The ongoing capitalist crisis generated high hopes that the parties and social movements of the Left, both in the U.S. and elsewhere in the world, would be re-energized. So far this has not happened. The Left remains fractured and confused, drifting away from its labor base, while the Right seems to have emerged as the stronger or at least the more strident force. The result is that unemployment remains high, wages low, and insecurity grows. In the U.S., the Obama administration negotiates from the center, and concedes more and more to business interests and political conservatives. Can this be turned around? Can the hardships and opportunities generated by the capitalist crisis yet become the trigger for the revival of a transformative Left?
Programme
Saturday, 12-14 Uhr
Can Obama Be Moved? Movement Strategies to Pressure Party Politics (RLS)
Margit Mayer (Chair) – Free University, Berlin
Jenny Brown – Co-chair, Alachua County Labor Party, National Women’s Liberation
Pete Sikora – Working Families Party, Communication Workers of America
Ethan Young – Portside, Brecht Forum
Eric Mann – Labor/Community Strategy Center, Los Angeles
Saturday 15-17 Uhr
Roundtable on Left Strategies in the Core Capitalist Countries (Transform!)
Walter Baier (Chair) – Coordinator, Transform Network
Ruurik Holm – Left Forum, Finland
Sam Gindin – Socialist Project, Toronto
João Romão – Bloco de Esquerda and Cultra, Portugal
Greg Albo – Socialist Register
Richard Wolff – Economics, UMass (Emeritus); International Affairs, New School University; Rethinking Marxism
Cornelia Hildebrandt – Die LINKE; Rosa Luxemburg Foundation
Saturday 17-19 Uhr
Union Strategies, Poor People’s Movements and Crisis (RLS)
Jan Rehmann (Chair) – Union Theological Seminary
Willie Baptist – Poverty Initiative
Janice Fine, School of Management and Labor Relations, Rutgers University
Saladin Muhammad, Black Workers for Justice, Electrical Workers
Lian Hurst Mann – National School for Strategic Organizing
Christina Kaindl – “We-Won’t-Pay-for-Your-Crisis” Coalition, Germany
Sunday 15-17 Uhr
Understanding and Responding to the Crisis: The Left in Europe and the U.S. (Transform!)
Walter Baier (Chair) – Coordinator, Transform! network
William K. Tabb – Economics, Queens College
Jeremy Brecher – Global Labor Strategies
Rainer Rilling – Rosa Luxemburg Foundation
João Romão – Bloco de Esquerda and Cultra, Portugal
Venue: Pace University, One Pace Plaza, New York, NY 10038