Book Review: Twenty-First Century Socialism by Jeremy Gilbert

This book aims at offering pragmatic solutions for emerging global issues, moved by capitalism and neo-liberalism through the resurgence of socialism in 21st century. Jeremy Gilbert attempts to conceptualize a vast array of discussions on how the existing neoliberal order have crippled socio-economic aspects of human life since the industrial revolution. Twenty-First Century Socialism is an attempt to delineate features and conditions in which the liberal order have misinterpreted socialism to promulgate capitalistic modes of production and consumption patterns. Instead of confining the issue to western neoliberal states, the author examines the issue within a global context. Attempting to instantiate the shortcomings of the capitalist global order from a range of aspects – social, economic, political and ecological – the writer depicts a scrupulous framework to detail the following four key concepts: capitalism and socialism, cybernetic revolution, climate crisis and green socialism. The author illuminates the catastrophic consequences of capitalist desire for non-cooperative human actions through competition and excessive craving for profit accumulation. Significantly, the author conceptualizes socialism in its social, environmental, political and cultural milieu. This conceptualization widens our horizon for a return toward socialist movements.

The initial chapters set out to depict the historical dimensions of capitalism versus socialism and how different branches of capitalism such as liberalism and neo-liberalism pervade our lives. In doing so, he delineates the superficial benefits of capitalism under the pretext of a fancy life style, profitability and ‘capital accumulation’ (p. 13). There is a compelling point of departure in Gilbert’s views. He argues that the ‘relentless pursuit of unlimited profit, followed by ‘the exploitation of waged labour’, have widely resulted in plutocracy’ (p. 14–18). Its exemplar is the emergence of new billionaires who happened to play the capitalist games more adroitly. He posits that capitalism through its social practices and ‘impersonal machines’ (p. 18–19) confines peoples to utterly accept capitalism as the only emancipatory system. However, the book makes it clear that the capitalism has left unbearable consequences on 21st century humans through its unachievable ideals. Similarly, liberalism and neoliberalism, covertly, attempt to sell a capitalist worldview and capitalist production as invaluable human achievements. The author sharply criticizes this view and argues that the capitalist system only derives profits through ‘speculation, on shares, derivatives and debt instruments’ (p. 21). In doing so, Gilbert notes that neoliberalism has pushed us toward perpetual social insecurity, through excessive privatization of services and ‘deregulation’ of labour markets. He concludes that the capitalist society has ‘treated (people) as speculative assets’ (p. 23), which in turn is the cause of most of the serious problems that we face.

In the subsequent chapters, the author argues that socialism gains momentum by virtue of the following three ideas: common good and egalitarianism, social cooperative relations, and political management and organization. These are contrasted to neoliberal individualism and the commodification of desire. He offers a brief historical account of neoliberal and liberal short comings in recent decades. The author claims that the prevailing position of socialist institutions such as Britain’s national health services (NHS), offers health services in an egalitarian way – having no-one to profit. Gilbert argues that the prevailing socialist approach in the NHS offers universal health services through taxation with no commodifying inclination of capitalism to ‘trade and exchange’ human health services. The author takes his analysis a step further in maintaining that daily social services are required to become ‘decommodified’ as one of the pivotal aspects of socialism. This underscores the common nature of collectively owned resources, by and for the people (p. 32–33).

Other leading concepts that Gilbert examines in the book are cybernetic revolution and climate crisis. He accentuates the debilitating effects of the cybernetic revolution on the political left by noting that in the 21st century ‘the regulating capitalist power’ (p. 40) has embraced all the prevailing means of communication and strategic political tools to achieve political leverage among the public in elections. In his view, extensive technological advancement not only dwindled national governments’ capacities but also regulated the behavior of the capitalist system as a new norm among the citizens. Conversely, socialism finds it path through embracing the realities of a ‘multicultural’ and ‘cosmopolitan’ world (p. 44). Furthermore, the ideological apparatus of the neoliberals, as the author notes, has succeeded in insinuating their so-called ‘neoliberal codes’ in the language of education and media. For the author, neoliberalism has also expanded its shortcomings throughout the natural environment. A durable socialist endeavor is required to pass beyond neoliberal individual solutions, by forming international solidarity.

The final chapters of the book search for viable solutions through the socialist lexicon to tackle the aforementioned challenges. In this vein, the author moves toward contemporary socialism as a gateway to democracy, as opposed to the neoliberal ‘violent suppression of democracy’ (p. 73). Proposing the ultimate aims of the 21st-century socialism, he explicates his solution by halting the power of capitalism and delegating more power to citizens (p. 74). As the author suggests in the concluding pages, socialism will only succeed through multilateral human cooperation by moving beyond the idea of equality toward radical freedom. Clearly, this radical freedom for the author is a social phenomenon. However, the author is cautiously optimistic of the potential for socialist collective movements to gain political leverage, noting that this collective will-formation requires millions to unite.

To my mind, what is absent from the book is a clarification of the relationship between work, identity and the desire for recognition in all humans. In this regard, Hegel’s reflection on work, identity and the Frankfurt School’s cultural hegemony of capitalism is ignored.

Nevertheless, the book offers a major contribution to our understanding of contemporary socialism. The book will be useful for scholars seeking to conceptualize the notion of socialism.