How optimistic are you?

[daft punk]

Do you think socialism will ever happen

[daft punk]

Obviously the questions might not suit everyone, so vote for the nearest one and then state your exact view.

[Ocean Seal]

In the next 50 years we will begin to see the next phase of proletarian revolution.

[daft punk]

I put maybe in the distant future. Of course a lot can change in 50 years, half the world now lives in cities I think, or soon will do, and the internet makes the world a much smaller place.

[RedAnarchist]

I think it's something that is quite hard to predict with much certainty, although two things I am certain about are firstly, capitalism will come to an end, and secondly, there will eventually be socialism.

[Rafiq]

I'm certain capitalism will implode and that class struggle will return none the less.

It ends there.

[Deicide]

Not very. Although I'm more worried about the revolution being hijacked again.

Yeah, I hope that in the next revolution, some crazed sociopath doesn't take over and end up killing all the communists.

It'd be nice wouldn't it?

[piet11111]

Quite likely in the next 50 years is what i voted but i mean more that it will become absolutely essential in some country's to avoid military dictatorship.

[Nox]

It's not a matter of if, but when.

[Q]

Given the dire state of the working class movement, I'm gonna be pessimist say in ~50 years (which for some reason is the most optimistic option here?).

[daft punk]

Not very. Although I'm more worried about the revolution being hijacked again.
Well, I think you know why it was hijacked, if you mean the USSR. It would be a lot different nowadays. Even in backward countries a lot of people live in cities and they have modern communication and so on, except where it's banned like China.

In fact China could possibly go the way Trots wanted Russia to go, but the problem is organising in those circumstances. The revolutionaries end up in exile. So it's down to some spontaneous mass movement pushing against the regime enough to overthrow it without capitalist restoration.

[daft punk]

Given the dire state of the working class movement, I'm gonna be pessimist say in ~50 years (which for some reason is the most optimistic option here?).

50 years aint that long when you reach 50 years of age, and yes it is in a dire state alright. The Trots are fragmented and post Blair we have the fucking Tories in the UK! Incredible.

[Raúl Duke]

I'm pessimistic.
To be honest, I can't predict shit.
But socialism in America...ha! I doubt that'll happen anytime soon, particularly not in this state (Florida), maybe in another state but not sure.

[Decolonize The Left]

I think there's a huge difference between the decline and fall of capitalism and the rise of socialism. So I voted "Quite likely in the distant future."

- August

[Rafiq]

I'm pessimistic.
To be honest, I can't predict shit.
But socialism in America...ha! I doubt that'll happen anytime soon, particularly not in this state (Florida), maybe in another state but not sure.

I hear you. Florida sucks, it's stuck in the Reagan era.

Christ I hate the 80's, especially in florida.

[MotherCossack]

its a bit like hoping for life after death...
i voted for the maybe, hopefully in the distant future option... but am not holding my breath.
the trouble is ... capitalism is so greedy and destructive, i worry that it might just last long enough to either: wipe humanity off the face of the earth.
or: render the earth unsuitable for humanity.

[GoddessCleoLover]

I agree with Mother Cossack and Antonio Gramsci. I try to maintain an optimistic will, but the intellect is somewhat pessimistic. Another of my favorite Gramsci-ism goes along the lines that a revolutionary must learn to live without illusions without becoming disillusioned.

[Caj]

The downfall of capitalism is inevitable. Whether or not socialism will replace it though is a different question. I voted maybe. I honestly don't know. What I do know is that, if not socialism, barbarism will be the next age of human society.

[GoddessCleoLover]

As things stand now I see it as likely that we will descend into barbarism or even extinction as not. We are degrading the environment so rapidly and depleting the planet's resources so wantonly that there may come a time when socialism is not longer on the table, and we fight over remaining resources until we become extinct.

[Ostrinski]

Voted maybe in the distant future, closest thing to my opinion. We all know that the global market in its present form is unsustainable and that its collapse will create crisis conditions that will intensify class struggle and intensify the development of class consciousness. This class consciousness must be greater than any adaptive capacity the bourgeoisie may have left. If these proposed conditions become reality, then I'd say global socialism becomes the next historical epoch.

