Rebuilding the left/ Marta Harnecker

Part I The Left and the New World 5
1 Profound Changes in the World 7
A unit in real time on a planetary scale 8
The internationalisation of the production process 8
The nature of the state changes but its role is not reduced 12
The communications revolution in the service of capital 19
Fragmenting strategy 22
The military danger 23
The phenomenon of imperialism has not disappeared, but has taken on new forms 25
2 Profound Discontent among Much of Humankind 27
Decline in the standard of living 28
The new international cycle 29
3 Towards the Creation of an Alternative Social Bloc 32
The need to rebuild the Left so that it can become the glue that sticks the social opposition together 32
Building a broad anti-neo-liberal social and political bloc 34
Capitalist sectors in direct contradiction to the transnationals 35
Part II The Crises of 'Party' and Why We Need a New Left Political Culture 37
4 Crisis of Theory 39
Threefold origin 39
A crisis of Marxism doesn't mean we have to deny Marx's contributions 41
5 Programmatic Crisis and the Crisis of Credibility 42
No plan for an alternative to capitalism 42
Crisis of the credibility of politics and politicians 43
6 The Organic Crisis 45
There is no political subject equal to the new challenges 45
How copying the Bolshevik model led to deviations 46
Other mistakes and deviations 50
7 The Theory Underlying This Concept of Party 56
Some explanation for these errors: Kautsky's thesis 56
How this is reflected in the conception of the revolutionary party 63
8 Politics as the Art of Making the Impossible Possible 66
Is it possible to come up with an alternative? 66
Politics cannot be defined as the art of the possible 67
Utopian goals: a source of inspiration 70
Changing the traditional vision of politics 70
Overcoming the narrow definition of power 71
Politics as the art of building a social force in opposition to the system 71
9 Why We Need a Political Organisation 73
The effects of the ruling ideology 74
Manufacturing consent 74
Direct knowledge and indirect knowledge 76
Drawing up a social project that is an alternative to capitalism 77
The need to give millions of people a single will 78
Part III The New Political Instrument 81
10 The Characteristics of the New Political Instrument 83
Understanding the importance of social practice for creating consciousness 83
An organisation immersed in society 84
Overcoming hegemonism 86
Creating a new relationship with the popular movement 87
No more workerism 90
A body to coordinate all the different emancipatory social practices 91
Democracy: the cause to champion 91
An organisation which is the harbinger of the new society 91
11 A New Paradigm for Internal Organisation 100
Unite your members around a community of values and a concrete programme 100
Contemplating different kinds of membership 101
Giving up authoritarian methods 104
There is no political effectiveness without unified leadership 105
A political organisation for those exploited and excluded by capitalism 112
A political organisation which is not naive but is preparing itself for any eventuality 112
New internationalist practice for the globalised world 114
Part IV From Reforms to Revolution: The Bolivarian Revolutionary Process 115
12 Local Governments: Signposts to an Alternative Path 117
The problem of knowing how to govern 119
The party's weakness vis-a-vis the government 120
The bureaucratic apparatus and how to contend with it 122
Popular participation in the government 125
The participatory budget: the key to participation and politicisation 126
13 The Left and Reform 130
Has the Left become reformist? 130
Varieties of reformism 132
Specific challenges in the election arena 136
A creative approach to the a-legal 138
14 The Bolivarian Revolution
Is It a Revolution? 139
The state takes the initiative in changing the rules of the game and creating spaces for participation 139
Participation and human development in the Bolivarian Constitution 140
The communal councils: local spaces ideal for allowing everyone to participate 140
Encouraging worker participation 145
The state from a revolutionary perspective 149
On the political instrument that could move these ideas forward 149.