What if “socialism” is not a prefigured identity to aspire to, but a culmination of effects produced through the struggle to reshape society itself? In his latest work, Kolya Ludwig revisits the left’s misunderstanding of political subjectivity and its implications for socialist strategy, drawing on Ernesto Laclau’s theory of populism.

Nithya Raman has won the official endorsement of DSA-LA following weeks of contentious yet constructive debate in Geese by both sides of the question. J. Ryder argues that the entire chapter should now mobilize and unite under a permanent campaign to build a socialist pole in LA and defeat Karen Bass to meet the crucial challenges ahead against the establishment.

Beginning 12 years ago today, /leftypol/ carved out a distinct niche in internet politics. The board was often vulgarly Marxist, alienating to women and people of color, and blind to the true nature of class struggle in America. Yet, it proved to be a disruptively crucial incubator for a generation of budding socialists. JJ Christensen asks what can be made of its history and legacy more than a decade on?

Few concepts within Marxism are as contested as the idea that, once the relations of production arise, a whole world of ideology, consciousness, institutions, and norms follows. Understood through the Base/Superstructure metaphor, this idea has been contested and expanded by a wide range of Marxists, from György Lukács to Theodor Adorno. Devin G. proposes a different approach. Rather than accepting any sort of deterministic framework, communists should revisit Marx’s more general ‘mode of production’ thesis as a synoptic, fluid totality based on human activity.