The following text is a review of different experiences teaching socialism as a way to think critically about the world. Starting from the original 19th-century texts, it discusses the way in which ...socialists drew the contours of a better, more just, less unequal, less oppressive society, as well as the contradictions and limits of these projects, in particular by looking at the recent choices that socialist leaders have made in Europe. Working with a recent historiography that is more interested in practices and implementations than in theoretical debates, the essay also reflects on the successes obtained but also on possible drifts and failures. Socialism as it has been conceived and practiced in the wake of European industrialization does not offer a ready-made solution to the problems of our time, but the plurality of socialist projects and practices opens avenues for rethinking our world.
This contribution analyses, from a historical perspective, the ways in which the International Labour Organization has been able to affirm and fulfil the mission entrusted to it in 1919: to represent ...the worlds of labour and promote social justice in a universal way. It shows that, from its inception, the Organization has been locked in a fundamental contradiction between the promise of social justice and the decommodification of labour that this promise expresses, on the one hand, and the Organization’s role as a social agent of economic globalisation, on the other. This tension increased after the Second World War, in the context of the Cold War and decolonisation.
Cette contribution analyse, dans une perspective historique, les modalités selon lesquelles l’Organisation internationale du travail a pu affirmer et remplir la mission qui lui a été confiée en ...1919 : représenter les mondes du travail et promouvoir la justice sociale de manière universelle. Elle montre que l’organisation s’est, dès sa création, enferrée dans une contradiction fondamentale entre la promesse de justice sociale et de démarchandisation du travail qu’elle formule et incarne et son rôle d’agence sociale de la mondialisation économique. Cette tension s’est amplifiée après la Seconde Guerre mondiale, dans le contexte de la guerre froide et de la décolonisation.
Planning in Cold War Europe Christian, Michel; Kott, Sandrine; Matejka, Ondrej
2018, 2018-10-08, Letnik:
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eBook
The idea of planning economy and engineering social life has often been linked with Communist regimes' will of control. However, the persuasion that social and economic processes could and should be ...regulated was by no means limited to them. Intense debates on these issues developed already during the First World War in Europe and became globalized during the World Economic crisis. During the Cold War, such discussions fuelled competition between two models of economic and social organisation but they also revealed the convergences and complementarities between them. This ambiguity, so often overlooked in histories of the Cold War, represents the central issue of the book organized around three axes. First, it highlights how know-how on planning circulated globally and were exchanged by looking at international platforms and organizations. The volume then closely examines specificities of planning ideas and projects in the Communist and Capitalist World. Finally, it explores East-West channels generated by exchanges around issues of planning which functioned irrespective of the Iron Curtain and were exported in developing countries. The volume thus contributes to two fields undergoing a process of profound reassessment: the history of modernisation and of the Cold War.
When the Second World War ended, Europe was in ruins. Yet, politically and socially, the years between 1943 and 1947 were a time of dramatic reconfigurations, which proved to be foundational for the ...making of today's Europe. This volume hones in on the crucial period from the beginning of the end of Nazi rule in Europe to the advent of the Cold War. Through a series of interrelated case studies that span the entire continent, it demonstrates how the everyday experiences of Europeans during these five years shaped the transition of their societies from war to peace. The authors explore these reconfigurations on different scales and levels -the local and regional, the ethnic and national, and the international - with the purpose of enhancing our understanding of how wars end.
Welchen Platz nehmen die Kämpfe von Gewerkschaften und anderen sozialen Bewegungen in der kollektiven Erinnerung ein? Wie ist es um deren Errungenschaften bestellt? Was stärkt die Werte sozialer ...Demokratie in der Erinnerungskultur? Die Beiträger*innen des Bandes bieten erstmals ausführliche Einblicke in die Erinnerungsgeschichte sozialer Kämpfe und Auseinandersetzungen um Gleichheit, Freiheit und Gerechtigkeit. An wen oder an was erinnert wurde, erweist sich dabei immer auch als Machtfrage, als Kampf um Inklusion und Exklusion. Dieser Band stellt somit nicht nur einen ersten Schritt auf dem Weg zu einer Erinnerungsgeschichte sozialer Demokratie dar, sondern leistet auch einen Beitrag zur politischen Debatte der Gegenwart.
In the slipstream of the Black Lives Matter movement in the United States, there has been a global mobilisation around monuments and statues of famous figures involved in the slave trade and European ...colonial conquest. In former colonial states – such as France and Britain – and states shaped by the legacies of slavery – such as the United States – activists have defaced, damaged or torn down monuments associated with these contested pasts. This is hardly a novelty. The destruction of physical symbols is often a response to regime change. But, in this case, the mobilisation has taken a different form. Instead of legitimising a new regime and new elites, the destruction of monuments is part of a demand for justice from historically marginalised groups who are seeking to reclaim their heritage. The deconstruction of these monuments automatically entails the deconstruction of dominant national narratives that have contributed to such marginalisation.
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