the realm of ideas and convincing people and analysis as well as, you know, putting some skin in the game and in your case sacrificing years of your life and in a very real sense in the actual pursuit of liberation. And I often tell young people who listen to this show that, you know, what capitalism offers you,

you in terms of meaning, quote unquote, in life or a purpose in life is the accumulation of status, of wealth, of fame. And that is ultimately an incredibly hollow pursuit. And if you center your entire life and play their game, I think most people come out the other end, if you succeed, feeling a deep sense of lack. And I think a much better way to spend your time, especially for thoughtful, sensitive human beings who genuinely want a better world is to put your efforts and put your meaning and purpose towards your contributions toward building this better world. And so I liked how you brought that up in the introduction of this book and sort of talked about your own purpose and meaning. And I think that's something that I really try to

stress to particularly young people who in the modern world are very alienated, very lonely, very unsure about their opportunities in life and looking for a way to create meaning and purpose out of a system that increasingly offers very little. So I think it's an important thing to front-load this conversation with. I just want to add that I don't feel it like any kind of sacrifice. I actually think I have had a very, very nice life. And what have created this sense of happiness or feeling good is that, you know, we had an analysis of how the world look.

And from this, we could build a strategy of what to do. And from this strategy, we could say, okay, what should our practice be? What shall we do tomorrow and next week and next year? And this, this connections between knowing how the, knowing, have a sense of how the world works. And from that building a strategy and a practice, knowing, knowing what you could, what you should do to, to change the world. It, it gives meaning and it gives you some kinds of satisfaction and, and make it, make your life, make your life full, actually. beautifully said well I think it's particularly timely as I mentioned in the introduction for us to wrestle with these questions and this analysis that you find in this book because as you argue in the book capitalism peaked roughly around the year 2000 is clearly on the decline around the world and is therefore quote unquote ripe for replacement by another mode of production and is almost certainly not going to survive into the next century so I know you touched on it a little bit in your introduction about why capitalism is ripe for replacement. But I'd love for you to go a little bit deeper into that ripeness and

also tell us kind of what's at stake this century for the for the future of humanity. Sure. I think that the capitalist mode of production has reached its limit in exploitation of humans and nature. So I have difficulties to see what the next new, new international division of labor which should save it could be there's no new spatial fix no new world to

conquer and it's as you said it's very much in conflict with the nature so it's no longer progressive in terms of developing the productive forces

it has actually become irrational and destructive. We see this destruction of nature and wars going on in the world currently. And it's a structural, economic, political and ecology crisis that capitalism is in. It has entered a very dramatic and dangerous endgame. I think there are two major risks. One is the risk that all these regional wars could. turn into nuclear wars and a nuclear winter. And the other risk is that the ecological catastrophes are luring in the horizon are getting worse and worse. So the system is completely out of balance.

We see suddenly uncontrolled swings in the economic and political system. So on one hand, I think we must be very careful and not adventurous to avoid these global wars of mass destruction. But on the other hand, we should be very bold because we are also working under time pressure to avoid this major climate crisis for the planet Earths. So there's not just a wish for another world order. There's also urgent need and I think also the possibility to. build it in the historical materialist sense. You mentioned earlier the subjective forces, right, which is people's individual, personal lives and their ideas

and sort of being won over to the ideas of socialism. And certainly around the world, people are, whether they fully comprehend what they're criticizing or not, are coming to terms with capitalism turning into a regressive force. And people on the right don't frame it in terms of capitalism, people in the liberal center often don't frame it in terms of capitalism, but that's clearly the core of the crisis is this system that we call capitalism imperialism. I'm just kind of curious as to your thoughts on the progress of the subjective forces where you have this moment

where people are clearly realizing that something is fundamentally wrong, and this is a widespread feeling, but people are not quite connecting it up with the underlying mode of production. What is your analysis of the optimism or pessimism we might have with regard specifically to the development of the subjective forces? Well, actually, I think that the subjective forces, they would develop inside the crisis. It's the crisis itself, which ask the questions what to do. And as people are turning to different kinds of solutions and different kinds of options, they are in a learning, they would, a very hard learning process where they see what works and what could work. So I think the crisis itself will produce the subjective forces. Of course, not automatically. It is a political struggle and it's also. certainly as a struggle for for the left to introduce its solution and its visions.

But but you know, as Marx says, the new world is growing inside the old world and it's not producing and showing itself before the old world has extended all its attempts to to go on in the old way. And we are reaching that point now where, you know, you can see the leading capitalist countries and leading capitalist leaders. They don't have any visions. They don't have any ideas how to go on.

They don't have any horizon which they are going to. They are just trying to manage the crisis in a different way, they are not showing what we should do. But we can return to it maybe later. Yeah, absolutely. I just add one more thing before we move on, which is we're clearly pointing to the center of especially Western politics dropping out. The neoliberal globalized era is coming to an end. We're definitely going to get into that in more detail here in a little bit. but right now with with the failure of the establishment the center the neoliberal era and party still tied to it what you see now is across the the west in particular but even more broadly than that people are turning to you know the faux populism of the right and ultimately you know you know blaming immigrants scapegoating marginalized members you know of the community or or trump coming into america and saying he's going to make america great again with billionaires in his cabinet and he's going to cut taxes for the ultra-rich, et cetera. So the faux populism is presenting itself as a solution

to the death of the center, but we know that it can't actually produce the results that it's pretending to triumph, you know, to trump it. And so perhaps we're going to have to go through this period. It looks like it, at least where I'm standing here in the U.S., of this reactionary faux populism also failing before people or the subjective forces, at least here in the U.S., We'll start to look a leftward, and of course there's a responsibility for us to build up a movement that people can look to when the right inevitably fails. But do you think that more or less sounds right, that there's a right-wing faux populist moment, but that that's ultimately not going to actually solve anything? In fact, it'll probably make things worse. Yeah, there's no surprise in that a class or a country which is losing its.

