Yes, Let’s Talk About the Cookshops of the Future

Ever since Karl Marx’s famous pronouncement against utopias, the Left has often been skeptical of what he called “writing recipes for the cookshops of the future.” However, the idea of a future socialist society does not start from a blank slate. For twentieth-century history offers many examples of attempts to transcend capitalism, which any present-day discussion must draw lessons from. This is what economic historian and social theorist Aaron Benanav does in a recent of . He draws on these…