Of course, that doesn't address the question of when. And a question that I think is very difficult to put a number on, as the most colossal events are often the least predictable. I'm not aware of any predictions of the industrial revolution, for example. At this present time, given the abysmal state of the proletarian movement, I'd put it way beyond 50 years. Not in my lifetime certainly.

[andyx1205]

To be honest this is a very hard question.

In 1848, we failed. In the early 20th century, there was possibility of a successful Marxist revolution IF a revolution in Germany had been successful since revolution in a capitalist first-world industrialized country was important and the Russians were simply holding Russia together, waiting for that revolution in Germany that never came.

The biggest challenge facing the world today is not capitalism or socialism or political ideology but rather global warming, which is the number one threat to our survival, the second being nuclear weapons. Because GW is the greatest threat to our existence, and because of its relation to capitalism and consumerism and economic growth-is-good-mentality, and because of the increasing possibility of the capitalist system crashing accompanied with natural disasters (from the effects of AGW), there is possibility of chaos and in this chaos perhaps we can build a better society. Or maybe in the chaos a militaristic fascist dictatorship will take over. Who knows.

All we can do is educate the people so that when the time comes for a revolution, which may be in ten years, of twenty, or fifty, when the time comes...perhaps the people, the majority, will succeed over the minority, the minority elites who control most of the wealth. It all starts at the grassroots level.

I don't know though man. Unemployment in Spain is very high yet they voted in a reactionary manner, bringing the conservatives into party (the vote of course was a vote against the social dems but the two parties barely have different policies and you'd expect a real leftist party to make big gains like the early days when Labour parties made gains and replaced the Liberals as part of the two dominant parties).

The world is unpredictable.

[Ostrinski]

Not very. Although I'm more worried about the revolution being hijacked again.

Yeah, I hope that in the next revolution, some crazed sociopath doesn't take over and end up killing all the communists.

It'd be nice wouldn't it?What's the point in fearing this? If the revolution has the capacity to be hijacked then it's going to be hijacked. It can't be hijacked if the proletariat doesn't let it. All throughout history, and long before the origins of industrial society, opportunist roaders have been neutralized by the sheer consciousness of the larger campaign.

[eyeheartlenin]

I think it is extremely likely that there will be a breakthrough in one or more Latin American countries, where there are constant workers' and popular struggles going on all the time, and Latin American Trotskyism is really impressive, IMHO.

[daft punk]

As things stand now I see it as likely that we will descend into barbarism or even extinction as not. We are degrading the environment so rapidly and depleting the planet's resources so wantonly that there may come a time when socialism is not longer on the table, and we fight over remaining resources until we become extinct.
Don't even start me on that. One of my mates worked for Greenpeace. Researcher and professional pirate!



The biggest challenge facing the world today is not capitalism or socialism or political ideology but rather global warming, which is the number one threat to our survival, the second being nuclear weapons. Because GW is the greatest threat to our existence, and because of its relation to capitalism and consumerism and economic growth-is-good-mentality, and because of the increasing possibility of the capitalist system crashing accompanied with natural disasters (from the effects of AGW), there is possibility of chaos and in this chaos perhaps we can build a better society. Or maybe in the chaos a militaristic fascist dictatorship will take over. Who knows.

All we can do is educate the people so that when the time comes for a revolution, which may be in ten years, of twenty, or fifty, when the time comes...perhaps the people, the majority, will succeed over the minority, the minority elites who control most of the wealth. It all starts at the grassroots level.

I don't know though man. Unemployment in Spain is very high yet they voted in a reactionary manner, bringing the conservatives into party (the vote of course was a vote against the social dems but the two parties barely have different policies and you'd expect a real leftist party to make big gains like the early days when Labour parties made gains and replaced the Liberals as part of the two dominant parties).

The world is unpredictable.

good post. You gloomy bastard!

[daft punk]

I think it is extremely likely that there will be a breakthrough in one or more Latin American countries, where there are constant workers' and popular struggles going on all the time, and Latin American Trotskyism is really impressive, IMHO.

yeah, stay positive! shame venezuela isnt going so well though. Chavez aint a Stalinist, but he does act a bit like one.