a privilege position in the world's system is going to the right because they are defending their imperial mode of living. They are trying to defend their position in the hierarchy. They are trying to to defend their hegemonic position. And we have seen that before that a class which is losing its position is first moving to the to the, to the, to the, right. But as you said, it will surely be no solution. I think that the presidency of Trump will accelerate, not stop the decline of U.S. hegemony. It will accelerate. And it will go even it's worse for for U.S. position of hegemony that Trump is in power that if it had been Harris who had come to power. She could actually, you know, more manage to keep the old

system going in a certain period. But I think Trump will accelerate the decline of the U.S. It will be very uncomfortable for the left or the people of the U.S. but on a world scale, I think he will accelerate the decline of the U.S. And that's good. Yeah, absolutely. I totally agree with that. All right, so let's go ahead and move on because core to this work and core to Marxism more broadly are the interwoven concepts of historical and dialectical materialism. Your first chapter kind of starts by defining these terms, and even though my audience is very familiar with these concepts, they're so crucial that they are always, you know, they always bear repeating. So can you talk about your methodology and remind us what historical and dialectical materialism are and why they must be central to any analysis of capital. and the transition to socialism? Yes. The book rests on three pillars. The first pillar is that you have to take the global perspective on capitalism

to understand how the world system works on each local point. Capitalism is a global accumulation process. It might seem pretty mainstream, but many analyses of the capitalism actually takes first the national. perspective and then just at the global perspective on some kind of topping. But if the development of the world system is

this one process in the economic and political sense, then this process has a principal contradiction which has a huge impact on any regional, national and local process, of course, in interaction with the local contradiction

and which have a feedback effect on the aspect of the principal contradicting. contradiction and hence can change the balance in the struggle between the aspect in this contradiction so the revolution and attempts to build socialism must be analyzed as an interaction between the principal contradiction in the world system and the regional national and local contradiction the second pillar is as the title indicates the long transition to socialism, that you must not only have a global

perspective, you might also take the long perspective on the transition. Like the transition from capitalism took 500 years, the transition from socialism beginning in 1848 has now taken nearly 150 years. So the third pillar is grounded in the historical materialist fundamental contradiction between the development of the productive forces and mode of production. The establishment of socialism is not some kind of ingenious social engineering. Socialism is based on the development of technology and knowledge, the productive forces of capitalism actually.

But when the capitalist mode, the way it's managed, society stands in the way of the continued development of the productive forces, then the transformation to socialism becomes possible. How is this contradiction expressed? Well, in the form of different kinds of crisis, political economy, and for being the current destruction of the foundation of human life itself. And these crises give rise to class struggle which make this transformation possible. It's a class struggle, which is a driving force in it. And industrial capitalism has now lasted for 200 years. And we are now reaching this turning point, which is have, which it's now becoming a serious burden for the development of

humanity. And this make the transition to socialism not only necessary, but also possible in the next decades. But we have to bear in mind some words by Marx. This is the only quote I think I will come in. It's a very important quote. It says no social order is ever destroyed before all productive forces for which it is sufficient have been developed. And new superior relations of production never replaces the old ones before the material conditions for their existence have been matured within the framework of the old society. As long as the capitalist mode of production is dynamic, generating profit, expanding accumulation,

so long will it strengthen the power of the ruling class and the hegemic state in the world system. However, when this mode of production becomes dysfunctional, when the rate of profit decline, then the hegem is in decline, and then the class, the ruling class is in trouble. And this present an opening for, some kind of transitional states with a transitional mode of production to move ahead to a socialist

mode of production. And this creates space for the exploited classes to take state power in the capitalist countries and trying to establish a new mode of production. But let me repeat new superior relation of production. never replaces the old one before the material conditions for their existence have been matured in the framework of the old society. And then Marx adds, then begin the poke of revolutions. And this is what I mentioned before. It's first actually now that we have the general chance of a socialist revolution. All the 200 years and the past, 150 years where the capitalist system was dynamic and strong,

we could only have this kind of transitional states and transitional kinds of economies between capitalism and socialism. It's first now that we are in this kind of situation where we can beginning to look at a genuine, transformation. Now we are in this very dangerous period where the system is out of balance. A small action, for instance, like an attack of this, I think they only were 1,000 or 1,500 Fedorjins, the 7th of October. They have set out an avalanche of events in the whole region. A small flap of wing with a butterfly can

create a storm in such an on-balance system. And now we see dramatic events, and we see strange and sifting alliances in the world system on a weekly basis, actually. And this is a sign of how weak the system is and how big the chances are for transformation. Yeah, I have a question about a follow-up question regarding the transitions. It seems to me, and it's not just it seems to me, but it objectively is. true that it seems like there's a quickening of historical development. So you look at ancient slave societies around for a few millennia. You look at monarchical feudalism around for, you know,

more or less a thousand some years. Capitalism of several centuries now coming up against its limits. And it feels like things get quicker. Do you have an explanation or, you know, a way of understanding how those transitions to different modes of production seem to be occurring faster and faster as we move along historical timelines? Yeah, and not more than than I mentioned before. When you are in this position of a structural crisis, you will see because before before capitalism could be in crisis, but it was like a pendle it could swing back forth and back

and it could return to some kind of new balance it could change the division of work in the world and it has different kinds of options to incorporate critique and to renew itself but now it is in this terminal crisis

