Are you ready for Socialism?

Friday, July 1

ERIC | As socialists, we spend a lot of time fighting against the ills of capitalism, but it's also essential to know what we're fighting for. I'm planning to start off Socialism at After the Revolution: What Would Socialism Look Like? where Jessica Hansen-Weaver will lay out the basic contours of a socialist society: workers' democracy, economic planning, the transformation of work. But because socialism must necessarily be made by those marked by capitalism's defects, this talk will also discuss the transformation made by millions in the midst of revolutions. | Friday at 1 p.m.

ERIC | Ali Abunimah is one of the world's leading voices in the struggle for Palestinian liberation--and also a Chicagoan and a Haymarket Books author, which is sort of a Socialism conference triple double. His session on Who's Afraid of BDS? Israel's War on Palestinian Rights will take up Israel's counteroffensive against the boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) movement. Ali's talks are always rigorous and practical, while also being inspiring and entertaining. Whether you're new to the subject or a veteran of the struggle, you're sure to leave having learned something you didn't know before and inspired about the possibilities that lie before our generation's anti-apartheid movement. | Friday at 3 p.m.

NICOLE | The term "intersectional" achieved "buzzword" status recently--Hillary Clinton not only dropped it into her speeches, but (lol) she had her staffers using it to describe the presumptive Democratic nominee's politics. Beyond that posturing, though, a real understanding of intersectionality is essential to making sense of how oppression functions in the system we live under. Black feminist thought has been a driving factor in developing that understanding--the session on The History of Black Feminism, presented by Edna Bonhomme, will look at how the Black feminists shaped struggles against exploitation and oppression | Friday at 3 p.m.

ERIC | Okay, I know I can't be in two sessions at the same time, but I have to speak up for What Do Socialists Say about Capitalism, Socialism, and Human Nature? If you ever tried to make the case for socialism to friends and family, you've undoubtedly encountered the idea that it can't work because it's human nature to be greedy, competitive and aggressive. Phil Gasper, a philosopher of science who has a knack for making his subject accessible without watering it down, will draw on the history of early human societies, principles of biology and philosophy, and everyday experience to answer this challenge. | Friday at 3 p.m.

DANNY | I'm planning to go to a couple of meetings about immigration. What Do Socialists Say About Borders?, which will be introduced by Hannah Fleury, interests me because I've been thinking more about how our movements can start not just to protest deportations, but get people questioning the very idea of borders. That can sound ultra-radical, but it's actually becoming a necessity. Capitalism is creating new problems like climate change and endless wars that force people to migrate, while new communication technologies connect people across the world--at the same times that governments reinforce borders like we're back in the Middle Ages. | Friday at 3 p.m.

Saturday, July 2

ERIC | Afro-Pessimism is the idea that the end of chattel slavery didn't end the slave relationship that still characterizes the Black experience--and that contemporary enslavement consigns Black people to social death, while white life is predicated on preserving this relation. Snehal Shingavi's session on The Politics of Afro-Pessimism will unpack the this concept, grapple with its influence in the Black Lives Matter and other movements today and make the case for multiracial working-class unity in the fight against racism--both in the present and as an essential strategy for achieving Black liberation. | Saturday at 9:30 a.m.

NICOLE | From Elvis Presley to the travesty that is Iggy Azalea, there's been a lot of talk about cultural "appropriation" and how the left should respond to it. But where do Marxists start in understanding what "culture" is? Is it "high" or "low" or both and everything in between? Grant Mandarino has the job of sorting out these questions in his talk on What Do We Talk about When We Talk about "Culture"? for those of us who want, as the old song says, our bread and roses, too. | Saturday at 9:30 a.m.

ALAN | The question of reform or revolution is a giant fault line running through the Marxist tradition--not because those on the revolution side, like us at SW, don't care about reforms that make workers' lives better, but because what you think about the question posed by this session's title--Reform or Revolution: Can Capitalism Evolve Toward Socialism?--shapes how you fight for both reform and for revolution. Plus the speaker is Sharon Smith, author most recently of a new edition of her Women and Socialism and a regular at Socialist Worker. Enough said--get there early if you want a seat. | Saturday at 11:30 a.m.

