Over the last decade, the U.S. left reached striking consensus around domestic issues: Medicare for All, free college, a $15 minimum wage, and a Green New Deal. It built this consensus on social democracy as the way forward after the 2008 Recession and later the 2020 COVID-19 pandemic. Leftists use this consensus to recruit and educate new members, win battles against bosses and landlords, and compete in elections.
But equally striking, the U.S. left hasn’t reached consensus on foreign policy. It disagrees on when and how to wage war, when and how to support globalized trade, and even how the U.S. should relate to the world. And without a fully integrated movement, the left will never build the international solidarity and relationships it needs to build the new world it seeks. To get there, the left needs to build international solidarity and relationships.
My book Left Foreign Policy: An Organizer’s Guide shows the way to a vision for international social democracy. By combining left policy into an integrated whole, we can build this world and use it as the basis for a deeper anti-capitalist movement. I lay out the building blocks for left foreign policy and connecting them to U.S. relations with four key world regions. Those building blocks are: international solidarity, anti-interventionism, pluralism, and fighting global capital.
Left Foreign Policy: An Organizer’s Guide provides the U.S. left with key tools for organizing. And it’s only through organizing that the left will build the world it must.
How to Order Left Foreign Policy
So, how do you order Left Foreign Policy? Glad you asked! To order the book, click here!
Author Bio
Matt L. Drabek is a blogger and the Secretary-Treasurer of the Iowa City Democratic Socialists of America. He also works in the non-profit education industry. He is the author of Classify and Label: The Unintended Marginalization of Social Groups. Matt has spent the last two decades organizing people to build a better world and analyzing social problems. His organizing experience began with the fair trade and anti-war movements of the early 2000s. And it stretches to more recent work with the Iowa City Tenants Union and the DSA. He was trained as a philosopher, and he uses that training in all aspects of his work. You can find out more about him and his work at the Base and Superstructure blog. So, head on over!
He lives in Iowa City, Iowa with his partner and their dog. To contact Matt, please visit this contact page.
