Download or read book Pleasures in Socialism written by David Crowley and published by Northwestern University Press. This book was released on 2010-10-31 with total page 357 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This volume shows how the rise of consumer culture took a unique form in Eastern Europe. It investigates the ways in which pleasurable activities were both a space in which these communist governments tried to insinuate themselves and thereby further expand the reach of their authority.
Download or read book Why Women Have Better Sex Under Socialism written by Kristen R. Ghodsee and published by Bold Type Books. This book was released on 2018-11-20 with total page 184 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A spirited, deeply researched exploration of why capitalism is bad for women and how, when done right, socialism leads to economic independence, better labor conditions, better work-life balance and, yes, even better sex. In a witty, irreverent op-ed piece that went viral, Kristen Ghodsee argued that women had better sex under socialism. The response was tremendous — clearly she articulated something many women had sensed for years: the problem is with capitalism, not with us. Ghodsee, an acclaimed ethnographer and professor of Russian and East European Studies, spent years researching what happened to women in countries that transitioned from state socialism to capitalism. She argues here that unregulated capitalism disproportionately harms women, and that we should learn from the past. By rejecting the bad and salvaging the good, we can adapt some socialist ideas to the 21st century and improve our lives. She tackles all aspects of a woman's life - work, parenting, sex and relationships, citizenship, and leadership. In a chapter called "Women: Like Men, But Cheaper," she talks about women in the workplace, discussing everything from the wage gap to harassment and discrimination. In "What To Expect When You're Expecting Exploitation," she addresses motherhood and how "having it all" is impossible under capitalism. Women are standing up for themselves like never before, from the increase in the number of women running for office to the women's march to the long-overdue public outcry against sexual harassment. Interest in socialism is also on the rise -- whether it's the popularity of Bernie Sanders or the skyrocketing membership numbers of the Democratic Socialists of America. It's become increasingly clear to women that capitalism isn't working for us, and Ghodsee is the informed, lively guide who can show us the way forward.
Download or read book The Socialist Good Life written by Cristofer Scarboro and published by Indiana University Press. This book was released on 2020-06-02 with total page 237 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “First-class, rigorously researched, richly documented, and thought-provoking” essays on the consumer experience in socialist Eastern Europe (Graham H. Roberts, author of Material Culture in Russia and the USSR). As communist regimes denigrated Western countries for widespread unemployment and consumer excess, socialist Eastern European states simultaneously legitimized their power through their apparent ability to satisfy consumers’ needs. Moving beyond binaries of production and consumption, the essays collected here examine the lessons consumption studies can offer about ethnic and national identity and the role of economic expertise in shaping consumer behavior. From Polish VCRs to Ukrainian fashion boutiques, tropical fruits in the GDR to cinemas in Belgrade, The Socialist Good Life explores what consumption means in a worker state where communist ideology emphasizes collective needs over individual pleasures.
Download or read book The Socialist Good Life written by Cristofer Scarboro and published by Indiana University Press. This book was released on 2020-06-02 with total page 257 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: What does the good life mean in a "backward" place? As communist regimes denigrated widespread unemployment and consumer excess in Western countries, socialist Eastern European states simultaneously legitimized their power through their apparent ability to satisfy consumers' needs. Moving beyond binaries of production and consumption, the essays collected here examine the lessons consumption studies can offer about ethnic and national identity and the role of economic expertise in shaping consumer behavior. From Polish VCRs to Ukrainian fashion boutiques, tropical fruits in the GDR to cinemas in Belgrade, The Socialist Good Life explores what consumption means in a worker state where communist ideology emphasizes collective needs over individual pleasures.
Download or read book The Problem with Socialism written by Thomas DiLorenzo and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2016-07-18 with total page 256 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A book to challenge the status quo, spark a debate, and get people talking about the issues and questions we face as a country!
