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

Wednesday, December 10, 2014

Are we ready for the twilight of neoliberalism?

Click here to access article by Pete Dolack from his blog Systemic Disorder.

Dolack introduces and reviews a new book entitled We Make Our Own History: Marxism and Social Movements in the Twilight of Neoliberalism by professors Laurence Cox and Alf Gunvald Nilsen. Although the professors use academic language, which is to be expected, they demonstrate an accurate knowledge of what is needed by the Ninety-Nine Percent to deliver them from the evil of capitalist assaults on the world's working people and the environment. It appears to me that they have much to contribute to the advance of a people's movement grounded thoroughly in the grassroots, and one capable of overthrowing the disastrous rule of a tiny, advantaged segment of people known as capitalists. For example, Dolack writes:
Learning from one another, not blindly following

How then will this logjam be broken? As no movement, organization or leader has a monopoly of ideas, Professors Cox and Nilsen envision a “movement of movements”: The coming together of independent movements without the intention of submitting to the leadership of any single party or of privileging narrow definitions of working class interests. This necessitates not only learning from one another to increase the body of knowledge that can be drawn upon but also learning from the past. It also stresses the full incorporation of struggles against racism, sexism and all other forms of oppression.