Marxism and the Solidarity Economy: Toward a New Theory of Revolution

The predictions of orthodox Marxism have not come to pass. In this article, I try to explain why, and where Marxists have gone wrong. There's a shorter exposition of the ideas here: "Eleven Theses on Socialist Revolution."

Here's the abstract:

"In the twenty-first century, it is time that Marxists updated the conception of socialist revolution they have inherited from Marx, Engels, and Lenin. Slogans about the 'dictatorship of the proletariat' 'smashing the capitalist state' and carrying out a social revolution from the commanding heights of a reconstituted state are completely obsolete. In this article I propose a reconceptualization that accomplishes several purposes: first, it explains the logical and empirical problems with Marx’s classical theory of revolution; second, it revises the classical theory to make it, for the first time, logically consistent with the premises of historical materialism; third, it provides a (Marxist) theoretical grounding for activism in the solidarity economy, and thus partially reconciles Marxism with anarchism; fourth, it accounts for the long-term failure of all attempts at socialist revolution so far. In serving these functions, the revision I propose finally 'modernizes' and corrects Marx’s conception of revolution."