everything is accelerating, and I think the next two decades will be very important. Absolutely. So, you know, keeping in line with dialectical and historical materialism, as you made very clear, we Marxists see socialism not as a series of acute events, nor as something a given society merely is or is not, but rather as a process in constant and inexorable relationship to capitalism and its development. So with this in mind, can you kind of give us an overview of the history of socialism as a centuries-long process? And as you were mentioning earlier, why it must be a global process instead of a local or merely national one? Yes. Well, the efforts to build

socialism actually began as soon as the industrial capitalism was introduced in Britain. Marx and English published the Communist Manifest in 1848, and they were actually anticipating that the contradiction of the capitalist mode of production would lead to the demise of capitalism rather quickly. And the problem was that the capitalist empirically to expand production in order to expand accumulation. could not, could this on the other side, this need to expand the production of goods on one side

and the need of consumption power that could get all these products sold and realize the profit was a great problem. In the mid-19th century, the consumption power of the proletariat in Europe could not consume the amount of products was put into the market. So the system suffered from overproduction crisis or underconsumption crisis. That's the way you look at it all the time.

And the only way they could meet that was. was to expand the market, and this was creating the English Empire. However, this imperialist aspect of capitalism gave the system some kind of breathing space. It united the capitalist world, expanded it, and united the world system on one head, but it also polarized the world system into this center periphery. structure, which was characterized by super exploitation of the labor force in the periphery in the colonial needs. The imperialist aspect of capitalism gave the system a kind of new breathing space.

It polarized the world system into this center periphery structure, which is characterized by super exploitation of the labor force into the periphery. and a rising wage in the center, which expanded the consumption power in the center. And this value transfer, it entailed a dynamic development of the productive forces in the center, but in the same time blocked the development of the productive forces in the periphery. And consequences, there were no need and no successful revolutions in the center. The last serious attempt was the German revolution from 18 to 20. But certainly capitalism has not played out as a role.

In the periphery, on the other hand, capitalism eroded feudal and pre-capitalist mode of production, but the development of the productive forces here was blocked by this super exploitation and the flow of value towards the center because this super exploitation of the proletariat in the periphery meant that there were no consumption power to any kind of domestic capitalist development here. So only a revolutionary process could get the wheels of the economy running again by initiating some kind of development

of a transitionary mode of production on the road towards socialism. It has to be a transitionary mode of production because the world system was still dominated by capitalism, economically, political and military. The lack of development of the productive forces in the periphery and the hostile world system hindered any further transition towards a socialist modernity. So this is the history actually of the Soviet Union

and the Chinese revolution and all other revolutions in the third world trying to develop socialism in the 20th century. So while capitalism is economically globalized, it is politically divided international state which is creating this polarized center-perifically structure with a dominating hegemonin before it was Britain and now it's the US. And hence, this historical transition process towards socialism must be started up.

It must be initiated on the national level and here trying to survive in a system which is dominated by capitalism. And it has to be that way until the majority of nations or the main part of the global economy have taken a road towards a socialist mode of production. And this is a long process and this is this process we have starting on in the past decade actually. So instead of seeing the attempts to build socialism in the past two centuries as isolated nationals attempts to build some kind of ideal socialism gone wrong,

the book tries to analyze them as a long transition process from capitalism to socialism. And up through the 20th century, the capitalist mode of production was still vital and hence dominated the world system. It is first now that we see that the capitalist mode have become an obstacle rather than a force of development of the productive forces. In the past, it has not been possible in terms of material conditions because of the political economy of imperialism

to develop advanced socialist society which so many socialists have dreamed on. But instead of taking into account this historical reality, the condition of the world system and the problems of building socialism in this world system, these idealist dreamers saw treason incompetence and even the impossible of building socialism all together as the reason for the failures to build socialism. in the past, and this has led to this kind of diffatism and pessimism instead of a continuous long-term struggle. Yeah, so, I mean, right there, implicit in that argument is highlighting the utter importance of anti-imperialist struggle as a struggle against the global system of capitalism, imperialism.

You also mentioned, of course, the German Revolution. I just wanted to let listeners know that we just released an episode on the German Revolution. It's one of those revolutions that a lot of people don't study or emphasize as much as the Russian or the Cuban or the Chinese revolutions, etc. But it is important and there's a lot of lessons to be learned from it. So if people want to learn more about the German Revolution, they can go check out that recent episode. But now that we have some sense of socialism as this historical process that is operating alongside capitalism and sort of came to consciousness, you know, in the immediate wake of the rise of industrial capitalism, Maybe we can get into some of the specifics. You start this process in your book with the 1848 revolutions, and then you trace it from there.

So I was hoping that maybe you can discuss some of the contributions made to this process by these specific revolutionary movements that you discuss in the book. And I'm particularly interested in your analysis of those 1848 revolutions. Sure. Well, it's 200 pages, I have to cut down to a few words. But using the concept of the principal contradiction in the second part of the book, taking the global and long perspective, I analyzed the different attempts to build socialism from, as you mentioned, 1848 and onwards. And all these kind of attempts, they have modified capitalism as well as contributing to the knowledge on how to build future socialism. For example, the revolution of 1848, it was a rather short-lived and often presented as a total failure.

It is depriving of its historical transformation power. And they present, because the 48 revolution for the first time, present, a raw of a lot of new ideas of democracy, of republicanism, of socialism, social rights, the anti-the emancipation of women and slaves and so on. And they developed also new tactics of resistance and how to bring social change, the barricades, the street struggle and so on, the struggle on the streets. The 48, the main problem for the socialist movement was actually how to organize the proletariat itself.

