Scan barcode
mcwyss's review
3.0
We Own The Future is a book that seems temporally specific to the wake of the Bernie 2020 campaign. It is basically a very well articulated set of policy proposals for a democratic socialist coalition to pass through the US Congress and municipalities. Unfortunately, Bernie was not elected and the likelihood of these reforms being enacted seems slim. Though, we could use these proposals for an outline of a campaign platform, or if a democratic socialist caucus does gain some power in the US, then we could look back at these proposals. This book was not terribly interesting to me and parts of it assumed democratic socialist governance in the US, something that is remote.
However, the afterword is well written and very interesting. I’m glad I finished this book solely because it means that I read that essay. It asks some questions that it leaves unanswered, such as the role of activists in the movement that only participate infrequently. And the essay is muddied by the conflation of citizenship in a socialist society and participation in a socialist movement, but overall it presents a good critique and the beginnings of a solution to lack of participation in socialist self-governance. What’s left less clear is how this problem is solved in currently existing socialist movements to overthrow capitalism. A democratic society can reproduce itself with only partial participation, but reproduction is wholly different from revolution. This is a discussion I find highly interesting, even if the author has no clear solutions.
Overall, though, the book is relatively uninteresting.
However, the afterword is well written and very interesting. I’m glad I finished this book solely because it means that I read that essay. It asks some questions that it leaves unanswered, such as the role of activists in the movement that only participate infrequently. And the essay is muddied by the conflation of citizenship in a socialist society and participation in a socialist movement, but overall it presents a good critique and the beginnings of a solution to lack of participation in socialist self-governance. What’s left less clear is how this problem is solved in currently existing socialist movements to overthrow capitalism. A democratic society can reproduce itself with only partial participation, but reproduction is wholly different from revolution. This is a discussion I find highly interesting, even if the author has no clear solutions.
Overall, though, the book is relatively uninteresting.
lucasmiller's review
4.0
Really enjoyed this. Purchased it with the intention of making it one of several optional summer reading books for high schoolers, might be to blunt for that, for now, but still think this is a very helpful anthology that tries to grapple with the multifaceted-ness of the left in America in 2020.
It takes a generous and ecumenical approach to defining Demsoc ideas and identity that feels very based in Dissent's history. I was particularly struck by the first essay on the history of American socialism co-authored by Michael Kazin, and the "Toward a Third Reconstruction Essay" that immediately followed it. The inclusion of a 1968 Michael Walzer essay is fitting and really seems to tie things up.
I'm new to all of this, and still learning all the time. This is a book that is really geared towards me. My more experienced and Sectarian friends will probably roll their eyes at it, but in a well meaning way.
It takes a generous and ecumenical approach to defining Demsoc ideas and identity that feels very based in Dissent's history. I was particularly struck by the first essay on the history of American socialism co-authored by Michael Kazin, and the "Toward a Third Reconstruction Essay" that immediately followed it. The inclusion of a 1968 Michael Walzer essay is fitting and really seems to tie things up.
I'm new to all of this, and still learning all the time. This is a book that is really geared towards me. My more experienced and Sectarian friends will probably roll their eyes at it, but in a well meaning way.
politizer's review
2.0
While I agree with most of the ideas in the book (which is not surprising, I'm a socialist), I didn't really find it useful and I'm not sure who it's meant to be for. I feel that the essays in this volume could be grouped into roughly three categories:
1. Preaching to the choir: essays that argue for things that anyone reading this book probably already agrees with. e.g., essays offering reasons why racial justice has to be part of a socialist platform, etc. I suspect that anyone who's been reading e.g. Jacobin for a couple years is not going to find anything new in these.
2. Vague platform pieces: essays that just assert that lots of things are important without explaining/arguing why. Like a political platform, some of them see to just be stating everything we stand for, without arguing why we should stand for them (per the above point, I think most readers of this book are already convinced why we should stand for it) or getting into details about how we can do it. This was probably the biggest chunk of the book, but the most prototypical example of this for me was essay by Flynn et al.
3. Useful and specific pieces: there were a few exceptions that actually gave concrete suggestions and where I actually learned new things. Of course, everyone has different backgrounds, so which essay teaches you new things will vary from reader to reader. For me, the essays by Darrick Hamilton and by Dorothy Roberts were the most enlightening ones; Hamilton had some concrete policy proposals and explained their importance and impact that I hadn't heard before, and Roberts had a compelling argument about the limitations of Medicare for All.