[TheGeekySocialist]

how optimistic am I? I have severe depression...on good days I think maybe in the distant future, on bad ones (too many of them last few years) I think never :crying:

[Guy Incognito]

how optimistic am I? I have severe depression...on good days I think maybe in the distant future, on bad ones (too many of them last few years) I think never :crying:

Sadly, I'm with you brother (or sister or both, whatever the case may be). I want it so badly I can taste it. But they'll never let it happen. The people are too harshly indoctrinated against anything even smelling of "That awful socialism". They're even willing here in the states to give more money to the insurance companies, just to avoid the appearance of human decency as it would seem "socialist". Because "Rawr evil socialism! If you do that, you'll wake up russian!", "You'll start drinking vodka and killing puppies for not being the right shade of brown!", etcetera ad infinitum. You can even beat them over the head with logic, explain in detail why what they're doing is bad, and they might even completely friggin agree with EVERYTHING you say. But the moment you tell them that what they're agreeing with is Marx, they will do mental goddamn gymnastics to get out of it. ANYTHING will be said to overcompensate in the other direction. It's rediculous.
But the biggest thing, is that (at least here in the west) the capitalist governments are watching us on a scale we couldn't have possibly comprehended before. If an uprising began, they take out any semblence of leadership IMMEDIATELY, and hurl them into dark prisons out of the country. It would be near instantaneous that they would use the news media to portray the vanguard as terrorists, possibly even causing false flag massacres in their name. You can almost guarantee it, because it makes so much sense to do so. There is little hope of success, and that's what depresses me.

[Doflamingo]

I can foresee it happening in the distant future. How distant? Only time will tell. It may not happen in our lifetime even, but I believe it will happen.

[coda]

I'm an older comrade by forum demographics-- 9 US presidents, but under 50.

Economic conditions is the comparative standard--- and in regard to that I think Capitalism has no where else to go but into (further) massive sudden decline.

Whether socialism is integrated or full out revolution.... I can't say, but current economic platforms are serving fewer and fewer workers everyday..

edit: I would say well within the next 50 years...

[andyx1205]

I'd like to make one thing clear. The decline of Capitalism does NOT mean the rise of Socialism. The collapse of Capitalism, of the system, can also mean the rise of Fascism and so forth, the elites will not give up their power so easily. Hence, what will determine the aftermath of Capitalism is up to the PEOPLE.

I forgot who said it, maybe it was Rosa Luxemburg, but there are only two options in the future, barbarism or socialism, and it's up to us to decide. Imagine environmental catastrophes as the worse case scenarios of global warming take place, wars over resources, genocide, barbarism unmatched by even Hitler himself, imagining all of that makes me very gloom....

but in the back of the tunnel there is still hope. As an atheist, it is this hope that keeps me alive, keeps me breathing, keeps me living, that is, hope in mankind, hope in the inner moral spirit (in the metaphorical sense).

Examples such as Germans hiding Jews in their homes during the Nazi reign gives me hope. The great example of Christians holding hands as Muslims prayed in Egypt and then Muslims holding hands to form a human wall around the praying Christians gives me hope. The struggle of the Vietnamese and victory against the Americans gives me hope. The struggle of the Algerians who defeated the French gives me hope.

Hope, however, is not a rational stance, rather, it is an extension of irrational emotion, yet, it is this irrational emotion that makes us human.

Yet, I don't know man. Fuck. I remember Herbert Marcuse (from the Frankfurt School) giving an interview, where he cited fellow colleague and Marxist, Friedrich Pollock, who argued that "there were no compelling internal reasons why Capitalism should collapse." In a sense this is true, we can reform Capitalism, curb its excesses, enact laws to improve quality of life (after all, highest quality of life is in Scandinavia) and use state-intervention to combat AGW (after-all, during WW2 we had semi-state planned economies to fight the war against Fascism), having a sort of war-economy to go "green." It's all possible. Hence it comes down to "moral" reasons, such as alienation, and so forth.