And one lesson for the 48 revolution is that you should not trust liberals and the middle class and you have to organize the proletariat itself and you should not rely on the parliamentary road to a socialism and to implement their demands through through parliamentarism. You have to one of the lesson was that

future struggles will in many terms be struggles on the streets and have to be and it advocated some kinds of militants. And this actually goes on also in the Paris Commune, who was the first explicit socialist uprising, actually.

And the common arts proved that a conflict between capitalist national states could be used to bring about national class struggle to a head. It was the war between France and Germany, which opened the possibility for establishing the commune. And the commune, was the first case in which the proletariat took up the task of actually transforming the society, the production and so on. And based on the experience of the commune, Max concluded also that the bourgeois state should not only be conquered, it must be broken and built up as another kind of state. And the Paris Commune was also an experience which very much revealed the need to defend the socialist revolution in this sea of dominating capitalist states because it was actually crossed by the French and the Germans in they kind of united and helped each other because no one wanted to have a socialist Paris in Europe at that time. If you take this German revolution, then it was rather spontaneous in the in connection

with the end of the First World War. And it was a very messy affair, which in many ways lacking unity in action. And if you don't know where you are heading, you don't know the road forward. And there were many times where the people on the streets were indecisive. They didn't know what to do. And this gave the reactionary forces time to gather strengths and crush them in the end. The result might have been very different if the revolution had a more solid strategy and a more coordinated leadership. And the defeat of the German revolution, it was also a turning point in the struggle.

between capitalism and socialism on the global level, because had it succeeded in Germany and in other European countries at the time, it had placed the Soviet Union, which had its revolution, as we know, in 17, it had placed this revolution in a much more favorable position. But instead, we saw in Germany the development of fascism and followed by liberal capitalist welfare state and creating a secure center in Europe for capitalism and in this way, prolonged the system's lifespan. The German uprising was the last revolutionary attempt in the center, and then the struggle

for socialism moved to the periphery. I think we have to make this. There's a long discussion about the Russian revolution, but I will narrow it down to that the answer of leaning to the question of how to escape defeat was careful preparation. Lening was a very careful preparation. He used 16 years before the revolution to plan it. He wrote his famous book, What to Be Done, where he insisted on the vanquen,

Party of dedicated revolutionary to spread the ideas of revolution among the workers. And the October Revolution itself was a very, very planned operation led by a central command and executed like a military operation more than this spontaneous mass operation in Germany. And this was, I think, part of the answer for why it was a success. the Chinese revolution, I will just say that the Chinese ability to apply Marxism, mainly developed in a European context to a specific Chinese reality. This was the great success of China, their ability to make Marxism with Chinese characteristics actually. I have evaluated all these attempts in the book, and I'm not trying to shy away from it.

I also write about the promatic issues like Soviet Union in the 30s and Stalin and in China. I also deal with the great lead forward and the Cultural Revolution and Deng Xiaoping's opening up in the 80s and the 90s, and there's a lot of things to be learned about it. Yeah, absolutely. And like you said, you know, you're talking hundreds of pages of analysis here. And it was one of, I think the most exhilarating and fascinating parts of this book is just going over these iterations of this socialist process and seeing the specific contributions. And then seeing that they're in this sense with this frame of mind, there is no such thing really ultimately as a failure because even the failures like the German Revolution or the horrific ending of the Paris Commune still made these sort of beautiful. you know, sacrificial contributions to the knowledge of the socialist process and advance the ball in various ways. One of the things about the Chinese revolution that I always thought was particularly fascinating as well as how far they took this dialectical relationship between top-down governance and bottom-up mass movements and Mao sort of playing with that, with both sides of that, you know, equation and trying to, you know, advance socialism

through those experiments, I think, are fascinating and worth studying to this day. And, of course, you dive pretty deep into those things in the text itself. So there is no replacement for actually reading this book. If you're at all interested in the things being discussed, dive deeper. You know, get this book. It really is a treasure. I just had to say, too, I had the opportunity a few years ago for free because I can never afford it myself, but a free trip to Paris by, you know, these certain circumstances that took hold.

And I remember seeing the famous painting entitled A Paris Street in May 1871 by Maximilian Luce in a Paris museum. And it's this huge neo-impressionist painting of fallen communards in the Paris commune. And I remember standing in front of that painting and just being so moved and weeping in front of that painting because I just felt the entire flow of history and the contributions made by the. the Paris Commune and everything that happened after and everything that might happen in the future, all being deeply interwoven and connected, and it just moved me in a way that only beautiful, you know, art can. But I just, I just, I just, you just made me think of that when you were discussing the, the Paris Commune. But let's, go ahead. And again, and again, which, I think it's important when you stand with, with this, with this wall where this revolutionary was,

was executed and it's important not to to just see it as oh wasted life in vain it's also important to see that what they did actually was contributed to our knowledge and they have not died in in vain they took the first steps and and these dead comrades here and there but also in all the all the other anti-imperialist struggles they have not died in vain, they have all contributed to the process. So it's not just wasted life. It's also comrades who have contributed. Absolutely. Absolutely beautifully said. And, you know, talking about the German revolution, this leads well into this next question because we discussed this quite a bit in that episode for those interested, which is just the idea that Marx and Angles

sort of famously thought that socialism would emerge first in the most developed capitalist countries of Western Europe. Instead, the revolutionary center, as you put it, quote, moved from the core of the advanced capitalist country to its margins, Russia and China. I know you've already sort of briefly touched on it in the last question, but maybe we can go a little bit deeper. Why did this shift from the center to the margins occur? And what are its connections importantly to European colonialism? Yeah, because as I mentioned before, the reason was that imperialism created this polarizing dynamic in the system, making the center a place where a dynamic could grow because there in the center there was a balance between the steady growth of

accumulation and steady growth of production and in the center there was the power to consume this production and thereby realize the profit. And then when you have a dynamic capitalist system, you have a very stable center. And in the periphery, you have the opposite because of the exploitation, because of the steady value transfer to the center, you have this blocked kind of economy which created economic and political crisis all the time and making it actually ripe for

a transition to socialism. The only problem was that the periphery was part of a global system which was dominating even the periphery. So they could not make this transfer from

capitalism to socialism because they were inside this this world system, which had the military power to keep them in this system and to continue the exploitation. So these transitional states, they had two tasks. The one task was that just to survive, not all of them did survive. Many were rolled back as the Soviet Union. But also in the third world, they wanted to make this transformation into socialism, many of these revolution.

