Rebuilding the Left

by Marta Harnecker

What future is there for the left, faced with the challenges of the twenty-first century? Based on a lifetime's experience in politics, Marta Harnecker addresses the crisis facing the left today.

At its heart, this book is a critique of social democratic realpolitik. Harnecker reminds us that, contrary to today's orthodoxy, politics is not the art of the possible but the art of making the impossible possible by building a social and political force capable of changing reality.

She believes that the social experiments being carried out in Latin America today hold out hope that an alternative to capitalism is possible; they are essentially socialist, democratic projects in which the people are the driving force. To create a real alternative to capitalism, though, the left must change.

Rebuilding the Left offers real hope to those who still believe that we can create a different world.

Genres: Politics, Nonfiction, Philosophy

176 pages, Hardcover

First published January 15, 2007

About the author

Marta Harnecker (b. 1937) was a Chilean sociologist, political scientist, journalist and activist.

Reviews

[Malcolm · Rating 5 out of 5]

In recent years there has been some considerable debate across the Left about the appropriate form that organisations of struggle should take, about the relationship between parties of the Left and mass struggles, and about the character of revolutionary and transformational struggle. Far too much of that debate has been reactionary in its defence of the classic Leninist (or deformed Stalinist/Trotskyist) vision of the vanguard party to lead the revolution, where the role of intellectuals was to take theory to the masses; on the other hand we have had vague post-modern inflected ideas of network society of the multitude where groups struggle alongside and often with each other but where there is no overarching ideological coherence and no leading organisation.

Since the early 1980s, a number of parties and organisations of the Left have attempted to find structures for action that got beyond these two simplistic images to build coherent parties of struggle that have clear ideological coherence but are not dogmatic. In this refreshing, disarming and elegant text Harnecker draws on the practical experiences of the contemporary Latin American politics of the Left (Venezuela, Brazil, Uruguay, and others) to craft a model for political organisation/party that is Left, non-dogmatic, and inclusive. She has a vision of a protagonistic politics that aims to make the impossible possible: it is, I think, a major contribution to contemporary political and organisational theory that all on the Left should read and take from it the ideas relevant to our local places and spaces to build new transformational politics. It is one of the best books I have read in years. It sits alongside Liberating Theory (http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/85...) as vital reasding for contemporary activism.

[Kars · Rating 4 out of 5]

Starts out a bit rickety with a somewhat uneven treatment of the current social and cultural landscape. And the closing section is also a bit of a letdown despite offering an interesting case study of the Bolivarian Revolution. A letdown because the middle part is so good. It outlines a new way of doing leftist politics and social change for the current age and it manages to be very practical, clearheaded but also principled. I was looking for a framework for thinking about how to put my own burgeoning leftist ideals into practice and I found it tremendously helpful.

[Molebatsi]

Rebuilding the Left is an essential and helpful text for anyone serious about building a democratic, 21st-century socialist alternative. It is a foundational book for the "Latin American New Left."

Its greatest value is its reorientation of the Left's compass—away from seizing a distant state apparatus and toward the slow, patient work of building popular power and capacity from the ground up. While it doesn't provide all the answers, it asks the most important questions and sets a crucial ethical and strategic direction. It is most useful when read not as a manual, but as a provocation to rethink and democratise leftist practice.

[Elso As · Rating 5 out of 5]

Wow I love being told what to do

[Gaylen]

Lots of vocab

[James Tracy · Rating 3 out of 5]

One of the most succinct and challenging books on the subject. Deserves a review almost as long as the book itself. More later

[Dan · Rating 5 out of 5]

I'm reading thru so fast I think the cover is going to fall off.

[Benjamín Beroíza · Rating 4 out of 5]

Adhiero completamente al planteamiento de los problemas, pero no a las posibles soluciones que la autora propone.