Welcome to the first edition of LeftHooked! LeftHooked is a monthly (for now) aggregator and review of the best, or at least most important, writing from major socialist left publications, broadly defined, from the anglophone world, brought to you by the comrades at the Hampton Institute.
Motivated by my frustration having repeatedly found out that I missed important articles from my favorite left outlets (fuck Facebook’s algorithm, if it can’t figure out that I want to see all of the great work being done on the left these days). In all seriousness, there is more great writing on the left today than at least at any other point in my thirty years on this dying planet. As someone who has more time than most to read as much as humanly possible, I still don’t have enough time or energy to get through it all. Still, I probably get through more of it than a lot of other people who, if they had the time and energy, would love to! For those with only a small amount of time, the task of deciding what to spend time on is difficult. LeftHooked is designed to bring the mountain to Moses. Combining the way too much time I spend reading the newest essays put out by the increasing number of publications on the socialist left with the need by those without the time to read it all or sift through their social media feeds to decide what they actually want to read…and voila! I’ve decided to write something else for you to read! Woo! Well, yes it is that, but the goal is to make wading through the newest, best, and/or most relevant work from the left easier, for the overworked and the uninitiated especially.
While I don’t have a set list of publications that I will be drawing from, the publications I suspect will be featured most often will include: Salvage, Viewpoint, Jacobin, Dissent, Commune, Roar, New Politics, Current Affairs, Monthly Review, Cosmonaut, Regeneration, Labor Notes, Left Voice, Truthout, Counterpunch, Public Seminar, Boston Review, Truthdig, In These Times, and of course, The Hampton Institute—which will have a couple articles featured in each and every edition. If you think I should be reading something that’s not on this list, don’t hesitate to reach out at the email address below.
Where I include any academic journal articles (which will be rare), I will generally only consider or include those that are open-access or otherwise freely available for those without institutional access, perhaps with the exception of venues such as Socialist Register, Catalyst, and New Left Review (where the cause is just and the paywall is relatively easy to get around).
Especially as I get started with this new and exciting project, with the great support of Colin Jenkins and the whole Hampton team (who are still largely volunteers [to helps us change that, consider supporting our Patreon, as all of our content remains entirely free to access!]), I’m open to suggestions for improvements to the format, structure, and content, as well as interesting articles, podcast episodes, and even books to review and include in future editions of LeftHooked. For all such input, please email me at: LeftHooked[at]protonmail.com.
As always, for standard submissions to the Hampton Institute, submit at hamptonthink[at]gmail.com.
Beyond your (hopefully ongoing) support for the Hampton Institute and this new project, beyond my deep abiding hope that this project will contribute in some small way to the success of our shared struggle for a truly free, equal, and democratic world, my only request is for your patience as I work to produce and improve LeftHooked over the coming months and (fingers-crossed) years!
- Bryant William Sculos, Founding Editor and Curator of LeftHooked

LeftHooked #1 (January 2020)

Grand Theory: “Tragedy of the Worker: Toward the Proletarocene”

by the Salvage Editorial Collective (in Salvage)

Though it didn’t technically come out in January, I wasn’t able to read it until then, and given the incredibly powerful theoretical and practical innovativeness and sophistication, I couldn’t not recommend this piece. With Salvage’s characteristic radically aspirational pessimism, they tackle the question (in several different ways) of what it means to be a worker in this age of ecocide? This isn’t just a simple updating of the question, what is to be done. Here, the Salvage Editorial Collective has provided us with some great intellectual and political tools to think through—and act in—the contemporary conjuncture, absent blind hope or hopeless demobilizing pessimism.

And this serves as an important reminder, though for many the style can take some getting used to (be sure to keep a dictionary nearby!), Salvage, despite having some production disruptions as it got off the ground, is consistently the most original radical left publication currently active. This essay is currently only available to subscribers and Patreon patrons of Salvage (which I highly recommend becoming), but you can listen to the Salvage Editorial Collective discuss this essay at the Historical Materialism conference here. My hope is that the full text will be freely available soon! It is a long—but crucially important and stimulating—read.

Grand Strategy: “A Modest Proposal for Socialist Revolution”

by Chris Wright (for the Hampton Institute)

Chris Wright, writing for the Hampton Institute, contributes to contemporary debates about socialist strategy. While I suspect many Bernie Sanders supports won’t fall head over heels for his analysis. It is a valuable contribution to a centuries old debate that has been reignited since at least 2016 (though really post-Occupy). The role of electoral politics for socialism and how to relate to the State will remain a crucial set of problematiques for the left. Wright’s work here can help us think through these questions better—even if we all don’t agree with everything he argues (which is never my criteria for an interesting/relevant essay).

Debating Anti-imperialism and War: Essays from Dan La Botz (for New Politics), Dan La Botz replying to Doug Henwood (including his comments), and Paul Waters-Smith for Current Affairs)

One of the most important dimensions of being an international socialist (and there really shouldn’t be any other kind of socialist) is having a nuanced and strong anti-imperialist streak. However, what precisely that means is still a hotly debated question. There seems to be at least general agreement that the US intervening in all the various ways it does is certainly unacceptable and must be opposed, full-stop. Surely socialism cannot require that we support lesser imperialist or oppressive regimes, even if they are opposed to the US, right? Is there a difference between openly criticizing the state victims of US imperialism for their own very real failings and providing (unintentional) support for imperial propaganda? How central must democracy be to the anti-imperialist project? Must we always pick sides? These questions, and others, are addressed in an informative, if not always comradely, debate between Dan La Botz and Doug Henwood (and replied to by La Botz) that emerged, partially on social media, in the wake of the US assassination of Gen. Qassim Soleimani.