It was not because they were traitors or stupid, but it was impossible for them to make this transformation because of the power of the world market and the military power of imperialism to make this transformation. So therefore we have this kind of dynamic where all the revolutions move to the global south in the past 100 years. You mentioned the world market and imperialism, and I'm just kind of curious as to your thoughts regarding the, you know, the dang reforms in China in relationship to the fact that China is existing in the, this global capitalist system and is under attack constantly, always, by imperialist forces. Did those factors, were they decisive in that reform period? Was that, in your estimation, a way in which China was adapting to those conditions and trying to maintain the socialist process without being destroyed and while also building

up its economy, etc? How do you make sense of that? Well, there's one thing with the Chinese Communist Party and also the Chinese history of building socialism. You can look at it on one hand, it looks like a very, very shifting strategies and very distinctive different periods and so on. But you can also take the perspective of continuation, that it's a long, continuous struggle to build socialism. So why are these differences? And I see the development of China as the interplay between changing different principles, contradictions in the world's system on one side, and they are interacting with local national contradictions in China.

So if we take this very revolutionary language and very revolutionary period of China during the cultural revolutions from the beginning of the 60s, actually to maybe 70 or 71, 70, I see that this was the attempt of China in person with Mao Te Ching to break the isolation of China and to move the building of Chinese socialism because they hoped that this revolutionary spirit in the 60s and the 70s would turn into some kind of new world revolution.

period in which China could contribute in material terms and economic terms. And on the other hand, you would create this new revolutionary force in Asia and Africa, maybe also in Latin America. So they have hoped, like Lenin in the 20s, hoped for a revolution in, in, Western Europe to save the revolution in the Soviet Union. I think that the China hoped that a world revolution in the 60s and the 70s was the way to carry on the building of socialism in China. And then you have this strong counter-offensive of neoliberal globalization

instead of this third world revolution if you saw the counter revolution of capitalism in the terms of neoliberalism and how should China

manage this counter revolution and I think their option was then okay let's use the Kung Fu strategy let's use the power of the opponent against itself turning this neoliberal opening into the building of the productive forces of China

and the technology development of China coming out strong of this capitalist offensive. So in that way, I see this changing strategies of China. China as a way of managing with the changing principal contradictions in the world system. Yeah, insightful. Now, this is a question ahead of the other question I had on the outline, but I want to get to it now because you just mentioned it. In the book, you argue that neoliberal globalization was, as you just said, a sort of counterattack by imperialism in the wake of the long 60s

and in response to decolonization movements that swept the third world, but ultimately failed to defeat imperialism. So can you talk about the connections a little bit deeper between imperialism and neoliberalism and why, in your opinion, both are entering a sort of period of crisis as related processes today? Sure. Well, neoliberalism in terms of imperialism was the globalization of production in the form of the creation of this new change of production. using low-wage workers in the global south to get more profit. And it was the outsourcing of actually of hundreds of millions of industrial workplaces from the north to the south. And this new division of work entails a value transfer of a very huge dimension.

There is this new article by Hayson Higel, which was published, I think, in August, which I've calculated that in 2021, alone, 826 billions of hours of embodied labor was appropriated by the global north to the global south. It's an enormous transformation of value. However, this globalization of production, as I mentioned, also developed the production

forces of the global south. And in the case of China, China, very different from the rest of the third world, it's managed to keep the political control over the economy and thereby changing the whole

dynamic of the global economy because they, for the first time in 150 years, they broke this polarizing dynamic between the global south and the global north, and they managed to actually,

for the first time, a global south country and not a small country, but over 1 billion people, they broke this populization, the dynamic. And the result is that the mechanism of imperialist value transfer is in big problem, not only because of the rises of wages in China, which have caused diminished on equal exchange, but also because now the US is actually disrupting the global trade patterns.

But all this sanction and tariffs and all this stuff, they are actually destroying this world market, which was the goose which lay the golden eggs for the center. And it's not because they are stupid that they are destroying this open world market. It's because they cannot longer dominate it by economic means. They don't longer totally dominate the world economy. So they have changed from this neoliberal. discourse into a geopolitical political and military struggle in the world.

It's therefore we have had this. The WETO is no longer the very big governance institution as it was now. No one listened to this organization more because it no longer serves the interest of the U.S. U.S. can no longer compete in economic turns, and so it have turned to economic warfare and this political and military struggle, trying to keep its hegemony.

