Review: The Long Transition Towards Socialism and the End of Capitalism by Torkil Lauesen

Okay, so you’ve decided you want the end of capitalism. To figure out how to get there, you need to know the history of attempts to supersede it. There has been several centuries of such history, and much of it has been written by the victors — the capitalists, not the socialists. Torkil Lauesen’s 2024 book serves as an introduction to this history, and I would recommend it for a curious reader interested in learning more about socialism.

The overarching argument is that the transition towards socialism has been and will be a long process, involving changes in the way economies produce goods, in how social systems and cultural institutions are structured, and in how nations interact. The majority of the book is comprised of a roughly chronological narrative of socialist projects, beginning with the 1848 revolutions and ending with Xi Jinping’s reforms in China. These past efforts have shown us the need for state structures and for increased technological development, against utopian socialist visions for stateless and pre-industrial forms of socialism. At the same time, Lauesen argues, rigid and technocratic state structures and overemphasis on economic development have also brought economic collapse, misadministration of justice, climate devastation, worker exploitation and other ills of capitalist production.

Lauesen untangles history with nuance, carefully considering competing economic interests and capabilities. He emphasizes throughout the changing understanding of internationalism, sovereignty, development of the forces of economic production, and the role of the state in constructing socialism. Lauesen’s analysis leads him to support China, which he sees as now reining in the capitalist excesses of its transition to modern economic production towards the construction of socialism, and acting as a bulwark against western (capitalist) imperialism so that other socialist projects could hope to do the same. 

These historical sections are book-ended by a brief introduction on his method (dialectical materialism) and concluding remarks on how the contradictions of imperialism and capitalism are unfolding in different regions around the world and on what is to be done to bring about socialism. The Introduction I found compelling. The concluding sections I found a bit overly long and yet also too superficial to provide enough to sink one’s teeth into. Still, I appreciate the author’s having placed stakes in the ground for what he predicts might happen, since it allows future readers to better evaluate the accuracy of his assessment.

While I agree, for the most part, with Lauesen’s main points (as outlined above), I found much to quibble with, and would recommend against using this book as a historical reference. This was particularly true of eras of history which I have studied more closely, which leads me to believe that there are many other historical beats that were not quite correctly portrayed. Some quibbles are mostly inconsequential: for example, Lauesen states that “Marx’s critique did not affect the [Gotha Programme]” while Lars Lih compellingly argues that important parts of the programme were “completely rewritten” in response. Some quibbles are a matter of polemics and interpretation: Lauesen, in his typical anti-Stalin bent, makes much of Lenin’s dying thoughts on succession, when, in my opinion, socialist states should use more democratic means of selecting their next leaders.

Several of my concerns have more historical import. Lauesen presents the Stalinist purges as very top down, and led by Stalin himself, minimizing the role played by workers and party members throughout the state. Similarly, the collapse of the Soviet Union is interpreted as a top-down betrayal, more akin to Zubov’s bourgeois nationalist assessment than Kenney and Keeran’s Marxist analysis of economic conditions and philosophical battles. While Lauesen is particularly uncharitable to the post-Lenin USSR, I believe he goes far too easy on the excesses of the Chinese Cultural Revolution, which he presents as “a much-needed showdown with bureaucracy, expert mentality, and hierarchy.” There are also some notable absences, such as the DPRK — which presents an important example of a nation that, unlike China or Vietnam, has chosen isolation rather than integration with the capitalist system.

Still, this book organizes a long and complex history, and presents it approachably. Its gaps and missteps can be addressed with other readings, or through critical discussion in a reading circle.

Review: Theory of Water by Leanne Betasamosake Simpson

I’ve read a few other books by Leanne Betasamosake Simpson, and loved them. This Accident of Being Lost and Islands of Decolonial Love are collections of short stories and poems that explore different aspects of connection, love and belonging from an indigenous perspective. These works showcase a writing style that is deeply personal, beautiful in its emotional intensity and particularity.

In The Theory of Water, Simpson leaves the realm of fiction and poetry to speak more overtly politically. While I found this premise interesting, I felt flat-footed: despite the title, this book is not a work of political or philosophical theory but a personal memoir. Simpson looks back on the process of grieving the loss of Doug Williams, an Elder and friend who guided her in reconnecting with ancestral knowledge. When writing figuratively — such as in her metaphor of sintering, that joining and mutual transformation of snowflakes that could form a basis for radical communal movement — Simpson’s prose is evocative and compelling, even in this non-fictional form.