ELIZABETH | I've heard Dan Georgakas and Marvin Surkin speak at Socialism conferences before, and I'll go hear them again this year on Detroit and Capitalist Abandonment. Their book Detroit I Do My Dying was a prized possession of mine as a new socialist and still is--I learned so much from their telling of the rise of the Dodge Revolutionary Union Movement in Detroit in the 1970s and Black workers' resistance in the auto plants during the industry's heyday. In 2016, there are even more reasons to talk about Detroit, which faces devastated schools, crumbling housing and disappearing basic services. | Saturday at 11:30 a.m.

NICOLE | Every new week brings more bad news about the state of the environment and the horrors that manmade climate change is wreaking on the world--dying oceans, melting ice caps, massive fires, droughts. For many, the only solution seemingly on offer is lifestyle changes like recycling or driving hybrid cars. Ian Angus, editor of the online ecosocialist journal Climate and Capitalism, will speak on Facing the Anthropocene: Fossil Capitalism and the Crisis of the Earth System, the title of his new book--and discuss the systemic change that it will take to really tackle the environmental crisis. | Saturday at 11:30 a.m.

DANNY | When I was writing my book Socialism...Seriously, I thought a lot about the critique that socialism is "anti-freedom" because it supposedly stifles individuality and creativity. I don't know if that's what Bill Keach is going to talk about in Marxism, Determination and Freedom, but I'll be cool with whatever he has to say. Bill is a Marxist literature professor who gave a talk about Shakespeare at my first Socialism conference that to this day is one of the coolest lectures I've ever heard. | Saturday at 11:30 a.m.

NICOLE | The response to the Syrian revolution has exposed the travesty that passes for an understanding of imperialism among large parts of the Western left. But Marxists don't have to fall into pat answers in explaining the conflict in Syria and elsewhere in the Middle East. Ashley Smith will cut through the confusion about the left's understanding of imperialism in a talk on The Enemy of My Enemy: Imperialism and Anti-Imperialism Today--and talk about what's at stake as we try to build solidarity. | Saturday at 2 p.m.

ELIZABETH | You might know that Bernie Sanders had a picture of the American socialist Eugene Debs up in his office. Which leads me to ask: What would Debs have thought about the Sanders campaign? Debs ran for president on the Socialist Party ticket five times in the early part of the 20th century and got around a million votes a couple of those times while still talking about the failures of the two-party system and the need for workers' power. Marlene Martin's session on Debs and the U.S. Socialist Tradition will be a great introduction to one of the most interesting--and sometimes hilarious--socialist fighters in U.S. history. | Saturday at 2 p.m.

ALAN | I was inspired by the strike victory at Verizon this spring not only because it was a rare win for our side, but because it contributed to the complex but critical discussion that will be taken up at the session on The Struggle to Rebuild a Fighting Labor Movement. The two speakers, Larry Bradshaw of SEIU Local 1021 in the Bay Area and Kirstin Roberts of the Chicago Teachers Union, have about half a century of union activism between them, and the crowd in the room at Socialism will make it closer to half a millennium. | Saturday at 2 p.m.

ALAN | The new workers' state established by the Russian Revolution of 1917 legalized abortion and overturned discriminatory divorce laws, but leaving it at decrees would have betrayed the promise of liberation. Instead, the Bolsheviks developed a strategy for propaganda and agitation that used the legal declarations of equality as the basis to challenge centuries-old prejudices and transform social relations in reality. Also, the speakers for the meeting on Women and the Russian Revolution are Dana Blanchard and Leia Petty, who have never, to my knowledge, spoken less than brilliantly, and here, they're in one room, so hold on to your hats. | Saturday at 4 p.m.

Sunday, July 3

ALAN | Imagine that the Socialism 2016 conference lasted a whole month, and if you had to go home early, there was a small army of stenographers and translators to capture the discussions as they happened. That's still nothing like the Congresses of the Communist International held after the Russian Revolution of 1917 that crystallized the experiences of socialists at the high point so far of the working-class movement. John Riddell has made these discussions available in his volumes collecting documents from Comintern congresses and conferences. He'll speak about To the Masses: Lenin's Battle in the Comintern, along with his collaborator Mike Taber and Jen Roesch of the ISO. | Sunday at 9:30 a.m.

