Vishwas Satgar – författare

In Challenging Inequality in South Africa: Transitional Compasses leading scholars of South Africa explore creative possibilities to challenge structures of economic, social and political power that produce inequality. Through concrete empirical examples of movements, workers’ struggles, initiatives, and politics in challenging inequality, the authors illustrate ‘transitional compasses’ that go beyond protest politics to a ‘generative’ politics, a politics of building the alternatives in the interstitial spaces of capitalism. The conceptual framing is oriented around the way in which power is produced and reproduced through intricate relationships between hegemonic projects and everyday life. While power underpins all social relations, it is often taken for granted, as it is frequently hidden behind other social relations. Resistance to power emerges through engendering counter-hegemonic projects that are intertwined with alternative everyday practices. The authors highlight sources of alternative forms of power found in resistance to dominant forms of power through concrete experiences to create transformative alternatives. To concretize the conceptual framing, the authors look at the emancipatory possibilities of a universal basic income, the use of law in tackling inequality in health and education, creative initiatives to establish a people-centred food system through food sovereignty, new forms of organizing led by precarious workers, democratic possibilities in local state delivery, and attempts at reconceptualizing the good life by looking at issues of happiness and ecosocialism.The chapters in this book were originally published in the journal, Globalizations.

In Challenging Inequality in South Africa: Transitional Compasses leading scholars of South Africa explore creative possibilities to challenge structures of economic, social and political power that produce inequality. Through concrete empirical examples of movements, workers’ struggles, initiatives, and politics in challenging inequality, the authors illustrate ‘transitional compasses’ that go beyond protest politics to a ‘generative’ politics, a politics of building the alternatives in the interstitial spaces of capitalism. The conceptual framing is oriented around the way in which power is produced and reproduced through intricate relationships between hegemonic projects and everyday life. While power underpins all social relations, it is often taken for granted, as it is frequently hidden behind other social relations. Resistance to power emerges through engendering counter-hegemonic projects that are intertwined with alternative everyday practices. The authors highlight sources of alternative forms of power found in resistance to dominant forms of power through concrete experiences to create transformative alternatives. To concretize the conceptual framing, the authors look at the emancipatory possibilities of a universal basic income, the use of law in tackling inequality in health and education, creative initiatives to establish a people-centred food system through food sovereignty, new forms of organizing led by precarious workers, democratic possibilities in local state delivery, and attempts at reconceptualizing the good life by looking at issues of happiness and ecosocialism.The chapters in this book were originally published in the journal, Globalizations.

Capitalism’s crisis is planetary. It is a system upending nature and society, causing many to live and work in despair. So far, the left has been incapable of inspiring an effective challenge to it. In Worker Cooperatives and Deep Democracy, Vishwas Satgar and Michelle Williams map a new transformative politics arising from inspiring worker cooperative systems that advance planetary care from below and which have the potential to undermine the capitalist status quo.Based on over a decade of research across 15 countries, the authors examine case studies that explore transformative approaches to social reproduction, public power, nature and territorial expansion in opposition to global hegemonic power.They also uncover the power of solidarities engendering emancipatory, utopian imaginaries in the global north and south. They show how, against all the odds, people are experimenting with deep democracy and building systems of care to live differently and exit the planetary crisis.

Essays that address the question: how can people and class agency change this destructive course of history?Capitalism's addiction to fossil fuels is heating our planet at a pace and scale never before experienced. Extreme weather patterns, rising sea levels and accelerating feedback loops are a commonplace feature of our lives. The number of environmental refugees is increasing and several island states and low-lying countries are becoming vulnerable. Corporate-induced climate change has set us on an ecocidal path of species extinction. Governments and their international platforms such as the Paris Climate Agreement deliver too little, too late. Most states, including South Africa, continue on their carbon-intensive energy paths, with devastating results. Political leaders across the world are failing to provide systemic solutions to the climate crisis. This is the context in which we must ask ourselves: how can people and class agency change this destructive course of history? Volume three in the Democratic Marxism series, The Climate Crisis investigates eco-socialist alternatives that are emerging. It presents the thinking of leading climate justice activists, campaigners and social movements advancing systemic alternatives and developing bottom-up, just transitions to sustain life. Through a combination of theoretical and empirical work, the authors collectively examine the challenges and opportunities inherent in the current moment. This volume builds on the class-struggle focus of Volume 2 by placing ecological issues at the centre of democratic Marxism. Most importantly, it explores ways to renew historical socialism with democratic, eco-socialist alternatives to meet current challenges in South Africa and the world.

