Marxist economist Michael A Lebowitz passed away at home on April 19. With his death, the international left has lost one of its most insightful and original thinkers, whose contributions to reviving Karl Marx’s vision of socialism are essential reading for activists.
Winter 2023 (New Politics Vol. XIX No. 2, Whole Number 74)
An Interview with Alyssa Battistoni
Alyssa Battistoni teaches political theory at Barnard College. She is the co-author of A Planet to Win: Why We Need a Green New Deal (Verso 2019) and is currently writing a book titled Free Gifts: Capitalism and the Politics of Nature. Phil Gasper spoke with Alyssa on behalf of the New Politics editorial board on November 4, 2022.
Everyone conscious of the problem of global warming understands that we must have fewer private cars on our streets. By lowering the cost of public transit (and ultimately to make it free) and increasing its accessibility, more riders will be attracted to it. Why can’t we have more buses and trains coming to more stops in neighbourhoods? Why can’t we make transit more affordable for people of lower income? Providing more public transit for less would be a step toward climate rationality and justice.
Ecosocialism in the age of climate change needs to stop being a niche, an abstract ideological program, and turn into a concrete, practical, non-dogmatic plan for the future.
We need to make some serious changes in the ecosocialist project.
It’s good that we have the idea of ecosocialism. Because the words stand for a basic idea that ecology and socialism go together. Linked, they are the hope of the world.
