Richard Wolff: Class, Change and Revolution

[marmar]

Class, Change and Revolution

Monday, 16 February 2015 11:05
By Richard D. Wolff, Truthout | News Analysis


The winds of change are blowing harder. The crisis since 2007 has renewed criticism of capitalism, but pressure for change has built far longer than that. So it is time to draw some lessons from the major social changes of the past and apply them now. One of the most important lessons concerns class. How activists see and act on today's class system can make social movements more effective now than in the past - as a brief historical review can show.

The overcoming of slavery, in the US Civil War, but also at other times and places across the globe, was a revolutionary change always accompanied by passionate promises. Most of emancipation's supporters spoke of human freedom, liberation, progress and social harmony if slavery were abolished. Opponents claimed that ex-slaves would be less protected and worse off than had they continued as slaves. Masters and slaves saw the world, their class structure and the future differently.

Overcoming feudalism, at the end of medieval Europe, but also in other times and places across the globe, was likewise celebrated and condemned. For one side, freeing serfs from their feudal ties to the land would bring a new dawn of human freedom. "Liberty, equality and fraternity" were core goals, not merely slogans, of Paris' 1789 revolutionaries. On the other side, skeptics warned that feudalism's end would plunge society into brutish chaos that the world would regret. Landlords and serfs viewed their class structure and a post-feudal world differently.

In the 20th century, most socialists before and after the revolutions in Russia, China and beyond passionately affirmed their project as aimed at nothing less than emancipating capitalism's working-class majorities. Critics countered that workers were or would be worse off economically and politically once socialism displaced capitalism. Socialism's advocates and those who preferred capitalism viewed class and the world in fundamentally different ways. .....................(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.truth-out.org/news/item/29030-class-change-and-revolution

[libdem4life]

1. Great mind...summing it all up. Worker's Cooperatives. Now, how to we start to get

there. Seems like a pretty basic concept to organize ground up. On the West Coast years ago, those folks were hippies and dropouts, and it was short lived in some ways, but one surely rethought their existence and social participation.

I hope someone kept the video of him introducing Yanis Faroufakis. It was a fantastic talk and seems that may be where Greece has to go. I don't think Mr. Faroufakis is bluffing.

[marmar]

2. night kick