And we are actually now seeing this shift in trade patterns from south to the north to more south-south trade, and we are seeing new financial and banking systems alternative to the IMF and the World Bank is growing up because the U.S. have used these institutions and the financial system to punish

the global south and they are tired of this and we are seeing that they are trying to also get rid of the dollar as world money because the control of the of them political by the

dollar is not serving their interests anymore. They want to get rid of the dollar. So in that way, imperialism is in deep crisis. Absolutely. Yeah, I think that's fascinating, that analysis that ties so deeply the process of neoliberalism with imperialism and showing how the failure of the imperial core to dominate the world economically, i.e. neoliberalism is coming to an end, and now it's just the naked face of militarism that has to take its place. And even those You know, people on the right, like in the U.S. that, you know, are saying that we're against the war, we're going to put America first, etc. They don't mean the war against China. They mean the war against Ukraine so that their forces can be more, you know, staunchly arrayed against China in particular. As the, as you said, as the economic domination fails, militarism is all they have. And the unforeseen consequence or the unexpected consequences of using sanctions. as war and using your economic hegemony to dominate and oppress other countries is that

eventually those countries will team up and try to figure out something outside of the system that you've created as your economic domination decreases and opportunities open up for more autonomy in that way. So yeah, we are this really crucial and interesting historical inflection point and where things go in the next decade or so is really going to be, I think, largely determinative of what comes in the next several decades. Now, one of our episodes, I actually just looked this up, I had you on over four years ago to talk about the principal contradiction, and I'll link to that episode in the show notes for people that want to go back and listen to it. We've also had you on three years ago to talk about Sweden's integration into the imperialist world system, but the role of contradiction is obviously crucial to historical and dialectical materialism. we've discussed it on this show many times. You've discussed it earlier in this conversation. And you talked about the specific contradiction between the development of the productive forces and the capitalist mode of production. I was wondering just for people out there that kind of struggle to understand exactly what this means and what that contradiction looks like and they understand maybe what the productive forces are and they understand the capitalist mode of production. But sometimes I think examples can help people really pin this down. So I was wondering if you can kind of talk more specifically about that contractual.

interdiction and try to help listeners maybe understand exactly what that means. Yeah, well, well, you know, if we talk about the difference between the mode of production in socialism and the capitalism, we can narrow it down a bit. So the essence of a planned economy or socialist mode of production is that decisions about investment production what to produce and how to produce it and also how to distribute the production are political determined and determined beforehand. They are upstreams actually and not the result of the capitalist market forces which are determining things downstream. And this means if you have this political governed economy, it means that there exists the possibility of a democracy

fast more advanced and substantial than the bourgeois parliament's democracy in which the core of economic decisions are in the hand of a minority, the owners of capital. Liberal political democracy can, of course, modify and regulate these private decisions to a certain degree, but the capitalist economy is the strong framework of the society, and it sets the limit of the decision of liberal democracy. The accumulation of capital has to be secure. They cannot decide anything which are destructing this capitalist framework of the society, and therefore they cannot take the political decisions to make capitalism green

because capitalism is not capable of being green. This is a typical example that this is impossible. Because in a capitalist economy, the relationship between production and consumption is turned upside down, the size of the production, the types of goods are decided by market forces. Human needs are only valid if they are backed up by purchasing power. It is the private exchange that determines the future division of labor through the independent decisions taken by the level of individual producers.

Nothing is produced without the expectation of it can be sold and anything will be produced if it can be sold. There might be idle hands or under-neutralized resources on one hand and a very urgent need for food and clothing and shelter on the other hand. And yet these will exist no possibility of meeting these needs if they are not backed by purchasing power. You can have food production on one side and people who are swelting on the other side,

they cannot meet each other if they don't have the power to buy the stuff. The purchasing power is not just a matter of distributing the product. It is the very condition of the scale and nature of production itself, and therefore the market is not a very healthy way of regulating the economy. Yeah, absolutely, just to kind of reiterate that point. In capitalism, you have the focus on profit accumulation, you have the quote-unquote

anarchy of the market, which is not centralized, not planned. You know, production is done on the basis of whether or not these commodities can be exchanged for a profit. You have overproduction. You have the problem of externalities of which the climate crisis can be seen as a huge one. And I think what we're seeing now, and this is very clear to anybody with eyes, is that capitalism and that mode of production is bumping up against, among other things, its ecological limitations. And so it is becoming increasingly an irrational, insane system that is hurting

more and more people, hurting the prospect of even having a future, destroying the biosphere. And it is quite clear that what we need is to take into the collective hands. the machinations of the economy we need to see what is actually worth producing do we need you know the gratuitous consumption and overproduction of utterly unnecessary goods because somebody somewhere thinks that if they mold plastic in this way they can sell it for you know a profit or whatever or should we take into our own hands the ability to say hey what are the human needs what do we actually need to produce what are the resources we have at hand to produce those things and that's why under capitalism you know we live in the u.s which is even you know more

brutal than european capitalism so we don't have health care housing is a is a you know is a problem all across the globe education is unaffordable for more and more people and we see the situation in which it's becoming increasingly clear to people that human needs are not being met but you could have amazon deliver deliver you a box of utter absurdities overproduced plastic and wrapped in plastic itself that you just use for five seconds and then throw in the trash and that ends up in the Pacific Ocean. It's just increasingly an irrational system. And one of the interesting developments and this kind of speaks to your part of the world is Greta Thunberg, who came out initially as just an ecological climate crisis activist

and through her struggles in that realm came very quickly to realize that this is inexorably connected to capitalism itself. And now she's talking about free power. Palestine and we need the end of capitalism and all of a sudden the center left has dropped her as the darling of the environmental movement because she's going too deep with her analysis. I was wondering if you have thoughts on that. Yeah, sure. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. You know, this Palestine crisis and Palestine struggle, it's a kind of, it's a kind of, it has been kind of what is called the touchstone of how are you? you look on that and how position you take you can you can measure how how how deep people are in their analysis of what is going on in the world it yeah yeah absolutely it's a it's a positive development to see that and again it's just it's just connecting the dots that came through you know her activism but it just speaks to a broader trend that more and more people i think