As someone from the far-left political position, I do believe it is technically possible to save Capitalism, yet, it is like repairing and "furnishing" an old car to keep it running, to keep the engine running, to make it adaptable. And all for what? Why keep a dead, archaic system, that is, Capitalism, a system that belongs to the 19th century that had its time (industrialization,etc), alive? Why keep a broken, 19th century idea, alive, by fixing it?

It is for this moral reason that we need a new system, that is, according to the pessimist Marxist, Friedrich Pollock. And sadly I can understand his point. Technically, all of the industrialized nations, especially in the West, can follow the Nordic model of Welfare Capitalism. We can regulate this, and regulate that, and move away from Anglo-Capitalism to Nordic-Capitalism. Yet, like I said, it's like buying new parts to fix an old, battered, car. All for what? So we can keep this system of greed and hierarchy, this system of alienation?

I'm not sure if you guys have read Aldous Huxley's book, "A Brave New World," but this is the system I'm talking about...a sort of reformed Capitalism, the uber Welfare State (whether it's a democracy or one-party dictatorship it doesn't matter), where everyone has a high quality of life, we have everything given to us, and well, the interesting part of the book is that it can be viewed as a utopia AND as a dystopia. Huxley refers to it as a dystopia, and believes that if we reach such a system, it will be too late to fix it, because everyone's happy (after all, why would the majority living in Norway want to overthrow their state?).

Hence it comes down to the moral issue. Huxley, in the beginning intro to the book, advocates his preferred ideology to combat this. He advocates anarcho-communism, that is, the system advocated by Peter Kropotkin. This ideology of course is an umbrella that covers left-anarchism, libertarian socialism, Luxemburgism, council communism, Left communism, etc, that is, a libertarian form of socialism (and many Marxists believe their libertarian, anti-authoritarian form of Marxism to be the authentic form of Marxism). Remember, when Huxley speaks of anarcho-communism, it's pretty much the same as what Karl Marx referred to as communism.

I probably blabbered a bit too much there but hopefully someone found it worthy enough to read.

[andyx1205]

Just so people know what I was referring to in regards to Huxley's anarchism, from a BNW Revisited:

"If I were now to rewrite the book, I would offer the Savage a third alternative. Between the Utopian and primitive horns of his dilemma would lie the possibility of sanity... In this community economics would be decentralist and Henry-Georgian, politics Kropotkinesque co-operative. Science and technology would be used as though, like the Sabbath, they had been made for man, not (as at present and still more so in the Brave New World) as though man were to be adapted and enslaved to them. Religion would be the conscious and intelligent pursuit of man's Final End, the unitive knowledge of immanent Tao or Logos, the transcendent Godhead or Brahman. And the prevailing philosophy of life would be a kind of Higher Utilitarianism, in which the Greatest Happiness principle would be secondary to the Final End principle – the first question to be asked and answered in every contingency of life being: "How will this thought or action contribute to, or interfere with, the achievement, by me and the greatest possible number of other individuals, of man's Final End?"

He saw libertarian socialism (or "communism" in the Marxist sense) as being the only alternative to totalitarianism (he believed in the future we will either have a totalitarian militaristic society or a totalitarian welfare state, with the only antidote or rather the only option to secure individual freedom and emancipation being libertarian socialism or "communism", that is, decentralized socialism).

[Mr. Natural]

I voted "not likely," for I cannot find an anarchist/socialist/communist response to capitalist globalization anywhere. Indeed, the "left" has become astonishingly conservative and fragmented.

When I finally got a computer to search the internet last May, I feared that I would wind up confirming what I suspected: that what is left of the left has become astonishingly conservative and out-of-date. My fears have been emphatically realized.

I'm a red-green Marxist revolutionary and I cannot be anything else. As such, I find it astonishing that "Marxists" have shunned the new sciences of organizational relations and either abandoned dialectics or confined them to human affairs. Late in life, Engels bitterly remarked that he and Marx had "sown dragons but reaped fleas."

It's way past time for the fleas of the left to hop to it. The new systems-complexity sciences can bring organization to the materialist dialectic and revolutionary processes out of capitalism into a realized human future. Marx and Engels would jump all over these new sciences, but the founders of Marxism have been mortally inconvenienced.

