Studying “Socialist reconstruction in America”

Preface

1. Discuss the case being made in the opening paragraphs of the Preface for the need to build socialist consciousness in the U.S.
2. Why is it argued that Socialist Reconstruction is an unorthodox text within the Marxist tradition?
3. If the book represents such a sharp departure from the norm among historical materialists to not predict the exact features of a future society, then why was it written? That is, why was it deemed necessary?
4. What else does the preface reveal about the books’ intended purpose and goals?
5. What is the case made for why the book doesn’t include separate chapters on climate crisis, racism, women’s oppression, LGBTQ oppression, and so on?

Introduction

6. The working class suffers under capitalist rule every day and is increasingly naming the solution to our many problems under capitalist rule socialism. If working people are already calling the answer to their problems socialism, then why is this book needed? How is this explained?
7. Discuss the significance of the following passage, and what it means for our organizing work: For social democrats and democratic socialists in the U.S. “socialism is the music of a distant future. Along with millions of others across the country and around the world, we hear the music now—and believe we should all join in playing it” (xvii). This point is reiterated at the end of the Introduction as well.
8. If the “determining factor in history” is the “production and reproduction of immediate life” (xviii), how might it look different in a socialist U.S., according to the Introduction?
9. What role does “time” play in the socialist transformation of society?

Chapter 1

10. What is the significance for the current moment of resurrecting the socialist tradition, which includes Martin Luther King Jr., in the U.S.?
11. What role did national oppression/racism play in the development of capitalism in the United States throughout different periods of history?
12. Why is it so important to expose the “fairy tale” (5) of free speech in the U.S.?
13. What does it mean that the “dismal era of socialist repression and self-repression is coming to an end” (7)?
14. How does the Great Recession factor into these shifts—shifts that are an example of the law of unintended consequences?
15. Why was Occupy Wall Street a harbinger of what is to come?
16. How did the movement for Black lives fit into the reemerging socialist movement?
17. What did the Bernie Sanders campaign reveal about both socialism in the U.S. and about the class character of the Democratic Party establishment?
18. As the U.S. working class once again takes up the fight against capitalism and for socialism, what kind of a response might we expect from the capitalist class?
19. What conditions in society need to be present for capitalism to be overturned and replaced by socialism?
20. What kind of organizations do we need to lead the fight to end capitalism and build socialism?

Chapter 2

21. Discuss the two functions of a socialist government in the context of the basic premise that “under the socialist form of government all positions of political and judicial authority will be based on the elective principle and subject to immediate recall” (26)?
22. How will people be “empowered and integrated into the day-to-day affairs of society” (26)?
23. What role will a new constitution likely play?
24. Discuss the undemocratic nature of the current form of government in the U.S.
25. How will a socialist government protect the rights of workers and prevent a return of capitalist rule?
26. How will a socialist government serve society and ensure that human needs are met?
27. Discuss the transition from a federalist to a centralized form of government. Why is centralization necessary at this stage of socialist development?
28. Why did Marx and Engels argue that there are only two choices for humanity–socialism or “common ruin”?
29. According to the reading, how will the exact structure of the new socialist government be determined?
30. How are current administrative units undemocratic and irrational?
31. What are socialist administrative units, and what might they look like in the U.S.? How are the goals of different layers of government in a socialist society different than a capitalist one?
32. Discuss the National People’s Assembly and the Assembly of Oppressed Nations. How are they designed to be far more democratic than what currently exists?
33. How will Executive Power be collectivized? What role will the People’s Development Bank and the Central Economic Agency play, for example?
34. Why will mass organizations be so important in a new socialist government?

Chapter 3

35. How will decommodifying energy radically speed up the process of phasing out fossil fuels?
36. What does it mean that energy has to be “decolonized”? How does the concept of “climate debt” fit into this formulation?
37. Discuss the implications of the fact that 5 Earths would be needed for all the people in the world to consume at the level of the average American (49).
38. What is the significance of the differences between the cap and adapt versus the carbon budget approach to reducing fossil and nuclear fuels?
39. Why are the agencies and organizational structure designed to implement the cap and adapt approach so crucial?
40. Why is it important that the national question informs our socialist energy plan?
41. How will a new socialist government reduce the overall use of energy in the U.S.?
42. What is considered a descent standard of living and why is it achievable on a worldwide basis? How do universal basic services (UBS) factor in?

Chapter 4

43. How does the U.S. capitalist class and the U.S. government use debt within the U.S. and internationally?
44. What role does finance capital play in capitalism today?
45. How will the abolition of finance capital be easily achieved?
46. Discuss the different forms of debt and what they say about the socialist answer.
47. How will debt abolition help lay the foundation for  the new socialist economy?
48. What is fixed capital and how will it come into play in a socialist reconstruction?
49. Without financial markets how will the people’s future be guaranteed?
50. Discuss the significance and function of the Bureau of Wages, Prices and Rents.
51. Not all housing problems will be resolved by debt abolition. Discuss the mechanisms designed to redress structural inequalities in housing.
52. How will work be reoriented within this socialist framework?
53. What are postal banks and what role will they likely serve in a socialist reconstruction?

