Future plans for Green Plenty

A small change of direction

Firstly, let me apologise for not having written much recently. I've been overtaken by the demands of my day job, being tormented by a long-term medical condition that meant I wasn't sleeping properly, and also some things in my family have taken my mind away from the political. I have still been plotting the downfall of capitalism and its replacement with something that is oriented around people's needs rather than profit, but it's hard when you can't think straight and family members need your love and support. Oh, and we got a German Pinscher who takes a lot of attention.

So a couple of projects should slowly start to see the light of day over the next few months.

How to Live a Good Life

The first one is I've been planning a book called How to Live a Good Life, which is simply an outline of some core ideas about how the world is put together and how to navigate the capitalist hell hole most of us have been cursed to live in.

Good Life will be written initially using LeanPub and the very early draft of it is available there. I have completely rethought the structure of the book when I was awake in the middle of the night unable to sleep so it will change quite a lot from the outline if you choose to purchase a copy.  Some of the articles in Green Plenty will be added to and extended. Once it's far enough along I will approach a proper publisher and see if I can get it published more conventionally.

It should be obvious that early drafts of the chapters will probably end up here, and on my Medium feed. I have a lot of followers on Medium, which I wasn't aware of.

Communist dictionary

The second project is something I'm calling a communist dictionary, this is still in very early form. I have some Wiki software to create a dictionary that attempts to use simple language to explain common terms used by the socialist and Marxist currents in society that have fallen out of use, or are often distorted by our enemies. I intend to get people who belong to sympathetic traditions to help me write fair articles about the things they hold dear. For example, I don't think I could write a fair article about Trotsky. Even though I admire him in some ways, I find his writing style very irritating and the Permanent Revolution to me seems like waiting for the number 47 bus, it's been nearly 100 years and still not pulled into the depot.

I intend it to be a whimsical, non-sectarian, but coherent place people can go to to understand things like Imperialism, Eco-Socialism, the fundamental ideas from Marxism, such as the dialectic, and Leninism, such as the structure of the state and what imperialism is. I've felt some kind of introductory materials are needed for a long time, there's a lot of great stuff on YouTube, but I also know a lot of people like to read things and I can use the platform to point to useful material.

Articles will be cross posted here and on Medium anyway.

Reading Groups

I'm also trying to start a reading group. The publishers of J. Moufawad-Paul's Politics in Command are starting a series of webinars about the book, and I think it's worth discussing. We could ask JMP if we are quick enough questions. Get in contact with me here to find out more. It starts some time near the end of March 2023. You can email me roots (at) greenplenty.social if you want to get in touch and not use the comments so you can stay private.