Engels at Marx's graveside: "Science was for Marx a historically dynamic, revolutionary force." So where are the modern Marxists?

[daft punk]

what does that actually mean? maybe you should do a thread on it.

[Zav]

Socialism does and has existed in places. As for world-wide Socialism, it will take a century at the least, and we might kill ourselves/everything else off before we even get close.

[GoddessCleoLover]

Wasn't Heinrich Heine the author of the lament that he had sown dragon's teeth but reaped only fleas?

[Mr. Natural]

Zav, I'm not being argumentative. I simply cannot think of an example of socialism that exists anywhere in the world at this time. Perhaps the Zapatistas would qualify in some sense, but they would be the exception that proves the overall contention.

Gramsci Guy, You are so right about the Engels/Heine quote. From Helena Sheehan's most worthwhile Marxism and the Philosophy of Science (1983): "[Engels] also expressed a certain general disappointment with the caliber of their successors, commenting [to Paul Lafargue] that Marx may well have said, in the words of Heine: 'I sowed dragons and I reaped fleas'."

Daft Punk, Thanks for this thread. I did start a thread (my first) last week in Learning: "Marx's and Bertell Ollman's Dialectic." I tried to get others to engage Ollman's groundbreaking work on the nature of Marx's materialist dialectic as presented in Dance of the Dialectic (2003) and got one response.

I'm afraid I see a Marxism that has not updated in a century and has gotten way off track. Global capitalism represents a mental as well as a physical imprisonment of the human species, and that "astonishing conservatism" of the left to which I refer is, indeed, an ugly reality.

The immediate problem is that the materialist dialectics with which Marx and Engels engaged "nature, human society, and thought" (Anti-Duhring) have been either abandoned or degraded by modern "Marxism." This takes the life out of Marxism. It also cannot be justified, unless you replace Marx and Engels with Korsch and the early Lukacs.

The new sciences of organizational relations show that the materialist dialectic uncannily mirrors the organizational relations of life (thus healthy societies). These new sciences, though, have been universally ignored by the left. There is no mention of the key scientific revelation, self-organization, in the Sciences and Environment forum, for example.

The book that brings these new sciences of organization down to Earth is The Web of Life (1996), by the theoretical physicist, Fritjof Capra.

I most definitely have my limitations, but I have worked out a viable red-green theory of life, community, and revolution that is based in Marxism and the new sciences of organization but dismissed out of hand by a left that cannot organize. That I cannot get anyone to even engage a living materialist dialectic and revolutionary organizing theory is well beyond frustrating.

Of course, if I were to start an anti-dialectics thread .... In the meantime, those four books I mentioned are radically terrific.

[bcbm]

if you want a picture of the future imagine a boot stamping on a human face- forever

[GoddessCleoLover]

Ingsoc, and there is always the possibility that we might descend to barbarism.

[bcbm]

capitalism is barbarism

[workersadvocate]

If revolution isn't likely, in time to stop the system-caused threats to human survival, then what?

Do we just accept our impending doom, because the majority of humanity did and rolled over?

Or maybe we could do something radical yet: actually try to save some of humanity and the planet itself, while accepting the fact that most of humanity probably is too determined to kill itself or will remain chained in essentially a coma from which it will never awaken and arise.

That brings another question: how many chances should those who want systematic change---and who will make sure that at least some human life survives into the future by any means necessary---allow for the many who don't and won't? Where do we draw the line, and say "time's up: make your choice NOW"?

[Lanky Wanker]

It'll be just my luck that when I'm shooting up to kill myself after coming to the conclusion that the world is forever fucked, I'll see a news report announcing a huge workers' uprising... but the needle already went in.

I'm a pessimistic piece of shit so I said maybe in the distant future.

[workersadvocate]

It'll be just my luck that when I'm shooting up to kill myself after coming to the conclusion that the world is forever fucked, I'll see a news report announcing a huge workers' uprising... but the needle already went in.

I'm a pessimistic piece of shit so I said maybe in the distant future.

No way I'd go for suicide. It ain't my fault.

