After Socialism

This is a major contribution to contemporarary social and political thought written by one of the world's leading critical historians. Gabriel Kolko asks the difficult questions about where the left can go in a post-Cold War world where neoliberal policies appear to have triumphed in both the West and the former Soviet bloc.

The two decades following the collapse of the Soviet Union brought great changes to the new nations on its periphery. This text offers a detailed ethnographic look at one area of change - the use and understanding of public space in the region's cities.

Contains papers from a September 1993 workshop on the privatization of agriculture in Eastern Europe, exploring the situation in several countries. Discusses reform policies and actual processes of land reform, the emergence of new family farms, and the creation of new forms of cooperative and joint stock company, with papers on land reform in a Bulgarian village, redefining women's work in rural Poland, and decollectivization and total scarcity in High Albania. Annotation copyright by Book News, Inc., Portland, OR

Cities After Socialism is the first substantial and authoritative analysis of the role of cities in the transition to capitalism that is occurring in the former communist states of Easter Europe and the Soviet Union. It will be of equal value to urban specialists and to those who have a more general interest in the most dramatic socio-political event of the contemporary era - the collapse of state socialism. Written by an international group of leading experts in the field, Cities after socialism asks and answers some crucial questions about the nature of the emergent post-socialist urban system and the conflicts and inequalities which are being generated by the processes of change now occurring.

This volume offers a profound analysis of post-socialist economic and political transformation in the Balkans, involving deeply unequal societies and oligarchical “democracies.” The contributions deconstruct the persistent imaginary of the Balkans, pervasive among outsiders to the region, who see it as no more than a repository of ethnic conflict, corruption and violence. Providing a much needed critical examination of the Yugoslav socialist experience, the volume sheds light on the recent rebirth of radical politics in the Balkans, where new groups and movements struggle for a radically democratic vision of society.

With the collapse of communism, a new world seemed to open for the peoples of East Central Europe. The possibilities this world presented, and the costs it exacted, have been experienced differently by men and women. Susan Gal and Gail Kligman explore these differences through a probing analysis of the role of gender in reshaping politics and social relations since 1989. The authors raise two crucial questions: How are gender relations and ideas about gender shaping political and economic change in the region? And what forms of gender inequality are emerging as a result? The book provides a rich understanding of gender relations and their significance in social and institutional transformations. Gal and Kligman offer a systematic comparison of East Central European gender relations with those of western welfare states, and with the presocialist, bourgeois past. Throughout this essay, the authors attend to historical comparisons as well as cross regional interactions and contrasts. Their work contributes importantly to the study of postsocialism, and to the broader feminist literature that critically examines how states and political-economic processes are gendered, and how states and markets regulate gender relations.

Art and Theory After Socialism considers the new critical insights that are produced in the collisions of art theory from the ex-East and ex-West.

Socialism after Hayek recasts and reinvigorates the socialist quest for class justice by rendering it compatible with Hayek's social and economic theories. Theodore A. Burczak puts forth a conception of socialism from a postmodern perspective, drawing from the apparently opposing ideas of Marx and Hayek (the latter of whom achieved worldwide recognition in the twentieth century as a champion of the free market and fierce opponent of government interference in markets). Burczak sketches an institutional structure that would promote a democratic socialist notion of distributive justice and his own interpretation of Marx's notion of freely associated labor, while avoiding Hayek's criticisms of centrally planned socialism. Burczak's version of market socialism is one in which privately owned firms are run democratically by workers, governments engage in ongoing redistribution of wealth to support human development, and markets are otherwise unregulated. Burczak poses this model of "free market socialism" against other models of socialism, especially those developed by John Roemer, Michael Albert, and Robin Hahnel. "Burczakian socialism = (Hayek + Nussbaum + Sen + Ackerman + Resnick and Wolff) = Ellerman = legal-economic democracy. Brilliant! Burczak takes Hayek, his critics, and other social theorists and produces the foundations of a legal-economic order in which the concerns of most current thinkers are provided for. It is a deep, sustained, and brilliant achievement." —Warren J. Samuels, Professor Emeritus, Economics Department, Michigan State University; former President of the History of Economics Society and the Association for Social Economics; coeditor of the Journal of Income Distribution; and author of over 40 books "Theodore A. Burczak's Socialism after Hayek is a thoroughly researched and thoughtful examination not only of the ideological debate that framed the twentieth century, but of Hayek's intellectual framework. Burczak hopes for an economic framework that is both humanistic in its approach and humanitarian in its concern while being grounded in good reasons. The book should be on the reading list of every comparative political economist and in particular anyone who wants to take Hayek seriously, including those who would like to push Hayek's classical liberal politics toward the left in the twenty-first century. Burczak has made an outstanding contribution to the fields of political and economic thought and to Hayek studies in particular." —Peter J. Boettke, Professor and Director of Graduate Studies, Department of Economics, George Mason University, Fairfax "An advance well beyond the great 'socialist calculation debate.' Socialism after Hayek is both novel and challenging to contemporary Hayekian scholars. Burczak is the only scholar working in the post-Marxist tradition that thoroughly understands and appreciates the Hayekian critique of socialism. He is on his way to answering many of our long-held objections." —Dave Prychitko, Department of Economics, Northern Michigan University "One does not have to agree with all of Burczak's arguments to accept that he has developed a bold, creative and challenging response to the powerful Hayekian critique of socialism. Burczak wisely rejects the agoraphobia—literally the fear of markets—of many socialists, and focuses instead on the socialist goal of the abolition of exploitation. If this important book is read by both socialists and Hayekians, then there is a chance that debates on the viability of socialism may avoid some past pitfalls." —Geoffrey M. Hodgson, University of Hertfordshire, UK "Provocative and expansive. An excellent book that deals in depth with the relevant literature, incorporating it into a new analysis of the question of socialism. . . . The scholarship is superior: Burczak integrates the works of Hayek and Marx to develop a new theory of justice and to provide a new way to think through the problems of a socialist economy." —Stephen Cullenberg, Department of Economics, University of California, Riverside "A brilliant, fair-minded approach to Marx, Hayek, Sen, and Nussbaum yields a needed socialist vision for the twenty-first century." —Stephen Resnick, Department of Economics, University of Massachusetts Theodore A. Burczak is Associate Professor of Economics at Denison University.