However, her engagement with political theory left me disappointed. Works seemed haphazardly referenced, and were summarized subjectively: I recently read X and it made me think of Y. Her approving references to Gramsci and Aimé Césaire appeared carefully worded to give the impression they were opponents of communism, rather than committed communists with specific disagreements with specific communist parties. Her epistemology was also too irrationalist for my tastes (“Cyclical time comes from land. Linear time is a European construct that overlays cyclical time — a mechanism to organize the world in a homogeneous way to facilitate, of course, capitalism.”) Still, I found it interesting to see how she incorporated radical Black authors like Cedric Robinson into her vision for the radical indigenous movement.

Perhaps if I had gone into the book expecting a memoir, I would have appreciated it more for what it was than been disappointed for it not being what I wished for.

Review: The Safekeep by Yael van der Wouden

The Safekeep explores political themes through a sapphic romance. However, it neither satisfyingly interrogates its political tensions nor weaves a compelling love story. The point of failure is the same for both aspects of the novel: the mutual understanding between the two main characters is just not believable.

The protagonist is a small-minded and reclusive Dutch woman, Isabel, who cares for her family home like a shrine: her parents are dead and her brothers have moved out, leaving her alone to tend the garden and obsess over the silverware. Early hints suggest to us that there is more to the house than Isabel would prefer us to know: her family moved into it during World War II fully furnished and touched with signs of its former inhabitants. We later learn that it was vacated because the Jewish family who lived there was sent to a concentration camp, then evicted for non-payment of the mortgage.

Isabel’s brother finds himself needing to travel internationally, and places his new girlfriend, Eva, in the “family home” while he is gone. Isabel treats her horribly, mocking her manners and her appearance and controlling her actions, while Eva remains peppy and full of life and keeps trying to break through Isabel’s hard exterior shell — a manic pixie dream girl, but queer. Because Isabel lacks any redeeming qualities, Eva’s patience and interest in her appears unmotivated. When they suddenly initiate a romantic relationship, it feels unearned, inscrutable, forced. Romantic chemistry springs from two hearts recognizing each other, whereas in this novel, hatred melts into love without that moment of genuine mutual discovery. The sensuously written passages of hazy, heady new love felt flat. What did each woman see in the other?

In the third act, the reader learns that Eva is the daughter of the dispossessed Jewish family, and the lone survivor of the camps in her family. She concocts a Hollywoodesque scheme of seducing Isabel’s brother to reclaim her home, or at the very least, reclaim some of her family’s dinnerware. Conveniently for the plot, the scheme is surprisingly successful, and Eva’s sojourn at her family’s former home is interrupted only by Isabel’s stumbling across her diary, where Eva had recorded the reclaimed dinnerware.

This reveal explains Eva’s patient persistence in befriending Isabel, but a mystery remains for the reader: what was this intense love actually founded on? We are told that Eva really did inexplicably love the abusive Isabel — it was not a mere ploy. Despite their relationship being founded on deception, we are told Isabel still loves Eva. The two women work out their pain in a series of emotional confrontations that explore the hurt of being kicked out of one’s home and not belonging anywhere. Isabel maneuvers to get the house put in her name — rather than her brother’s — and invites Eva to live with her. And so they live together happily ever after. The closing words of the book are in Hebrew: “for my house shall be called a house of prayer for all peoples” (Isaiah 56:7).

The novel is a study of dispossession. Published in 2024 and written by an author who spent her childhood in Israel and who has spoken about her opposition to the Israeli government, it is impossible to read this story without thinking of the expulsion of Palestinians from their homes. Isabel’s fierce attachment to her house as her ancestral right despite the living dispossessed inhabitant’s desperate desire to return home renders her a symbolic stand-in for Israel. On the other hand, Eva’s suffering in the Holocaust and in the callousness and antisemitism of the Netherlands post-War is distinctly Jewish. The Israel-Palestine conflict is thus transfigured into one between Israel and Jews. The resolution of this political tension is shallow and Utopian: if the two sides simply fall in love they can share a home together.

But where does the mutual recognition for this unification come from? The answer is as unclear as the basis for Isabel and Eva’s love.