Download or read book Acid Communism written by Mark Fisher and published by Pattern Books. This book was released on 2020-09-10 with total page 72 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A short zine collecting an introduction to the concept by Matt Colquhoun that appeared in 'krisis journal for contemporary philosophy Issue 2, 2018: Marx from the Margins' and the unfinished introduction to the unfinished book on Acid Communism that Mark Fisher was working on before his death in 2017. "In this way ‘Acid’ is desire, as corrosive and denaturalising multiplicity, flowing through the multiplicities of communism itself to create alinguistic feedback loops; an ideological accelerator through which the new and previously unknown might be found in the politics we mistakenly think we already know, reinstantiating a politics to come." —Matt Colquhoun
Download or read book The Tyranny of Socialism written by Yves Guyot and published by . This book was released on 1894 with total page 316 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Socialist Escapes written by Cathleen M. Giustino and published by Berghahn Books. This book was released on 2013-03-30 with total page 294 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: During much of the Cold War, physical escape from countries in the Eastern Bloc was a nearly impossible act. There remained, however, possibilities for other socialist escapes, particularly time spent free from party ideology and the mundane routines of everyday life. The essays in this volume examine sites of socialist escapes, such as beaches, campgrounds, nightclubs, concerts, castles, cars, and soccer matches. The chapters explore the effectiveness of state efforts to engineer society through leisure, entertainment, and related forms of cultural programming and consumption. They lead to a deeper understanding of state–society relations in the Soviet sphere, where the state did not simply "dictate from above" and inhabitants had some opportunities to shape solidarities, identities, and meaning.
Download or read book The Socialist Car written by Lewis H. Siegelbaum and published by Cornell University Press. This book was released on 2013-04-18 with total page 256 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Across the Soviet Bloc, from the 1960s until the collapse of communism, the automobile exemplified the tension between the ideological imperatives of political authorities and the aspirations of ordinary citizens. For the latter, the automobile was the ticket to personal freedom and a piece of the imagined consumer paradise of the West. For the authorities, the personal car was a private, mobile space that challenged the most basic assumptions of the collectivity. The "socialist car"-and the car culture that built up around it-was the result of an always unstable compromise between official ideology, available resources, and the desires of an increasingly restless citizenry. In The Socialist Car, eleven scholars from Europe and North America explore in vivid detail the interface between the motorcar and the state socialist countries of Eastern Europe, including the USSR. In addition to the metal, glass, upholstery, and plastic from which the Ladas, Dacias, Trabants, and other still extant but aging models were fabricated, the socialist car embodied East Europeans' longings and compromises, hopes and disappointments. The socialist car represented both aspirations of overcoming the technological gap between the capitalist first and socialist second worlds and dreams of enhancing personal mobility and status. Certain features of automobility-shortages and privileges, waiting lists and lack of readily available credit, the inadequacy of streets and highways-prevailed across the Soviet Bloc. In this collective history, the authors put aside both ridicule and nostalgia in the interest of trying to understand the socialist car in its own context.
Download or read book Gender Pleasure and Violence written by Agnieszka Kościańska and published by Indiana University Press. This book was released on 2021-01-01 with total page 268 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Behind the Iron Curtain, the politics of sexuality and gender were, in many ways, more progressive than the West. While Polish citizens undoubtedly suffered under the oppressive totalitarianism of socialism, abortion was legal, clear laws protected victims of rape, and it was relatively easy to legally change one's gender. In Gender, Pleasure, and Violence, Agnieszka Kościańska reveals that sexologists—experts such as physicians, therapists, and educators—not only treated patients but also held sex education classes at school, published regular columns in the press, and authored highly popular sex manuals that sold millions of copies. Yet strict gender roles within the home meant that true equality was never fully within reach. Drawing on interviews, participant observation, and archival work, Kościańska shares how professions like sexologists defined the notions of sexual pleasure and sexual violence under these sweeping cultural changes. By tracing the study of sexual human behavior as it was developed and professionalized in Poland since the 1960s, Gender, Pleasure, and Violence explores how the collapse of socialism brought both restrictions in gender rights and new opportunities.
Download or read book On the Social Life of Postsocialism written by Daphne Berdahl and published by Indiana University Press. This book was released on 2010 with total page 193 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Anthropologist Daphne Berdahl was one of the leading scholars of the transition from state socialism to capitalism in central and eastern Europe. From her pathbreaking ethnography of a former East German border village in the aftermath of German reunification, to her insightful analyses of consumption, nostalgia, and citizenship in the early 21st century, Berdahl's writings probe the contradictions, paradoxes, and ambiguities of postsocialism as few observers have done. This volume brings together her essays, from an early study of memory at the Vietnam War memorial in Washington, D.C., to research on consumption and citizenship undertaken in Leipzig in the years before her untimely death. It serves as a superb introduction to the development of the field of postsocialist cultural studies.
