I was very pleased to see this pitch for serious revolutionary change from a British left website. The British are famous for their watered downed versions of revolutionary struggles as manifested by their Fabian socialists in the early 20th century and the utopian socialists in the 19th century. The failures of these movements to change anything has caused some people to rethink revolutionary efforts. Graham-Leigh is one such person.
There can often be a reluctance in green circles to talk explicitly about revolution, but ultimately that is what full-scale system change is. Calling it system change may allow the implication that we can get there one food co-op at a time, but this just hides the size and nature of the task we face. If we understand that what we are talking about when we talk about system change is, necessarily, overthrowing capitalism, then it follows that what we need is organisation: to think strategically about where the system is weakest, to make connections between different aspects of the struggle and to grasp the key link in the chain, the point at which we can make the most difference. Only then can serious changes be imposed upon capitalist interests.