Those are my general criticisms. I would like to close with a few specific nitpicks about a couple of the pieces that are fresh in my mind.
Fiorentini: I have enjoyed some of her videos over the years and I agree with probably 99% of her essay, but ultimately the whole essay gets kind of ruined by the way she shits on certain artists. You can't both argue that art is not elitist and make snide remarks about Toby Keith being rednecky and "bad" art. I feel that an actual socialist proposal for public art would need to support all art—including art we don't like—rather than just supporting less-rednecky art.
Meyerson: His essay argues for the importance of socialists working in the Democratic party and poo-poos third parties, but he ignores any arguments for third parties. For example, he calls the DSA "the only socialist organization to have made an impact on American politics since the 1930s"—but just a few pages before that he touted Seattle's $15 minimum wage as having played an important role in making minimum wage a national issue, and that Seattle policy owes a lot to the work of Socialist Alternative and Kshama Sawant! Anyway, my point is, there may well be a good argument that working within the Democratic party is better than working outside it, but you can't make that argument if you simply ignore any counterarguments. Meyerson piles up several pieces of evidence for why working within the Democratic party is good, but does nothing to address the other side's arguments; I'm not sure I agree with the other side's arguments anyway, but those arguments do exist and need to be responded to. Look, I'm a teacher, and one of the things I have my students learn about is Wolcott & Lynch's "Thinking Performance Patterns", and piling up evidence for your side while ignoring the other side's arguments is the second-lowest level of critical thinking (out of five levels) in their framework.
1. Preaching to the choir: essays that argue for things that anyone reading this book probably already agrees with. e.g., essays offering reasons why racial justice has to be part of a socialist platform, etc. I suspect that anyone who's been reading e.g. Jacobin for a couple years is not going to find anything new in these.
2. Vague platform pieces: essays that just assert that lots of things are important without explaining/arguing why. Like a political platform, some of them see to just be stating everything we stand for, without arguing why we should stand for them (per the above point, I think most readers of this book are already convinced why we should stand for it) or getting into details about how we can do it. This was probably the biggest chunk of the book, but the most prototypical example of this for me was essay by Flynn et al.
3. Useful and specific pieces: there were a few exceptions that actually gave concrete suggestions and where I actually learned new things. Of course, everyone has different backgrounds, so which essay teaches you new things will vary from reader to reader. For me, the essays by Darrick Hamilton and by Dorothy Roberts were the most enlightening ones; Hamilton had some concrete policy proposals and explained their importance and impact that I hadn't heard before, and Roberts had a compelling argument about the limitations of Medicare for All.
Those are my general criticisms. I would like to close with a few specific nitpicks about a couple of the pieces that are fresh in my mind.
Fiorentini: I have enjoyed some of her videos over the years and I agree with probably 99% of her essay, but ultimately the whole essay gets kind of ruined by the way she shits on certain artists. You can't both argue that art is not elitist and make snide remarks about Toby Keith being rednecky and "bad" art. I feel that an actual socialist proposal for public art would need to support all art—including art we don't like—rather than just supporting less-rednecky art.
Meyerson: His essay argues for the importance of socialists working in the Democratic party and poo-poos third parties, but he ignores any arguments for third parties. For example, he calls the DSA "the only socialist organization to have made an impact on American politics since the 1930s"—but just a few pages before that he touted Seattle's $15 minimum wage as having played an important role in making minimum wage a national issue, and that Seattle policy owes a lot to the work of Socialist Alternative and Kshama Sawant! Anyway, my point is, there may well be a good argument that working within the Democratic party is better than working outside it, but you can't make that argument if you simply ignore any counterarguments. Meyerson piles up several pieces of evidence for why working within the Democratic party is good, but does nothing to address the other side's arguments; I'm not sure I agree with the other side's arguments anyway, but those arguments do exist and need to be responded to. Look, I'm a teacher, and one of the things I have my students learn about is Wolcott & Lynch's "Thinking Performance Patterns", and piling up evidence for your side while ignoring the other side's arguments is the second-lowest level of critical thinking (out of five levels) in their framework.
More...