In the Cookshops of the Future

We all dream of a better world. In fact, all politics of emancipation – all serious politics of the left – is rooted in claims about a better world and a vision of the future. Why, then, do so many leftists disdain “making recipes for the cookshops of the future”? Did Marx really think we couldn’t – or shouldn’t – think of a new world? And what lessons might this argument have for liberation movements today?

Peter Hudis has written on Marx’s Concept of the Alternative to Capitalism, and is general editor of the Complete Works of Rosa Luxemburg. He joins James Butler to explore the relationship of alienation to the way we think about the future, Marx’s humanism, and what connects a 19th century anarchist with today’s mealy-mouthed social democratic tinkerers.