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Can capitalism be reformed? Or does it have to be smashed? This is an age-old question that has generated much discussion, debate, and disagreement on the left. In this episode of our Patreon reading series, Della joins Robert to discuss these questions within the context of a Jacobin piece written by the late Erik Olin Wright, "How to Be an Anticaptialist Today."

Can capitalism be tamed? Can it be eroded? Can it be escaped? Or must it be smashed? In exploring and answering these questions, Della and Robert cover a wide variety of topics from historical materialism, Marxism, Leninism, anarchism, prefigurative politics, and much, much more. We synthesize learnings from many of our recent episodes, explore how we've developed in our analysis since some of our older episodes, bring in explorations of history and theory, and explore what has changed and shifted in the last decade of capitalism in the West.

Further resources:

"How to e an Anticapitalist Today," Erik Olin Wright
Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance: An Inquiry into Values, Robert Pirsig
The Long Transition Towards Socialism and the End of Capitalism, Torkil Lauesen
The State and Revolution, V. I. Lenin
The Revolutionary Science of Marxism-Leninism, Joshua Sykes

Related epsides:

Socialism Betrayed, Behind the Collapse of the Soviet Union

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