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Introduction

Introduction

Introduction*

On 31 May 2013, a localized demonstration against the destruction of a public park at the heart of Istanbul (Gezi Park) spiraled into a nationwide anti-government protest cycle of unprecedented form and scale in Turkey’s modern history. Before dawn that day, the police stormed into the park to violently disperse the few hundred protesters who had been occupying the space to prevent its destruction as part of a municipal urban renewal project.

The idea of socialism is one to which the US public has now become increasingly open – as shown first by national survey results in 2012 and then, in 2013, by the local electoral victory (in Seattle) of a socialist candidate over an incumbent Democrat. These developments cap a period characterized on the one hand by severe economic hardship and, on the other, by the ever more blatant role of money in politics as well as by growing awareness – thanks especially to whistleblowers – of the capitalist regime’s scorn for democratic rights.

Kevin B. Anderson is a Professor of Sociology, Political Science, and Feminist Studies at the University of California, Santa Barbara. He has written on Marx, Hegel, the Frankfurt School, Foucault, and the Orientalism debate. Among his most recent books are Foucault and the Iranian Revolution (with Janet Afary, 2005) and Marx at the Margins (2010). <kanderson@soc.ucsb.edu>