are waking up to and realizing um so let's go ahead and in move into the final section of your book, because I did have that question about the socialist mode of production, but I'm pretty sure you answered it pretty deeply. So in the final section of your book, you ponder some possible paths toward socialism. I think offering a realistic vision not only of the future, but of how we might get there, is as crucial as our critiques of capitalism and imperialism, especially when it comes to winning people over to the struggle who might agree with socialism but feel bewildered as to how to actually get there from. here. So with that in mind and with the importance of offering a positive vision of the future,

what are, you know, all the visions of the future, right? The multiple trajectories that we could take, including the positive and the bad. What are your possible visions of the future and how might a transition to socialism emerge out of this increasingly rotting corpse of capitalism imperialism? Well, I will try to answer it, but it's a difficult question because it's looking into the crystal ball and it's difficult to predict how the future will go. But basically, as I said, I'm an optimist, not a naive optimist and my optimism is not grounded in some mechanical necessary transformation from capitalism to socialism. There is no law that socialism with follow

capitalism. It's as I said, up to us. But I'm positive and I'm very positive because, as I mentioned, also in the 60s, it was the revolutionary spirit,

which was the driver. But today I see very basic economic changes both in the possibility to build socialism, but also in, capitalism, there's this fundamental transformation in the fundament of the system

which make the possibilities better. Actually, I think that in the 70s, you know, the third world, they demanded a new world order today they are actually beginning and starting to build it. So I think the objective conditions are very good. It's the subjective problems which we have to take hand of. And if I look at the history, we can see that the different revolution and attempts to build socialism have created different narratives of how the revolution should be made

and who is the revolutionary subject. And they have also made different strategies and visions of socialism. But they have all been linked to different times and different places, geographically, places of the struggle. We have seen the more or less spontaneous city uprising in 1848 and the Paris Commune, which it was barricades in the streets and armed citizens defending their neighborhood. And many people still see this as the true revolution. generated from the ground, the self-organizing working class and so on. And then we saw the German and the Russian Revolution in the wake of the First World War,

and at this time it was the industrial working class using the strike weapons was the principle, the general strike was the big hammer. And we also saw the soldiers mutiny and forming red-armed units. we should take the power of the state. And this was the narrative of how revolution should be made. And then we have seen the guerrilla struggle and people's long-term war in the anti-colonialism and the national liberalism struggle after the Second World War. And some of these movements actually managed to take state power

and formed what I called this transitional state. advancing the anti-imperialist struggle this we are now seeing I think that the anti-imperalist struggle is now actually advanced to the level of inter-straight confrontation

we saw it for the first time in the cold war between the Soviet Union but now we see it between the US and China and we have seen it different kinds of new types of struggle, but now on the state level. And these confrontations, this struggle between the U.S. on one side and China and its effort to

build what it's called multipolar world system, I think this will make space for new ancient imperialist movements in their struggle. But we have to remember that the different visions of socialism and the different strategies were linked and are linked to different times and space. And each new stage has its own main access and forms of struggle linked to the particular economic and political contradictions in the world's system.

And we cannot copy-paste all strategies. strategies in time and place. And as the Chinese developed their own way of understanding, Marxism and socialism, I think it's important that in these new struggles, we will develop a kind of understanding of socialism with Arab characteristics or socialism with African characteristics and so on. So we have to develop different kinds of approaches in the struggle. And I think we will see that in the coming time grow.

If we, for instance, take the struggle in Palestine, for me, it's very important that the struggle for the liberation of, of Palestine is not only a national struggle because it cannot solve the problem of the Palestinian people in only in national terms. It has also to be a social problem who will solve the social problems. And I don't think that the Islamic politics, they don't have political economy. They don't have the idea and the strengths to solve. the social problem. They maybe can solve the national problem. I don't, the national question, but I don't think they can solve the social problems. So I think that there is the possibility

in the coming years to open this agenda of, well, how should a liberate Palestine look like? And we have to put this question into the anti-imperalist struggle. And into the agenda of this multipolar world system, we have to put this question all the time in of how to solving the inequality of the global system and how to solve the economic problems in this multipolar world system. Yeah, absolutely. I think often, as you were just saying, you know, multipolarity, you know, in its own self, in and of itself isn't necessarily good or bad, but what it does is that it weakens imperialist hegemony. And as you said, opens up opportunities. And, you know, an alternative economic sort of system like bricks also has that possibility of opening up more economic opportunities. And then on top of that opening up of opportunities and that assault on imperialist hegemony and the weakening of, of U.S.-led Western imperialism around the world. In conjunction with a climate, an increasing climate and biosphere crisis,

I think one trajectory that this could take is that you start seeing societies that are least invested in the capitalist world order and have the most to lose with regards to the climate crisis, ecological crisis, et cetera, with some space opened up by the multipolar world, begin to experiment with different ways of organizing their, society without that multipolarity with U.S.-led Western European imperialist hegemony, it's impossible for experiments to grow because the U.S. will just, you know, lead an attack on them, undermine them, sanction them, cut them out of the world system, et cetera. So when you don't have that particular imperialist boot on your throat and you have this

very real ecological incentive to do something dramatically different and you don't have an investment in the current system whatsoever. In fact, you're on the wrong end of it. I think what we might see is we begin to see these experiments, these socialist alternatives to capitalism begin to flourish around the world. And once one or two catch on, I think it could other countries that are increasingly desperate conditions can begin to look over at them, draw some inspiration, you know, see some blueprints and begin to experiment in their own way. And you could see that taking off, you know, fairly quickly in historical times. So that's one possible trajectory that I see things moving in possibly.

