We’ve lived so long under the spell of hierarchy—from god-kings to feudal lords to party bosses—that only recently have we awakened to see not only that “regular” citizens have the capacity for self-governance, but that without their engagement our huge global crises cannot be addressed. The changes needed for human society simply to survive, let alone thrive, are so profound that the only way we will move toward them is if we ourselves, regular citizens, feel meaningful ownership of solutions through direct engagement. Our problems are too big, interrelated, and pervasive to yield to directives from on high.
—Frances Moore Lappé, excerpt from Time for Progressives to Grow Up

Monday, November 2, 2015

The necessary gravedigger

Click here to access article by Kit Klarenberg from CounterFire (Britain).

Klarenberg offers a critical review of Canadian author Mike Lebowitz's new book entitled The Socialist Imperative.

Marxist theorists have always seen the working class as "the necessary gravedigger" of capitalism, and in this review Klarenberg reports that Lebowitz sees this necessity more imperative than ever before:
...as modern capitalism increasingly threatens not only the stability of the environment, but our very species survival, he considers it a more morally crucial objective than ever. In attempting to establish a framework for socialist victory in the twenty-first century, he assesses why previous efforts were unsuccessful, how capitalism came to be embraced – or, at least, tolerated – by the people who would benefit most from a more equitable configuration of society, and advances a modernised vision of collectivist organisation.