I could see an alternative restructuring of the story in which Eva’s motivations are revealed earlier on. Rather than reserving her intentions for a climactic reveal towards the end, her affections for Isabel could then be developed more transparently. Perhaps the romance could grow as they tend the garden together, connecting with each other as they connect with their shared land and construct something new. I would find it more believable from a character perspective, and perhaps from a political perspective, than an inexplicable attraction between two souls.

Review: Materialism and the Dialectical Method by Maurice Cornforth

Where does one go to learn about Marxist philosophy and dialectical materialism? Cornforth provides one avenue in Materialism and the Dialectical Method. This work is written in an accessible style, with the ideas developed in an intuitive and clear manner in plain language and with helpful examples. Cornforth includes lengthy quotes by the most prominent names in Marxism (predominantly Engels, Lenin, and Stalin, but also Hegel, Marx, and Mao), giving the reader a sense of the intellectual tradition. The book covers the difference between idealism and materialism, contrasts dialectical versus metaphysical modes of thought, and introduces various principles of dialectics (contradiction, development, interpenetration, negation of the negation, etc). It’s a solid place to start, and I think it is a good option for a curious beginner.

That said, I found it not particularly useful as a more advanced reader, and here it stands in contrast with other works that I think also serve as good entry points to Marxist philosophy: Ludwig Fuerbach and the Outcome of Classical German Philosophy by Engels, The Dialectical Biologist by Levins and Lewontin (for scientists, in particular), The Development of the Monist View of History by Plekhanov. These works present philosophical problems with more depth, and query philosophical failures in greater detail, rewarding the advanced or repeat reader. They also present the history of philosophy as a battle of ideas, showing dialectical materialism to be the winning philosophy. In the hands of these authors, philosophy feels very alive and yet incompletely solved; it is portrayed as a rich, developing field and invites the reader to join it. Cornforth’s book is undoubtedly written in more accessible language, but it is also more didactic; the party higher-ups have done the studying, and identified the solution, and it is up to the reader to learn the material so they can help change the world. A curious beginner up for a more challenging read may get more out of these other works.

Something I did find interesting about my read of this book was comparing its evolution between editions. The first edition (1953) lauds Lysenko as a shining example of dialectical materialism applied to the natural sciences. By the fourth edition (1968), Lysenko had become a cautionary tale of dogmatism. To a lesser extent, language around Stalin and the Soviet Union also shifted. Reading between the lines, Cornforth seems to hew close to his party’s line. This isn’t, on its face, objectionable, but I wish that his editorial notes had revealed more about his reflections on how he had made such an incorrect assessment (about Lysenko) to start, and how that shaped his thinking.

Cornforth’s introductory book is, at this point, over half a century old. Some of his examples would have been more topical than they are currently (e.g., nuclear bomb, the space race). There has also been considerable philosophical development since then: Marxism versus analytical philosophy, and Marxism versus post-modernism are pertinent debates absent from Cornforth’s book. Perhaps it is time for a new introductory book?

Review: Tender Is the Night by F. Scott Fitzgerald

Tender is the Night is Mad Men or Bojack Horseman, but nearly a century older and set in the French Riviera: a psychological portrait of a glamorous, charming man succumbing to his weaknesses and temptations. Dick Diver is a renowned psychologist and author who marries a wealthy socialite, Nicole. He finds it difficult to pursue his academic work amidst the temptations of the life of luxury his wife’s bank account affords him, no matter how much he tries to live modestly when traveling on his own. He also finds reward in developing romantic relationships with emotionally-vulnerable and subordinate women; it devastates him when they no longer need him or prize him like before.

The novel is structured unusually: the first book is told through the perspective of Rosemary, an eighteen year-old starlet who falls in love with Dick at first sight. While her young love struck me as overly melodramatic, this method of introducing Dick to the reader allows us to see him in an idealized form, the way he wishes to be seen. He is charismatic, effortlessly graceful, the center around which the universe of wealthy American travellers rotates. Only slowly, and through partially-caught whispers, do we get the sense there is more to Dick and Nicole than they let on.

The second book relates Dick’s perspective through his decline, and shows us who Dick and Nicole are beneath the facade. We learn that Nicole was once Dick’s patient, seeking treatment for trauma from childhood sexual abuse; she fell in love with him, seeing him as a stable and dashing authority figure, and he liked her attention and the opportunity her money would give him to write. A decade later, Rosemary plays a similar role in his life as Nicole’s struggles with mental illness strain their marriage. Seeing Rosemary grow into an independent woman rather than remain an infatuated ingenue, Dick turns to drink, costing him his social grace and professional reputation. The third and final book relates his decline: his social circles shut him out, his business partner buys him out to prevent further fiasco, and Nicole divorces him. He lives in obscurity in America, still struggling with his demons. This book is told through Nicole’s perspective; this distance lets the reader appreciate the sad position Dick has fallen into, without the benefit of his own self-justification.