A secondary point worth consider here: social media offers a lot of benefits, but might not be the ideal space for nuanced conversation. It is an important venue though, such as it is. We can all do better, in all the venues we participate, but social media is perhaps the space where a bit of humility could go the farthest.

(And on that note, check out Steve Salaita’s incredible series on social media. Truly powerful writing. I couldn’t possibly expect anything else from him, and he is still insanely impressive every time.)

For those interested in a more, what I would consider moderate, electorally-oriented but still valuable, contribution to this discussion, see this recent Current Affairs article by Paul Waters-Smith.

On Patriarchy: “The Gendered Violence of Everyday Life”

by Khadijah Kanji (in ROAR)

Short-form essays are necessarily limited due to their defining characteristics (i.e., being short), but this piece geniusly found a way around that limitation, offering an incredibly succinct and somehow nearly comprehensive, passionate, and theoretically- and empirically-informed analysis of the state of contemporary global patriarchy, engaging with the fashion industry, global supply chains, setter colonialism, climate change, and the sexism and misogyny of everyday life in the various forms its takes in different geographies.

On Impeachment: “What’s the Point of Impeachment?” and “Impeachment without Class Politics: An Autopsy”

by Doug Henwood and Christian Parenti (both for Jacobin respectively)

These are two great left takes on the impeachment of President Donald Trump (though Henwood’s is is earlier, from December 2019). Each in their own, but not wholly dissimilar ways, offer a clear picture of what the impeachment does and doesn’t mean for progress towards socialism—including a sense of what impeachment could have been. Though both are quite skeptical of how the actual impeachment process has proceeded, neither think that it couldn’t have been something much more powerful and relevant.

Compares these arguments to the one I made in January 2018 (which were also rehearsed in conversation with Devon Bowers for the A Different Lens podcast). Slightly different context, but the general points remain as relevant as ever.

Class & Race: “Solidarity is Not a Market Exchange”

Rethinking Marxism’s interview with Robin D.G. Kelley (out from behind the paywall with Black Ink)

It is long, but you really have to read this, whether you’re new to Kelley’s work or Black radical politics in general—or you’re a veteran of the struggle. This interview has a little bit of everything (including some great discussion of where to start your reading on issues of race and class).

LeftUnheard (Podcast episodes I haven’t listened to…yet)

Check out this, I assume, great episode of A Different Lens on communism and this one from The Dig on capitalism with Michael Hardt (how could either of these not be interesting?). Also, both are from December 2019—and I still have them on my must-listen list.

LeftUnanswered

In each edition of LeftHooked I’ll conclude by posing a question or series of related questions for readers to think about. Some will be ones that have been asked (and ostensibly answered in various ways and to varying degrees) by those on the left before, but also ones that I think have renewed relevance or call for updated consideration, for what, in each instance, will be relatively obvious reasons. Other times, hopefully more often than not, these questions will be novel in some way. At the very least, the LeftUnanswered section will reflect questions that are on my mind and to which I’ve not found current or past conversations satisfying or convincing. My primary hope is that they will resonate.

Is there a Bernie Sanders movement? Is Bernie Sanders building this movement? Is he merely inspiring this movement? Is it a movement for socialism and against capitalism? Is there even general agreement on the short and long-term goals of this movement? Are the efforts and energies that we’re witnessing around Bernie actually multiple movements? Is it actually small activist groups and individual donating and showing up at rallies and on social media? Or, is there something more coherent happening?

Relatedly, what happens if Bernie loses or when he dies? What happens if he wins (either the primary or the presidency) and dies or leaves politics due to age or health issues?

I ask these not to imply particular answers. I'm genuinely curious about what Bernie supporters would say to these questions and why. I'm not implying necessarily that if there isn't a coherent movement that Bernie supporters should abandon him (nor the opposite...). I have my thoughts, but I'm more interested in these questions and how those in the Bernie orbit address them (and if they aren’t already, I hope they do moving forward and reflect deeply on the various elements that lead any person or group to a particular set of answers and practical responses—practical here meaning how they are addressed or addressable in practice).

I came to these questions after Bernie Sanders's heart attack earlier in the 2019/2020 campaign. There was a mini-crisis among Bernie supporters to say the least. Some suggested that they must turn to Elizabeth Warren. Others offered only desolation and resignation. Regardless, this moment and the ensuing reactions stood out to me. While it makes sense for a movement (if such a thing exists in the context of Bernie) to mourn the loss or potential loss of their figurehead or inspirational leader or actual leader, it seems to me that there is, at the very least, an unhealthy and politically-dangerous fixation on the person of Bernie Sanders. This is not to suggest that Bernie supporters aren’t genuinely deeply motivated by the various elements of Bernie’s platform (e.g., Medicare-for-all), but it does suggest that there is a startling lack of independence between the struggle for something like Medicare-for-all and the electoral campaign of a particular candidate.

One last question, and I see this as related to the previous ones (though I'll save the relationship for a different venue or a future edition), how will Bernie's movement, if it exists in whatever form, hold him accountable if he is elected to office? How have the Bernie adjacent progressive or “democratic socialist” politicians elected over the past period been held accountable? Surely both perfect and imperfect political leaders must be able to be held to their commitments and platform, even with wiggle room for compromise and contingency, on the left at least given the centrality of democracy.

Thanks for reading. And as my dad used to say before school, be a good human being!