But more relevant to what I want to comment on in this post is that these events even more decisively pushed any talk of capitalism and socialism off the agenda. Comrades like ourselves said that a new movement of the working class would change this and put the debate about capitalism and socialism back once again on the agenda of the mass consciousness of the masses. Well this is now happening.
The New York Times had this to say today: "Many Americans these days, from the huddled masses of Occupy Wall Street to the coiffed confines of the Presidential campaign, are talking about the future of capitalism." Yes indeed. We are in the beginning of a new era. It is overdue but very welcome.
Those of us who were in the old CWI will remember that at just about every international meeting the main speaker, usually Ted or Peter Taaffe would declare that we had come through a turning point and were in a new era. It sounded good and kept us inspired but it was either wrong in the sense of there being no new turning point or the turn was in the opposite direction to what we thought. Specifically we did not see that capitalism would go back to the Stalinist world.
But who can deny that we are now are in a new era. Capitalism what it is and what it means to the mass of the world's population is back again in the mass consciousness. This is a great step forward. When cynics ask what the OWS can achieve we must answer them firmly. It is not what it can achieve it is what it has already achieved. It has already put the issue of capitalism and its failings back in the mass consciousness once again.
However I would like to add one caveat. People like myself thought that it would be the movement of the organized working class, organized in their mass organizations that would through their mass struggles bring about this change in consciousness. And there has been some of that. Greece! But it seems to me that overwhelmingly the change has been brought about by the movement of the masses in the Middle east and North Africa and more recently and more consciously and more importantly the movement of the youth, mainly unorganized , throughout the world.
The union leaders have in the main been successful so far in holding the organized workers movement back. This will not last but so far these union leaders are managing in the main to hold the line for the system. The leaders of the mass social democratic organizations are collaborating with the capitalist offensive and to an even greater extent holding the line for the system. I think that the OWS movement will have its ups and downs but is a permanent feature, and I think that the organized working class movement, its industrial and political wings will eventually no longer be able to be choked into subservience by their leadership and they also will join the fray. New John L Lewis's will arise.
Just another detail of the changes taking place. In Boulder, Colorado, not known for any large left forces to put it mildly, is voting this Tuesday whether to take over a privately owned corporate utility and take it into municipal ownership which would leave it locally accountable and more environmentally friendly. One activist explained why she was working to do this: "They don't have our interests at heart." Maybe this is a great banner slogan under which to take on the corporations and their corrupt capitalist system. "They don't have our interests at heart."
A youth group called New-Era Colorado is working hard to pass the initiative as are many many of the city's residents. The New York Times report explains it this way: "Left leaning politics have been aligned with hard science." Sounds good.
Yes the end of history was what it was supposed to be. In many ways we are only getting started.
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