Racism after Apartheid, volume four of the Democratic Marxism series, brings together leading scholars and activists from around the world studying and challenging racismIn eleven thematically rich and conceptually informed chapters, the contributors interrogate the complex nexus of questions surrounding race and relations of oppression as they are played out in the global South and global North. Their work challenges Marxism and anti-racism to take these lived realities seriously and consistently struggle to build human solidarities.

Racism after Apartheid, volume four of the Democratic Marxism series, brings together leading scholars and activists from around the world studying and challenging racismIn eleven thematically rich and conceptually informed chapters, the contributors interrogate the complex nexus of questions surrounding race and relations of oppression as they are played out in the global South and global North. Their work challenges Marxism and anti-racism to take these lived realities seriously and consistently struggle to build human solidarities.

Challenges the mainstream understanding of BRICS and US dominance to situate the new global rivalries engulfing capitalismBRICS is a grouping of the five major emerging economies of Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa. Volume five in the Democratic Marxism series, BRICS and the New American Imperialism challenges the mainstream understanding of BRICS and US dominance to situate the new global rivalries engulfing capitalism. It offers novel analyses of BRICS in the context of increasing US induced imperial chaos, deepening environmental crisis tendencies (such as climate change and water scarcity), contradictory dynamics inside BRICS countries and growing subaltern resistance. The authors revisit contemporary thinking on imperialism and anti-imperialism, drawing on the work of Rosa Luxemburg, one of the leading theorists after Marx, who attempted to understand the expansionary nature of capitalism from the heartlands to the peripheries. The richness of Luxemburg's pioneering work inspires most of the volume's contributors in their analyses of the dangerous contradictions of the contemporary world as well as forms of democratic agency advancing resistance.While various forms of resistance are highlighted, among them water protests, mass worker strikes, anti-corporate campaigning and forms of cultural critique, this volume grapples with the challenge of renewing anti-imperialism beyond the NGO-driven World Social Forum and considers the prospects of a new horizontal political vessel to build global convergence. It also explores the prospects of a Fifth International of Peoples and Workers.

Challenges the mainstream understanding of BRICS and US dominance to situate the new global rivalries engulfing capitalismBRICS is a grouping of the five major emerging economies of Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa. Volume five in the Democratic Marxism series, BRICS and the New American Imperialism challenges the mainstream understanding of BRICS and US dominance to situate the new global rivalries engulfing capitalism. It offers novel analyses of BRICS in the context of increasing US induced imperial chaos, deepening environmental crisis tendencies (such as climate change and water scarcity), contradictory dynamics inside BRICS countries and growing subaltern resistance. The authors revisit contemporary thinking on imperialism and anti-imperialism, drawing on the work of Rosa Luxemburg, one of the leading theorists after Marx, who attempted to understand the expansionary nature of capitalism from the heartlands to the peripheries. The richness of Luxemburg's pioneering work inspires most of the volume's contributors in their analyses of the dangerous contradictions of the contemporary world as well as forms of democratic agency advancing resistance.While various forms of resistance are highlighted, among them water protests, mass worker strikes, anti-corporate campaigning and forms of cultural critique, this volume grapples with the challenge of renewing anti-imperialism beyond the NGO-driven World Social Forum and considers the prospects of a new horizontal political vessel to build global convergence. It also explores the prospects of a Fifth International of Peoples and Workers.

A history of the erosion of democracy across the globeDemocracy is being destroyed. This is a crisis that expresses itself in the rising authoritarianism visible in divisive and exclusionary politics, populist political parties and movements, increased distrust in fact-based information and news, and the withering accountability of state institutions. Over the last four decades, democracy has radically shifted to a market democracy in which all aspects of human, non-human and planetary life are commodified, with corporations becoming more powerful than states and their citizens. This is how neoliberal capitalism functions at a systemic level and if left unchecked, is the greatest threat to democracy and a sustainable planet.Volume six of the Democratic Marxism series focuses on how decades of neoliberal capitalism have eroded the global democratic project and how, in the process, authoritarian politics are gaining ground. Scholars and activists from the political left focus on four country cases – India, Brazil, South Africa and the United States of America – in which the COVID-19 pandemic has fuelled and highlighted the pre-existing crisis. They interrogate issues of politics, ecology, state security, media, access to information and political parties, and affirm the need to reclaim and re-build an expansive and inclusive democracy.Destroying Democracy is an invaluable resource for the general public, activists, scholars and students who are interested in understanding the threats to democracy and the rising tide of authoritarianism in the global south and the global north.