Chapter 5

54. What is the primary problem or contradiction with food production under capitalism?
55. Discuss the environmental implications of corporate agriculture.
56. How does corporate agriculture assist U.S. imperialist domination in the global south?
57. What role does overproduction within capitalism play in contributing to the so-called food crisis?
58. Discuss the health issues stemming from profit-driven food production and the impact it has on the working class.
59. Discuss the risks and cruelty associated with animal farming practices and the underlying drive for exchange value informing them.
60. How does factory farming and the drive toward overproduction destroy communities?
61. Discuss the role of state intervention in creating crises for agricultural production and the history of sharecropper resistance during the Great Depression.
62. Why can’t capitalism solve these problems?
63. How will land nationalization provide the basis for a socialist solution to capitalist overproduction in agriculture? What are the nuances of this plan?
64. What is agroecology and why is it an alternative to capitalist agrobusiness?
65. What role will the Central Land Bureau play in this process?

Chapter 6

66. Within the discussion of housing and transportation is recreation. How might recreation factor in for you when you are imagining a socialist future?
67. Discuss the vision planning that is “both ‘top-down’ and ‘bottom up,’ flexible and dialogic” (101). How does this challenge the conception of democracy in a capitalist society?
68. How does the book describe the general experience of housing for the working class under U.S. capitalism? What role does gentrification play in this scenario?
69. Discuss the dynamic history of public housing. What and why does this history point to in terms of a socialist future in the U.S.?
70. How will social housing rebuild communities? What evidence of this already exists even within some capitalist countries?
71. Discuss the immediate and long-term tasks of the National Housing Agency and it’s centralized, yet bottom-up, democratic structure.
72. What transportation challenges does the working-class face in capitalist America?
73. Why does the current capitalist government of the United States prioritize funding for road construction over mass transit?
74. How is transportation and the use of public space mediated in the U.S. by the violence of racist and imperialist objectives?
75. How will transportation be reformulated under socialism?
76. Why will abolishing the police be such a central component of the socialist reconstruction of transportation?
77. What role will local community councils and transportation councils play in this process?

Chapter 7

78. Discuss how the primary underlying cause of many of the most serious health issues in the U.S. is capitalism.
79. What are the negative effects of the medical-industrial complex?
80. What role will the People’s Health Administration play in meeting the people’s health needs and correcting systemic inequities and inequalities?
81. What will be the benefits of seizing the pharmaceutical industry and turning it into public property? What role will knowledge sharing play?
82. What is a socialist conception of health?
83. How do debt, evictions, etc. factor into a health-minded socialist America? How are all these seemingly separate issues, in other words, related?
84. What does the example of Cuba offer us here?
85. What will it mean to implement a program based on the view that food can be medicinal?
86. Discuss the broad categories of public health and the socialist response, including epidemics, the health risks associated with racism, and addiction in the U.S.
87. Given the explosion of mental health issues in the neoliberal era, what are the main distinguishing features of mainstream capitalist approaches to addressing mental illness versus a socialist approach?
88. Explain each of the Offices of the People’s Health Administration and discuss their significance for life in socialist America.

Chapter 8

89. How is the U.S. education system described? What are identified as the primary challenges? In what ways is the extreme inequality of society reflected in education?
90. What is the “hidden curriculum” and how does it factor into the purpose of schooling in capitalist America?
91. What is the vision offered for a socialist purpose of education?
92. How will the relationship between teachers and students be transformed in a socialist education system?
93. Discuss Cuba’s literacy campaign as an example to follow in a socialist U.S.
94. How will career guidance be reformulated in a socialist education system?
95. How will the experience of education be different for formally oppressed groups in the U.S.?
96. What role will adult education play in U.S. socialism?
97. How will concepts like universal design and learning infrastructures inform the construction of a new socialist education system in the U.S.?

Chapter 9

98. What is the purpose of the police in capitalism?
99. What will replace the police in a socialist America?
100. Discuss the 3 principles that will likely inform a new legal code under socialism in the U.S.
101. What would a participatory public safety model look like? What type of outcomes are these processes likely to lead to?
102. Why will it be important to separate drug addiction and crime in a new socialist government?
103. How will domestic violence, sexual assault and harassment, and femicide be addressed?
104. How will prisons be phased out?
105. How will counterrevolution be dealt with?
106. What does it mean to say “the withering away of the state” and why can’t it be foreseen when it will happen? That is, why don’t we know how long it will take for socialism to be replaced by communism?

Chapter 10

107. Why is endless war so interwoven with capitalism?
108. What is the price and what is the cost of war?
109. What evidence exists for the Pentagon pushing for the next world war?
110. Discuss the process of dismantling U.S. imperialism.
111. What might a new era in international peace and solidarity look like? What types of institutions and relationships among countries would prevail?

Conclusion

112. What final thoughts are we left with in terms of understanding the revolutionary process and our role in the present moment?