While painting this psychological portrait, the novel also explores socioeconomic themes. The novel was partially-written in the mid 1920s, and completed in the early 1930s. The careless extravagance of the Roaring Twenties permeates the scenes — but Dick’s decline also hints towards the Great Crash of 1929 and the Great Depression that followed it. Fitzgerald directly contrasts the wealth obtained from capital versus that obtained from wages, represented respectively by Nicole and Rosemary. 

Nicole was the product of much ingenuity and toil. For her sake trains began their run at Chicago and traversed the round belly of the continent to California; chicle factories fumed and link belts grew link by link in factories; men mixed toothpaste in vats and drew mouthwash out of copper hogsheads; girls canned tomatoes quickly in August or worked rudely at the Five–and–Tens on Christmas Eve; half–breed Indians toiled on Brazilian coffee plantations and dreamers were muscled out of patent rights in new tractors—these were some of the people who gave a tithe to Nicole.

Her position in the world allows her to spend money with ease: “everything she liked that she couldn’t possibly use herself, she bought as a present for a friend.” On the other hand,

Rosemary spent money she had earned—she was here in Europe due to the fact that she had gone in the pool six times that January day [spent filming a movie] with her temperature roving from 99° in the early morning to 103°, when her mother stopped it.

While Nicole is independently wealthy, she is nevertheless dependent on men: first, her doctor-husband Dick for his psychological support, then her second husband, for helping her leave an unhappy marriage. Rosemary, a self-made woman, begins the novel closely attached to her mother for guidance, but soon learns to travel the world and advance her career on her own.

In the backdrop of this character drama, there is a world in flux. Europe is still the land of elegance and old money, but America’s rapidly-growing wealth is reshaping their dynamic. American tourists are pouring their money into the region, and the US is starting to be a leader in scientific research. The main characters are American by birth, but their “Europeanness” is often highlighted (“their point of resemblance to each other and their difference from so many American women, lay in the fact that they were all happy to exist in a man’s world....”). Dick’s downfall could also be a metaphor for the decline of an empire focused on leisure and frivolity rather than steady hard work and commitment.

The story of a psychological unwinding of a morally-grey, complicated man has been told many times, and this version shows its age in its handling of mental illness and race. On the other hand, it intricately weaves together its themes, its writing around misplaced affection and grief is often beautiful, and its unusual structure provides a unique vantage point into this particular man’s downfall. I enjoyed it.

Review: How to Read Chinese Poetry, edited by Zong-Qi Cai

This guided anthology is an autodidact’s dream. It provides the breadth and depth of a university-level course in Chinese poetry, assuming little familiarity with Chinese literature, language or history. 

After an introduction to the general content and form of traditional Chinese poetry, each chapter focuses on a particular time period and style of poetry, starting with the Shijing (11th-7th centuries BCE), and ending with the Ming and Qing dynasties (1400s-1912). These chapters present and analyze a selection of representative poems, which are provided in translation, in traditional Chinese script, in pinyin, and in transliterated characters. This format allows appreciation of the emotional content of the poems, their syllabic patterns, the ambiguity in meaning, and the beauty of the organization of the characters. The chapters are written by different contributors, and so the historical and interpretive context provided and the emphasis of the analyses vary between chapters, however I found them to be consistently educational and enriching of my understanding of each era and style. 

The book then concludes with a chapter considering how specific aspects of the Chinese language lend themselves to the poetic devices commonly employed, and how grammatical constructs and thus presentation of ideas varied across the different eras as line length and structure changed. While the book does not assume the reader knows Mandarin, I believe my elementary grasp of the language helped me appreciate this chapter more (and in turn, this chapter helped me appreciate the beauty of the language).

While I found the regulated verse of the Tang dynasty impressive — the constraints in tone and structure produced some gorgeous creativity — I found the lyrical poems of the Song dynasties more often touched my heart. I was also delighted by the simple but timeless works of the ancient Shijing. The chronological order of the chapters also gave me an appreciation for the evolution in style, and the change in the role of elevated speech as society evolves.

