Opposing Authoritarian Populism: The Challenge and Necessity of a New World System

This chapter investigates the underlying structural determinants of the dominator systems that characterize global cultures. It traces the structural and systemic origins of intensifying racism and sexism as economic and political weapons. As a countermeasure, it offers a new political and philosophical vision by synthesizing key features of the work of Georg Lukács, Herbert Marcuse, and Aldo Leopold for insights in terms of the promise of what the author calls Green Commonwealth to build a new world system. In particular the author reclaims Herbert Marcuse's critical social theory for our time by reinterpreting One-Dimensional Man and incorporating insights from neglected materials (Counterrevolution and Revolt, ‘Repressive Tolerance,’ ‘Ecology and Revolution’) and newly discovered texts (‘Why Talk on Socialism’) from the Frankfurt Marcuse Archive. These materials are strategically advantageous to us in today's turbulent political milieu. The chapter traces differential income flows within the manufacturing sector of the U.S. economy to their source in unequal property relations. As a countermeasure to growing economic and cultural polarization, the chapter offers a new eco-socialist and humanist world system of commonwealth production, commonwealth distribution, democratized ownership, and commonwealth governance. These insights re-conceptualize our understanding of our world and our work in order to repossess a world in common characterized by racial equality, women's equality, the liberation of labour, the restoration of nature, leisure, abundance and peace.