And also if they, if these people, this, there's a lot of country in the bricks which have one foot, one, one foot in, in the capitalist world and one foot in connecting to China, trying to play on, on both fields. for instance, Brazil and India to take in Egypt, for example. And I think that in the future, if they just look on what it's going on in the U.S. in terms of economic development and if they look on what China has managed in the past decades, they might think that maybe as a stronger part of, the economy should be political, determined, and the state should play a bigger role in the economy. They can see it generates development, and they can see that in the capitalist world,

the profit rate are falling, and they are, well, the German economy is now in miners and and so on. So just looking at what is generating development and what is not generating development, they are dissolutioned by what is going on in all part of the world. And also they are, I think they are very tired of

the political discourse of the West. They can see the hypocrisy of their talking about democracy and human rights. They are very, they are These words are not valid anymore after the genocide in Palestine. So also in the cultural and the political field, the West and capitalism is losing currency. It is not something that people are looking for forward as the solution to anything.

Yeah, exactly right. And that, I mean, for all the tragedy and the heartbreak and suffering that the Palestinian people and the resistance more broadly has had to endure, one of the absolute, you know, impacts of that uprising and continued resistance is the complete unmasking of the hypocrisy and emptiness and real cruel, evil, you know, bullshit of the Western rule-based order. Exactly. I was going to say the international rules-based order has been completely unmasked as, nothing but a fig leaf to American brutality and geopolitical interest and nothing more. And so that is a crucial part of this process of moving away from capitalism, imperialism, and the weakening of U.S. hegemonia just to reveal the utter rot and hypocrisy and emptiness and shallowness

at the core of everything America pretends to stand for. And the Palestinian resistance has certainly done that, among other things. So it's important. well twirl this has been an absolute wonderful treat to be able to have you on again hopefully we don't have to wait another three years to have you back on because every time i talk to you i really walk away with a lot of deep insight and optimism and a renewed energy and inspiration in this book the long transition towards socialism and the end of capitalism by iskra books is wonderful highly recommended people should go check it out and you also offer a free download there's a free PDF on Iskra Books's website so people that are, you know, are having a rough time with money,

as many of us are, can enjoy the content for free. So that's also a wonderful thing that Iskra and you offered to the people. But before I let you go, I was just wondering one last question. You're a man in your 70s, and I assume you have many, many, many more years to continue to live and contribute. But I'm interested to just kind of hear what developments would you love to see in the coming years. And what do you hope your ultimate legacy on this earth will be when all is said and done? Well, I hope to see that in the, I hope to see the continuation of the decline of U.S. hegemony. And I'm optimistic about it when when Trump come even to to become a president in January area.

I think that will, I think that will, I think, I hope that it would end the war in Ukraine and I hope that in this way it will, it will, it will, it will weakening the NATO alliances also, and I think that it also might help to create a split between Europe and the US, which will also weakening the imperialist system, because the US made, it disciplined Europe back in its fold by the Ukraine war. And it, you know, it's completely. dragged Europe into the swear of the U.S., and actually it was not, even if you say it from a very realistic plain, mainstream economic point of view, Europe had had very good relations with Russia, they got energy and they have investment and they created their own kind of, especially

between German and Russia and Europe were also to develop a good relations with China and all this was destroyed with the US tactic of

getting Europe back in the fold and I think that there will become a reaction now in Europe which will create a split in the imperialist force in the coming year. And I think this will create a bigger opening for alternatives also because it's very important to avoid this united imperialist front against China

or a united imperialist front against other third world countries which are trying to to develop the socialism. The more split they are, the better. And as to your personal legacy? Well, I don't have insight to comment on that. But I'm coming up with actually, when we are, I'm coming up with a new book in April also in Iskra, which deals with what strategy should the global, what should the ancient imperialist left inside the imperialist

core, what strategy should they have, I try and to update our strategy from the, from the 70s. So there's a new book coming up on Iskra in April about this. Part of it is a reprint of of an old book, but it has a big introduction and a big afterwards trying to put it in a new context. And finally, I'm working on a new book about how imperialist economy works. It's a kind of updating Aguirre Emmanuel's work on imperialism and unequal exchange to the 21st century. So it's coming in the autumn also so so I have a lot of work to do in the coming year absolutely and I would love to have you back on when those two books come to fruition I'm very excited to get my hands on those and read more and yeah I mean from my perspective you are an absolute treasure

everybody should should learn from you and read your work and you have certainly and continue to contribute disproportionately to the construction of a better world and And, you know, in the long view of things, when humanity looks back over this horrific phase of human history known as class society or what Albert Einstein called the predatory phase of human development, and they live in a much better, more rational, ecological, and equal world, people like you and so many countless others throughout history will have contributed to that world. And that will be one of the most precious things we can do with this one miraculous life in the cosmos. So thank you so much, Torkel, for all your work, for your life of activism, and for your continued intellectual work and educating people and providing us inspiration and a roadmap to a better future. And it's a pleasure to have you on. And I look forward to having you on again. The book is called The Long Transition Towards Socialism and the End of Capitalism, put out by Escrow Books.

There'll be a link in the show notes. Thank you so much, Torkel, for your time. Bye-bye. The concern for the people build up monuments and steeples to wear out our eyes I get up just about Just about now My head sends a message for me to reach for my shoes and then walk Gotta go to work, got to go to work, gotta have a job

Goes through in the park and lock fields didn't see no signs that they would yield and then fought this will never end this will never end this will never have a stop message read on the bathroom wall said I don't feel at all like I thought And we're losing all to touch, losing all touch, building at a desert.

We're going to be able to be. Thank you. You know, I'm going to be able to be. Thank you.