Concepts: radical humanism, post-growth, neosocialism?

With the experience of Stalinism, the implosion of state socialism and the failure of various socialist experiments in the global South in mind, does it still make sense to hold on to the S-word? The author answers this question with a resounding yes. This chapter provides the reasoning. To dispense with the concept of socialism, it is argued here, would be to recklessly disregard socialism’s contradictory history. Instead, it makes sense to rethink socialism from the perspective of democratic Marxism. Three basic methodological rules apply to any democratic Marxism. Firstly, it requires a critical, contemporary reinterpretation of classical socialist texts. Secondly, the complexity and multi-level problems of modern societies must be taken into account; there is no single Archimedean point from which capitalism can be overcome. Thirdly, a sociological study of the S-word must reveal its normative foundations. The structure of the book follows these methodological considerations.