I’d recommend this as a work for anyone with a broad interest in Chinese literature, which so often references their poetic tradition, or for anyone who enjoys studying ancient poetry.

Review: A Social History of Analytic Philosophy by Christoph Schuringa

A Social History of Analytic Philosophy traces the evolution of Analytic Philosophy from its early 20th century roots in Cambridge, Oxford, and the Vienna Circle, through its rise to hegemony in anglosphere academia in the second half of the 20th century, to its absorption of feminist and decolonial schools of thought in the 21st century. Schuringa challenges Analytic Philosophy’s self-mythologizing: the origin story that Analytic Philosophy sprung from Gottlob Frege’s natural language approach to logic was constructed by Michael Drummett in the 1970s. Schuringa also criticizes Analytic Philosophy for viewing itself to be largely synonymous with western philosophy, despite its disregard for Western philosophical developments after Kant. 

Schuringa attributes Analytic Philosophy’s present hegemony to its alignment with liberalism. Unlike Marxism and other critical theories, Analytic Philosophy largely escaped McCarthyism. Its Humean conception of the world as an unchanging collection of facts to be interpreted by the mind leads it to regard the world as unchangeable beyond the (liberal) status quo, even as it takes on questions of gender and race. Schuringa argues that this liberalism shapes not only analytic philosophy's content and conclusions but also its mode of philosophical inquiry:

The ideology of analytic philosophy is that of liberalism. Accordingly, participants in its discussions are conceived of as entering a liberal marketplace of ideas. Circulation on the market is the mechanism by which the best ideas win out. It is presupposed that each participant may enter the market as they see fit, and take full part in the process of exchange. Entry conditions are not considered – it is taken for granted that all are free, sovereign individuals. The maintenance of the fiction of equal entry, of course, just as in the case of the commercial marketplace, serves the interests of those who in fact exercise power.

The author identifies three tendencies in Analytic Philosophy which results in its stodgy resistance to change and its liquidation of other forms of philosophy:

1. Deference to science: analytic philosophers either attempted to turn philosophy into a science (empiricism, Bertrand Russell) or serve as science’s handmaiden (Vienna Circle), thereby limiting the scope of philosophy to only what science could not answer.
2. Retreat to common sense: taking on a “noble savage” view of the common man and never questioning how culture, religion and other such factors shape our expectations, philosophy became a series of thought experiments and appeals to intuition (“intuition pumping”).
3. Impulse to therapy: the skepticism arising from empiricism turned philosophy into an ailment that must be cured; what is needed is not a constructive philosophy but a critique of philosophy.

These intellectual developments are presented through the book's social history of the discipline. But the “society” of this social history is narrowly scoped: beyond university administration and academic publishing, there is relatively little discussion of Analytic Philosophy’s interaction with the general public. Other than Analytic Philosophy's relatively friendly encounters with McCarthyism, Schuringa discusses only effective altruism as a significant point of contact between Analytic Philosophy and the broader public. Proponents of this utilitarian strain of analytic ethics seek to maximize their own wealth so that they can devote it to charities that maximize quality-adjusted life years. I ran into many “effective altruists” during my time in the Bay Area, and concur with the author’s assessment of its philosophical poverty, although it seems fairly largely confined to elite tech circles. But several generations of students have now taken philosophy courses at universities dominated by Analytic Philosophy. What broader impacts has it had on society? Schuringa stops short of answering this question.

I found this book valuable for its coherent overview of the major figures and overall trajectory of Analytic Philosophy — things I had put together piecemeal while reading about other 20th century philosophical movements. However, I also recommend it with reservations: the author sees little of value in Analytic Philosophy, thus reassuring me of my own pre-conceived notions. Schuringa writes polemically; I agree with the author that western philosophy’s preoccupation with Analytic Philosophy has not met the needs of our times. Schuringa also writes dismissively; he credits a handful of thinkers for their rigor and originality (Wittgenstein in particular), but dismisses most for narrow-mindedness, sloppiness, and oblivious recourse to metaphysics. Why did so many thinkers pursue this dead-end approach to philosophy? Schuringa's answers of McCarthyism, tacit support of liberalism, and journal monopolies don't satisfy me as a full answer for its appeal. Rather than feeling challenged to integrate new material into my philosophical views, I found myself suspiciously wondering what was left out, or painted with too snide a brush.