LITMIR.BIZ

Nach dem Fall des Eisernen Vorhangs im Jahr 1989 fegte ein kapitalistischer Sturm über die Welt. Was mit Ronald Reagan und Margaret Thatcher begonnen hatte, erfasste schließlich ganz Europa: das Ende des Sozialstaats, eine umfassende Privatisierungswelle und die weitgehende Selbstausschaltung parlamentarischer Opposition. Die Sozialdemokratie beging Selbstmord, indem sie sich dem neoliberalen Ansturm fügte, und die Grünen wurden zu Helfershelfern imperialistischer Kriege. Das war die Geburtsstunde der «extremen Mitte», der Parteien an der Macht und ihrer wirtschaftlichen Antreiber. Extrem sind die Folgen ihrer Wirtschafts- und Sozialpolitik ebenso wie die politische Zementierung eines gesellschaftlichen Konsenses. Der bekannte britisch-pakistanische Autor und Historiker Tariq Ali schreibt dazu: «Zeitgenössischer Kapitalismus verlangt (…) Schiedsrichter, die im Streit zwischen Unternehmen und über Eigentumsrechte entscheiden, aber eine wirkliche Notwendigkeit für eine demokratische Struktur besteht nicht, außer für die Schaufenstergestaltung. Wie lange sich unsere Herrscher noch die Mühe machen werden, die Formen der Demokratie zu wahren, während sie sie eines jeden wahren Inhalts berauben, ist ein Thema für eine ernsthafte Debatte.» Mit diesem Buch soll diese Debatte angestoßen werden. Zwei Beiträge von Tariq Ali aus seinem Buch «The Extreme Centre» bilden den Rahmen des Bandes. Davon ausgehend haben vier bekannte Kritiker der gegenwärtigen Herrschafts- und Wirtschaftsordnung ihre Texte verfasst. Heiner Flassbeck ortet auf der europäischen Ebene die deutschen Staatenlenker als «extreme Mitte» in Europa und ihr Beharren auf der Austeritätspolitik als Spiel mit fatalen Folgen. Rainer Mausfeld zeigt, wie der Aufstieg der Elitenherrschaft und der Abbau von Demokratie möglich ist, indem diese von einer gewaltigen Propagandaindustrie und einer systematischen Beeinflussung des gesellschaftlichen Bewusstseins flankiert werden. Wolfgang Streeck erläutert die Verdrängung der Kosten der sogenannten Globalisierung durch die «extreme Mitte» und ihre katastrophalen Folgen am Beispiel der Maßnahmen zur Corona-Epidemie. Und Peter Wahl geht dem «Fetisch Europa» auf den Grund und stellt fest, dass eine radikale Reform der EU unausweichlich wäre, um der Herrschaft der «extremen Mitte» etwas entgegenzusetzen.

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Britain’s leading radical updates his attack on the failures of the political centre ground. In this fully updated edition of his coruscating polemic, Tariq Ali shows how, since 1989, politics has become a contest to see who can best serve the needs of the market. In this urgent and wide-ranging case for the prosecution, Ali looks at the people and the events that have informed this moment across the world. This reaches its logical conclusion with the presidency of Donald Trump, the success of En Marche in France and the dominance of Merkel's Germany through Europe. But are we starting to see cracks within the fabric of the extreme centre? In a series of new chapters Ali suggests that there is room for hope. He finds promise in developments in Latin America and at the edges of Europe. Emerging parties across Europe, Greece and Spain, formed out of the 2008 crisis, are offering new hope for democracy. In the UK, the rise of Jeremy Corbyn indicates that the hegemony of the centre may be weaker than imagined.

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A prescient dissection of Obama’s overseas escalation and domestic retreat, fully updated. Written early in 2010 and initially published in September 2010, The Obama Syndrome predicted the Obama administration’s historic midterm defeat. But unlike myriad commentators who have since pinned responsibility for that Democratic Party collapse on the “reform” president’s lack of firm resolve, Ali’s critique located the problem in Obama’s notion of reform itself. Barack Obama campaigned for the presidency by promising to escalate the war in Afghanistan, and his economic team brought the architects of the financial crisis into the White House. Small wonder then that the “War on Terror”—torture in Bagram, occupation in Iraq, appeasement in Israel, and escalation in Pakistan—continues. And that Wall Street and the country’s biggest corporations have all profited at the expense of America’s working class and poor. Now a thoroughly updated paperback continues the story through the midterms, including a trenchant analysis of the Tea Party, and Obama’s decision to continue with his predecessor’s tax cuts for the rich. Ali asks whether—in the absence of a progressive upheaval from below—US politics is permanently mired in moderate Republicanism. Already called “a comprehensive account” of the problems with Obama ( The Huffington Post ), this new edition is sure to provide a more “powerful boost to Obama dissenters on the left” ( Pittsburgh Post-Gazette ).

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On the centenary of the Russian Revolution, Tariq Ali paints an illuminating portrait of Lenin At the end of his life, Lenin wrote ‘we didn’t know everything’, acknowledging the dilemmas he faced on the road to revolution in 1917 and beyond. In this unusual exploration of the crises that Lenin overcame, the decisions he made, and actions that he took, Tariq Ali reveals an insightful political portrait of this most exemplary leader. From the first stirrings of revolutionary fervour, Lenin sought the right answer to a series of dilemmas that he faced and that still resonate with us today: Is terrorism ever a useful tactic? Can imperial wars ever be supported? What sort of political party do we need? What is the moral justification for seizing power? How does one overcome the burden of history? What role does friendship or love play in revolution? How do you establish a legacy that lasts? Ali reveals that no other modern thinker than Lenin has better understood, nor more clearly articulated, the need to change the world. But do Lenin’s ideas, as expressed in his actions and his political writings, still have any significance for us? In this centenary year of the Russian Revolution, this book raises important questions related to political representation and the popular institutions necessary to challenge capitalism today.

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The story of a family whose life mirrors the rise and fall of the Soviet Union With the fall of Communism, East German dissident Vlady Meyer’s life begins to fall apart. As the German nation unifies, his wife splits up with him. He loses his university job now that the times have turned against his Marxist views. He wants to tell his alienated son, Karl, what his family’s long and passionate involvement with communism really meant, but he can’t. Vlady’s story is interwoven with that of Ludwik, Kim Philby’s recruiter, and his four comrades, brilliant Galician secret agents working for the Fourth Department of the Red Army. Thoughtful and intimate, Fear of Mirrors unfolds an expansive plot that touches on the greatest political upheavals of the twentieth century. Its protagonist captures the hopes once roused by the Bolshevik Revolution and the hard realities that followed; Vlady Meyer is a mirror reflecting impeccably the intellectual milieu of an incomparable period.

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