Download or read book Markets in the Name of Socialism written by Johanna Bockman and published by Stanford University Press. This book was released on 2011-07-26 with total page 352 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The worldwide spread of neoliberalism has transformed economies, polities, and societies everywhere. In conventional accounts, American and Western European economists, such as Milton Friedman and Friedrich von Hayek, sold neoliberalism by popularizing their free-market ideas and radical criticisms of the state. Rather than focusing on the agency of a few prominent, conservative economists, Markets in the Name of Socialism reveals a dialogue among many economists on both sides of the Iron Curtain about democracy, socialism, and markets. These discussions led to the transformations of 1989 and, unintentionally, the rise of neoliberalism. This book takes a truly transnational look at economists' professional outlook over 100 years across the capitalist West and the socialist East. Clearly translating complicated economic ideas and neoliberal theories, it presents a significant reinterpretation of Cold War history, the fall of communism, and the rise of today's dominant economic ideology.
Download or read book Nowa Huta written by Kinga Pozniak and published by University of Pittsburgh Press. This book was released on 2014-11-07 with total page 408 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In 1949 construction of the planned town of Nowa Huta began on the outskirts of Kraków, Poland. Its centerpiece, the Lenin Steelworks, promised a secure future for workers and their families. By the 1980s, however, the rise of the Solidarity movement and the ensuing shock therapy program of the early 1990s rapidly transitioned the country from socialism to a market-based economy, and Nowa Huta fell on hard times. Kinga Pozniak shows how the remarkable political, economic, and social upheavals since the end of the Second World War have profoundly shaped the historical memory of these events in the minds of the people who lived through them. Through extensive interviews, she finds three distinct, generationally based framings of the past. Those who built the town recall the might of local industry and plentiful jobs. The following generation experienced the uprisings of the 1980s and remembers the repression and dysfunction of the socialist system and their resistance to it. Today’s generation has no direct experience with either socialism or Solidarity, yet as residents of Nowa Huta they suffer the stigma of lower-class stereotyping and marginalization from other Poles. Pozniak examines the factors that lead to the rewriting of history and the formation of memory, and the use of history to sustain current political and economic agendas. She finds that despite attempts to create a single, hegemonic vision of the past and a path for the future, these discourses are always contested—a dynamic that, for the residents of Nowa Huta, allows them to adapt as their personal experience tells them.
Download or read book Markets and Socialism written by Alec Nove and published by . This book was released on 1994 with total page 592 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: These extracts concern the relationship between market and plan, or how to organize an economy to best satisfy demands for efficiency, compassion and freedom. Beginning with Karl Marx, this volume presents the non-market, market and mixed market models. It includes the socialist calculation debate and the experiences of Russia, East-Central Europe, Sweden, the US and China.
