This year’s Left Forum will gather and build on the growing consciousness that basic social problems are sharpening in ways that traditional politicians, journalists, and academics rarely admit and do not even begin to solve.
Left Forum is the largest annual conference of the broad Left in the United States. Each spring thousands of conference participants come together to discuss pressing local, national and global issues; to better understand commonalities and differences, and alternatives to current predicaments; or to share ideas to help build social movements to transform the world.
The Forum will again take place at the conference center at John Jay College, New York.
Panels and workshops: www.leftforum.org/panels/approved/2016
transform! europe will be present in two panels on Saturday, 21 May.
The Future of Europe and the European Left
12:00 pm – 01:50 pm, Room 1.113
transform! Panel
The European Union and its Member States are trapped in a multi-faceted crisis which is increasingly turning into a political crisis of the entire integration project. On the one hand, it is now obvious that the neoliberal model has failed. Its continuance is being met with growing resistance, and wherever this cannot be articulated in the form of a political alternative, populations become frustrated and turn their backs on political institutions. On the other hand, we the broader left, social movements, trade unions, and left parties have so far not managed to put an end to austerity policies. The European left has obviously been naïve regarding existing power relations and the inherent obstacles in European institutions that block any change. But what strategic conclusions should we draw? What relationships between European countries are most appropriate for tackling the big problems – the economic crisis, solidarity with the refugees, climate change, security, etc.? A Europe of 28, 35, or 50 national currencies, nation-states and border regimes in which the most powerful countries compete with all their means for supremacy? The left is involved in a political struggle on two fronts. It has to deal not only with the authoritarian continuation of neoliberal austerity, but also with the Europe-wide growth of the radical nationalist right, which is using widespread popular frustration to challenge political authorities so as to further its populist strategy.
Panelists:
- Walter Baier — transform! europe
- Luciana Castellina — Il Manifesto, Italy
- Leo Panitch — Socialist Register
- Dominic Heilig — Die LINKE, Germany
Capitalism’s Right Turn: From Far Right Populism to Authoritarian Neoliberal State
03:30 pm – 05:15 pm, Room 1.100
Socialist Register Panel One (launching the 2016 Register on The Politics of the Right)
Panelists:
- Leo Panitch — Socialist Register
- Greg Albo — Socialist Register
- Walter Baier — transform! europe
- Doug Henwood, Nicole Aschoff — Johns Hopkins University
- Barbara Epstein — History of Consciousness, UC Santa Cruz