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

Thursday, December 10, 2015

Towards a New Anti-Capitalist Politics [A must-read]

Click here to access article by Jerome Roos from Reflections on a Revolution (ROAR).

I really connected with this rather lengthy article which as of this time I've only read about two-thirds of it. It offers so much food for thought for activists and for all those who are sensing the downward spiral of today's disturbing neoliberal world order. This piece might also be titled "Neoliberalism...meet neo-revolutionary thought!"

Activists seem to be in a transition period in which they find the thinking of the old left no longer meets today's need. This essay is a plea for, and a contribution to, a new revolutionary mode of thinking.
In contrast to the old left, narrowly concerned with seizing the constituted power of the state, the emerging anti-capitalist politics is not necessarily opposed to the idea of taking power, but finds it much more worthwhile to think in terms of building power and cultivating the social creativity, collective imagination and democratic aspirations of society as such. It recognizes that the left cannot simply “take” power without first building it—democratically—from below.
at
Labels: , , , , ,