Download or read book The Naked Socialist written by Paul B. Skousen and published by Izzard Ink. This book was released on 2014-05-26 with total page 422 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Naked Socialist is the real story of socialism. Complete, easy to read, no jargon, well documented, and gives a fascinating look at the raw decay of culture and economy now at work in America. It also provides a beautifully described explanation of the lasting principles of prosperity and constitutional freedoms that must be restored relatively quickly. The Naked Socialist strips away the fakery, the false hopes, the hollow dreams, and the meaningless promises that socialists have foisted on countless millions---not just for the present, but over thousands of years. With clear, brief, and step-by-step examples and anecdotes, the author explains what socialism is, where it came from, how it works, how to recognize it, and why it always destroys its host nation. You will learn that the Seven Pillars of Socialism are not at all new, but a phenomenon that first appeared more than 6,000 years ago---and why socialism managed to mushroom in nations and cultures right up into today’s current events. The Naked Socialist is divided into five parts: 1) Gaining an understanding of what socialism is, 2) How it has appeared in human history, 3) The miracle that stopped socialism, 4) The corruption of that miracle, and, 5) The steps to return that miracle to America and the rest of the world today. Included throughout the book are several questions to teach, test and emphasize important points so that students of freedom may see where this nation needs to move to regain its lost liberties. The Naked Socialist fulfills an urgent need to answer such questions as, • How much of the U.S. Constitution has been replaced with socialism? • What is socialism, and why does it eventually ruin everything it touches? • How did the Founding Fathers specifically make socialism illegal? • How did socialism destroy Rome, the ancient Inca, Jamestown, and Plymouth? Are these same patterns of demise at work today? • Which U.S. presidents socialized America, and what steps did they take to do it? Are these reversible? • How is socialism hurting other nations around the globe? • What are the best examples of socialism in action today? • What are the Seven Pillars of Socialism? • How can people learn to recognize socialism in their midst, or, learn if they're thinking like a socialist? • What are the 46 goals of socialism? • What will it take to eradicate socialism once and for all? The study of freedom breathes hope and encouragement into all things---it sheds light into the dark corners of deception and conspiracy, showing that truth is the only authentic “transparency.” Once socialism is stripped naked, those badly needed answers to restore freedom will materialize for everyone’s benefit. Find those answers, plus hope and courage, in the pages of The Naked Socialist. Reviews "The Naked Socialist is going to be explosive! When people know what Paul Skousen is talking about, and really get to the heart of socialism, The Naked Socialist is going to go VIRAL." --George Jarkesy, Host of the nationally syndicated "The George Jarkesy Radio Show" "The Naked Socialist is an amazing book that provides clarity to what is going on in the socialist world and why Americans do not seem to get socialism!" -Howard Stephenson, Utah State Senator, President of the Utah Taxpayers Association and Host of Red Meat Radio "The Naked Socialist is one of those books that is both an interesting read, as well as a useful reference book. Paul Skousen's research is insightful and thorough, spanning many civilizations and continents. He not only strips socialism of its clothing, he also provides us with great ideas for fighting this scourge. This is a MUST READ for anyone who wants to know how our country arrived where it is today." -Stefan Bartelski, Radio Host of the "Patriot Come Lately Show" "The Naked Socialist connects the ancient order of oppression with the modern order of oppression. The Naked Socialist is a fabulous book and we need to get everyone to read it NOW!" --Morgan Philpot, Host of "Philpot Radio" and former member of the Utah House of Representatives As a retired University Professor, I have spent many hours over the years doing research. "The Naked Socialist" will be a gold mine for anyone presently researching the Socialist inroads in America! It is the most complete and heavily documented work I have ever read, yet can be read straight though as an intriguing historical novel. --James C. Bowers, Sc.D., Author of "The Naked Truth: The Naked Communist Revisited"
Download or read book Women in the Khrushchev Era written by M. Ilic and published by Springer. This book was released on 2004-02-27 with total page 254 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This collection of essays examines women in the Khrushchev era, using both newly-accessible archival material and a re-reading of published sources. Exploring diverse subjects including housing, space flight, women workers, cinema, religion and consumption, the volume places the analysis of specific events or issues within a broader discussion of economic, political, ideological and international developments to provide a full analysis of the era.
Download or read book Socialist Cosmopolitanism written by Nicolai Volland and published by Columbia University Press. This book was released on 2017-03-28 with total page 315 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Socialist Cosmopolitanism offers an innovative interpretation of literary works from the Mao era that reads Chinese socialist literature as world literature. As Nicolai Volland demonstrates, after 1949 China engaged with the world beyond its borders in a variety of ways and on many levels—politically, economically, and culturally. Far from rejecting the worldliness of earlier eras, the young People's Republic developed its own cosmopolitanism. Rather than a radical break with the past, Chinese socialist literature should be seen as an integral and important chapter in China's long search to find a place within world literature. Socialist Cosmopolitanism revisits a range of genres, from poetry and land reform novels to science fiction and children's literature, and shows how Chinese writers and readers alike saw their own literary production as part of a much larger literary universe. This literary space, reaching from Beijing to Berlin, from Prague to Pyongyang, from Warsaw to Moscow to Hanoi, allowed authors and texts to travel, reinventing the meaning of world literature. Chinese socialist literature was not driven solely by politics but by an ambitious—but ultimately doomed—attempt to redraw the literary world map.
