The Alternative to Capitalism – Democratic Protagonism in the 21st Century

Abstract

The paper explores the possibility of creating a positive vision of post-capitalist society and economy, a blue-print for future society with reminiscence to the existing valuable drafts such as Marx and Engels’s Communist Manifesto. Also, it focuses on shortcomings of that blue-print that became evident through the experiences of 20th-century real socialisms. Following Canadian Marxist Michael Lebowitz, the paper elaborates on how the vision of socialism for the 21st century should place central emphasis on the importance of changing the social relations of production. The central problem is located in the “vanguard relations of production”, the central power and hierarchical authority in the hand of the party vanguard. The paper stresses the importance of the communist party as central to the articulation of the interests of the proletarian class as a whole, a class whose central interest is the overthrow of capitalism. However, the project of overthrowing capitalism must include the recognition of the practical comprehension of the importance of the democratic protagonism. Workers cannot be subordinated as passive observers of the system change. A change in social circumstances should simultaneously mean a change in the actors themselves – the socialist protagonists.