In our first double issue of Catalyst, we examine both the dilemmas of contemporary capitalism and some possible routes out of it. Two essays take on some of the defining horrors of our time. The most immediate of these has, of course, been Israel’s genocidal war on the Palestinians. In a blistering critique, Donatella della Porta describes the ignominy of the German left, which has not only stood aside as Benjamin Netanyahu’s government unleashes terror but also actively suppressed dissenting voices, and so functioned as an arm of the German state. The other is the impending climate catastrophe, which is rapidly taking center stage in cultural production. Nivedita Majumdar looks at some of the most ballyhooed works of fiction in recent years, praised for their attention to climate change. But what is common to these works, she argues, is not just a concern for the climate but a refusal to engage with its connection to capitalism and the ceaseless quest for profits. Oddly, it is not so much the favorites of the art world that meaningfully engage with climate change but the authors of lowbrow popular fiction. And the former have much to learn from the latter.

The most immediate challenge of the Left is to construct a viable political coalition that could arrest the slide toward authoritarianism and uphold those pillars of liberalism that have always provided a space for left-wing politics. Aziz Z. Huq examines the role of the courts, especially the Supreme Court, within the American political economy. Steve Fraser observes that a revival of the interwar Popular Front appears on the horizon for left-wing politics. While there is much to learn from the era of the front, he cautions that its goal was always to uphold a certain kind of capitalism rather than chart a path out of it. Fraser points to the New Deal era as an example of both the promises and limitations of this political strategy. In a searching and wide-ranging interview, Tom Devenny looks at attempts to revive the British left in parallel fashion to the American one. He analyzes the rise and fall of Momentum — the political grouping that coalesced around Jeremy Corbyn and the Labour Party — arguing that many of the weaknesses that led to its demise are even more apparent in the dynamics of Your Party, the new left-wing organization led by Corbyn and Zarah Sultana that hopes to challenge Labour.

Two essays take up more concrete questions around the issue of strategy. One, by Carlo V. Fiorio, Simon Mohun, and Roberto Veneziani, examines the rather pessimistic view of some left-wing political economists that the state’s structural dependence on capital is so binding that any effort at reform comes up against the hard power of an investment slowdown and an economic crisis. The authors show that the structural constraints have been greatly exaggerated, and that a properly managed class politics can achieve both redistribution and a steady rate of accumulation. But what would that redistribution look like? The most widely discussed proposal over the past year has been the book by Ezra Klein and Derek Thompson that advocates concrete measures under the slogan of abundance. Matt T. Huber, Leigh Phillips, and Fred Stafford present a careful and broad appraisal of Abundance, suggesting that, if anything, its proposals don’t go far enough. And against some of the more fashionable elements on the Left, they insist that abundance has been at the very heart of the socialist project, but that accepting a capitalist political economy severely constrains our ability to deliver it.