ERIC | I'll be speaking on Sanders, Social Democracy, and Socialism, which will focus on the particular flavor of socialism that Bernie subscribes to and its similarities and differences with the revolutionary socialism of the ISO. It's probably tacky to mention your own talk here, but it gives me an opportunity to make the point that Socialism 2016 is a great opportunity to learn not just from the speakers, but also by participating in the debates and discussions that follow each presentation. Sessions like this should provide a window into broader debates happening beyond the ISO. | Sunday at 11:30 a.m.

DANNY | There have been some really useful discussions--and occasional debates--among writers for Socialist Worker and Jacobin over the course of this endless election season. I'm going to try to make the discussion about Anybody but Trump? featuring Jacobin editor Bhaskar Sunkara and frequent SW contributor Jen Roesch because they'll be taking up what is probably the most pressing question for the left until November: Should fear and loathing of Donald Trump justify support for Hillary Clinton--and if not, what should our alternative be. | Sunday at 2 p.m.

ALAN | Hal Draper's brilliant essay "The Two Souls of Socialism" was published 50 years ago this year, and I don't know if I've turned to it for wisdom once for every one of those years, but probably close. Draper's contributions to a socialist analysis of contemporary U.S. society are huge, but even more valuable is his development of Marxist theory with his monumental series Karl Marx's Theory of Revolution--he writes about Marx with the penetrating insight and ah-ha-moment-ness of Lenin or Luxemburg or Trotsky. Draper's comrade Joel Geier will put it all together at a meeting on Hal Draper and Revolutionary Marxism. | Sunday at 2 p.m.

DANNY | Years before Greece's SYRIZA made international headlines, I would make a point at Socialism conferences of trying to hear Antonis Davanellos, a former member of SYRIZA's Central Committee, whose political clarity is impressive even when he's struggling to find the precise English words. If his recent interview in the International Socialist Review is any indication, Antonis will have lots to say in Greece: The left after SYRIZA, following a year in which he and his comrades fought for SYRIZA to reject austerity, lost that fight and then created a new left wing group called Popular Unity. | Sunday at 4 p.m.

NICOLE | A late addition to the Socialism 2016 schedule, actor, author and playwright Wallace Shawn will return to the conference this year to read a new essay, The Benefits of Perfumed Paper. Shawn is always a joy to listen to--one of my favorite talks from past conferences was his reading of a wonderful essay titled "Why I Call Myself a Socialist." It's inconceivable--sorry, I couldn't resist!--that he won't be one of the highlights of this year's Socialism. | Sunday at 8 p.m.

ELIZABETH | It's Trump versus Clinton in November, and fear of the Donald hangs like an evil orange-topped shadow over any discussion of the election--at least any one that you want to be a part of. Trump has to be opposed every step of the way, but is the Trump phenomenon new or unique? Does he fit in at all into the history of right-wing demagogues in U.S. politics, like Father Coughlin? Lance Selfa, who literally wrote the book on The Democrats: A Critical History, is speaking on Trump and the Rise of Right-Wing Populism, and I can't wait. | Sunday at 8 p.m.

ELIZABETH | If you live in Chicago, you hate Rahm Emanuel--that goes without saying. But if you're among the lucky ones who've had a chance to stand up to his anti-worker agenda, you can thank a teacher for that. The lesson of the 2012 Chicago teachers' strike continue to reverberate through the labor movement and the broader fight for education justice. I want to go to Teachers' Unions and the Fight Against Austerity to hear teachers and education activists tell their stories--not just from Chicago, but New York City, Seattle and elsewhere. | Sunday at 8 p.m.

Monday, July 4

ELIZABETH | I want to plug The New Deal and the Labor Upsurge of the 1930s, which will be introduced by Joe Richard. During an election year, people talk a lot about "change," but it seems like the discussion of how change is really made--from below--is the last thing to come up, if it ever does. These days, I've been going back to the workers' struggles of the 1930s, because they provide concrete lessons about what it took to build these fightbacks. | Monday at 9:30 a.m.

DANNY | I'm psyched for Donna Murch's session on The Black Panther Party for Self Defense. There's so much ignorance about the Panthers. Many of us grow up being told they were a Black version of the KKK, but in response, but it doesn't really help if people on the left respond by hyping the Panthers without any analysis of their strengths and weaknesses, which is actually foreign to their revolutionary project. This meeting will be totally different. Murch is a scholar of the BPP--check out this great interview about the Panthers in the ISR--and the room will be filled with anti-racist activists hungry to discuss what we can learn from the most important group from the last radical generation. | Monday at 11:30 a.m.