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For decades American politicians, the representatives of the country's oligarchs, have lied to the American people about their country's relation to socialism. America has been presented as fundamentally antithetical to socialism, Marxism, and communism. Garrido shows how we have, starting in the early parts of the 19th century, a homegrown tradition of socialist thought that grounds itself in the most progressive components of American history. This is a tradition which holds that the values 1776 can only be capable of being fully realized in a socialist society. Why We Need American Marxism develops, within the Marxist framework, upon this tradition of homegrown socialism and argues that only by developing American Marxism, and organizations of working people based on it, can we overcome the crisis we are in and establish a society that is genuinely of, by, and for the people.
Endorsements (Abridged)
"This pamphlet will serve as prime introductory material for future cadre of an American Communist Party to ground themselves in the proud traditions of class struggle across the United States."
DANNY SHAW, Professor at CUNY, Director of the Midwestern Marx Institute International Department.
"Garrido’s call for American Marxism explains the errors of the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries, and how they lead into the necessity of today with the sort of precision and insight typical of all the best texts of the Marxist canon."
NOAH KHRACHVIK, Co-Director Midwestern Marx Institute
"Carlos Garrido provides a clear outline of the main currents, both intellectual and historical, driving the new synthesis of American Marxism which is taking an entire generation by storm."
HAZ AL-DIN, philosopher, Infrared Collective
"In this text Garrido gives systematic theoretical exposition to something that we’ve maintained since launching the Midwestern Marx Institute four years ago, that socialism as an abstract universal concept must be applied concretely to each unique context... Garrido demonstrates this fact beyond a shadow of a doubt in this new book, showing that it is on us to build a new form of socialism for our own conditions here in the United States.”
EDWARD LIGER SMITH, Co-Director Midwestern Marx Institute
"This book is a well-researched and documented expression of the contemporary American communist movement. It should be read by anyone interested in the future of socialism in the U.S."
- THOMAS RIGGINS, retired professor of philosophy and humanities, NYU, New School, etc. Chief Editorial Counselor at the Midwestern Marx Institute
“Boldly refreshing, optimistic, and timely, Why We Need American Marxism is a clarion call to the working-class of a nation trying to build a truly authentic and homegrown socialist movement. Carlos Garrido’s tour-de-force masterfully weaves theoretical insights and practical examples to show that an American Marxism is not only possible, but a necessary precondition for any socialist transformation in the United States. With a plethora of sources for the reader to pour over, this book is the antidote to the national nihilism gripping much of the contemporary left.”
CHRISTOPHER HELALI, Social Studies Teacher, Hanover High School
About the Author
Carlos L. Garrido is a Cuban American philosophy instructor at Southern Illinois University, Carbondale. He is the director of the Midwestern Marx Institute and the author of The Purity Fetish and the Crisis of Western Marxism (2023), Marxism and the Dialectical Materialist Worldview (2022), and the forthcoming Hegel, Marxism, and Dialectics (2024). He has written for dozens of scholarly and popular publications around the world and runs various live-broadcast shows for the Midwestern Marx Institute YouTube. Carlos runs the Philosophy in Crisis Substack.
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