A history of the erosion of democracy across the globeDemocracy is being destroyed. This is a crisis that expresses itself in the rising authoritarianism visible in divisive and exclusionary politics, populist political parties and movements, increased distrust in fact-based information and news, and the withering accountability of state institutions. Over the last four decades, democracy has radically shifted to a market democracy in which all aspects of human, non-human and planetary life are commodified, with corporations becoming more powerful than states and their citizens. This is how neoliberal capitalism functions at a systemic level and if left unchecked, is the greatest threat to democracy and a sustainable planet.Volume six of the Democratic Marxism series focuses on how decades of neoliberal capitalism have eroded the global democratic project and how, in the process, authoritarian politics are gaining ground. Scholars and activists from the political left focus on four country cases – India, Brazil, South Africa and the United States of America – in which the COVID-19 pandemic has fuelled and highlighted the pre-existing crisis. They interrogate issues of politics, ecology, state security, media, access to information and political parties, and affirm the need to reclaim and re-build an expansive and inclusive democracy.Destroying Democracy is an invaluable resource for the general public, activists, scholars and students who are interested in understanding the threats to democracy and the rising tide of authoritarianism in the global south and the global north.

This edited volume provides an eco-socialist feminist analysis of the current social reproduction debate in South Africa, outlining existing and African alternatives to mainstream liberal feminism.

This edited volume provides an eco-socialist feminist analysis of the current social reproduction debate in South Africa, outlining existing and African alternatives to mainstream liberal feminism.

The Fourth Industrial Revolution (4IR) has been described as the next big leap in digital capitalism. Digital technologies such as artificial intelligence, quantum computing, 3D printing and robotisation, we are led to believe, will bring more progress, growth and development while also helping us to resolve the deep and multiple crises the world is in. Billions are being invested in these technologies, accompanied by sharp geopolitical rivalries to secure an edge in the control over them. Volume 8 in the Democratic Marxism series invites readers to think more deeply and critically about digital capitalism and its limits. While most governments in the world, including South Africa, have accepted a techno-nationalist narrative and have deliberated on the risks for the planet and humanity, the volume interrogates the effects and consequences of advances in artificial intelligence and heightened technological innovation and industrialisation on employment, democracy and the climate. Viewing the grand social engineering of 4IR through a Marxist lens, the volume contributors engage critically with the class project of digital monopoly capitalism and its powerful totalitarian tendencies. They question the dangerous technotopian imaginary shaping this digital techno-shift, the implications of algorithmic data extractivism, the securitisation of already weak market democracies, the social consequences of digital learning, lack of regulation, and the power dynamics in the labour process. Anchored in techno-realism, the interdisciplinary perspective captured in this volume puts forward alternatives for democratisation and a just transition to protect human and non-human life.

The current resurgence of Marxism is based on new sources of inspiration and creativity from movements that seek democratic, egalitarian and ecological alternatives to capitalism. The Marxism of many of these movements is neither dogmatic nor prescriptive, but rather, open, searching, utopian. It revolves around four primary factors: the importance of democracy for an emancipatory project; the ecological limits of capitalism; the crisis of global capitalism; and the learning of lessons from the failures of Marxist-inspired experiments. Marxisms in the Twenty-First Century challenges vanguardist Marxism featured in South Africa and beyond. Featuring leading thinkers from the Left, the book offers provocative ideas on interpreting our current world and serves as an excellent introduction to new ways of thinking about Marxism to students and scholars in the field. Many anti-capitalist traditions and themes - including democracy, globalisation, feminism, critique and ecology inform and shape the contributions in this volume.

The contributors to this volume draw on a non-dogmatic Marxist approach to explain the systemic and conjunctural dynamics of crisis inherent in global capitalism. Their analysis asks what is historically specific to capitalism's crises while avoiding catastrophic or defeatist claims. At the same time the volume situates left agency within actual patterns of resistance and class struggle to clarify the potential for transformative change.The cycle of resistance strengthened by the World Socal Forum and transnational activism is now punctuated by the experience of the Arab Spring, the agency of anti-systemic movements, left think tanks, the Occupy Wall Street Movement, labour unions, left parties in Europe such as Syrizia and Podemos and peoples' budgeting in Kerala, India. On the down side, we are witnessing the waning of the Workers Party in Brazil and serious challenges for South Africa's once powerful labour movement and still formative social justice activism. All these developments are assessed in this volume.This is the second volume in the Democratic Marxism series. It elaborates on crucial themes introduced in the first volume, Marxism in the 21st Century: Crisis, Critique and Struggle (edited by Michelle Williams and Vishwas Satgar).

South Africa was the hope of the world. It had an impressive and rich tradition of left politics. At the heart of post-apartheid democracy-making was a revolutionary nationalist ANC, the oldest Communist Party in Africa, the SACP, and one of the most militant labour union federations in the world, COSATU. Yet, South Africa is at a crossroads and many are deeply concerned about its future. This book explains through a political economy/ecology analysis why and how the degeneration of national liberation politics has happened, while making praxis-centered arguments for a new transformative left politics.