I'd be more inclined to try to save those who want systematic change, to save that remnant of human life, somehow push the "restart button" in a way that the planet itself would not be irreversibly lost (and with a minimum of loss of the technology and logistical infrastructure...we're not going primitivist), and then re-begin human life upon Earth once again upon a new foundation that by-design will never take us back down the path toward exploitative oppressive systems.

Is it better to save a few humans and the planet, and thus have a quite certain chance of a progressive human future...or to just submit to the will of the ruling classes and their obedient or paralyzed human subjects and watch them destroy everything and everyone? What good it is to see the current system come to an end only as it wipes out all life along with it?
What reason for hope is there that suggests that a majority of working people around the world will somehow (how?) actually overthrow the ruling classes of the system before a man-made system-caused extinction-event is imminent?
"It'll never happen" is wishful thinking based on nothing real. It WILL happen eventually (perhaps within this century) unless prevented somehow.

Of course, we'd like to believe a revolution could solve the problem. That would be great, and would certainly mean the continued survival of the mostest. But, sorry, do you see the ones who will actually make this revolution? Or do you see in the masses people who will cling to this system and their cherished illusions until they find out that their world is about to be annihilated by the system that they themselves essentially served and obeyed to the fucking end (by not actually making revolution)?

I remember reading some leftist say that the working class doesn't "owe" us a revolution. Actually, yes, the working class does "owe" it to themselves and to the rest of humanity...because without it, the options for saving and continuing human life into the future get very harsh. If they don't do it, if they seem unlikely to do it in time, we need a "Plan B", which of course would take quite some time and effort to prepare...just so that not everything and everyone is lost.

[GoddessCleoLover]

Given capitalism's demonstrated staying power I would say that is a realistic position. I don't believe that I will become disillusioned because even since the 2008 crisis I have seen what may be the initial stirrings of a new movement. Although it may take many years or even decades for this to bear tangible results, I sense that many people are more questioning of the status quo thtn they were before 2008.

[workersadvocate]

Given capitalism's demonstrated staying power I would say that is a realistic position. I don't believe that I will become disillusioned because even since the 2008 crisis I have seen what may be the initial stirrings of a new movement. Although it may take many years or even decades for this to bear tangible results, I sense that many people are more questioning of the status quo thtn they were before 2008.

Yes, they may questionit, from a reformist or reactionary position (or both). They might seek to do non-revolutionary activity with the hundreds or thousands of others who at the moment---for similar or often different reasons---are out trying to do this same activity. But you could perhaps count with your hands the number within any such crowd who are ready to kill or perhaps even die if necessary to secure systematic change. Until they are at such point, until they want to kill this whole society (not just a few, not just some parts of it) and are prepared to seriously do something with their own lives in order to make it happen, they ain't really out to fundamentally change anything.

What makes us think that will eventually develop among the masses anytime in the next 50 years?

[GoddessCleoLover]

I don't see world revolution as something that is likely to occur in the next fifty years, but I do see indications that class consciousness may be broadly re-emerging in the USA for the first time since the 1930s.

Generally, IMO Workersadvocate makes an important point about the depth of commitment necessary to carry out a revolution. In addition to the level of commitment amongst workers, the other salient point is that revolutions don't usually occur until the ruling class has demonstrated an inability to maintain the current order. While I regard the 2008 economic crisis as a major failure of the economic system, I do not believe that it rises to the level where we can say that revolutionary change is imminent. That type of crisis could be twenty years away, but it also could be fifty or a hundred years in the future. Suffice to say that the masses won't turn to revolution until the system fails more profoundly than it has as of now.

[Lanky Wanker]

No way I'd go for suicide. It ain't my fault.


Nah, I'm kidding. True words you speak though. And if I ever do kill myself it'll probably be out of boredom or by accident... or I'll die before I get the chance to.

[Mr. Natural]

Workers Advocate, et al, I'm not expecting a response. I do, however, want to point out a gross contradiction that is emblematic of the general conservatism I encounter at RevLeft and the other left sites.

Workers Advocate asked: "If revolution isn't likely, in time to stop the system-caused threats to human survival, then what? Do we just accept our impending doom ...?"

So Workers Advocate and the rest of the posters seem to be in pursuit of solutions to our many impending human catastrophes.

However, when I post that the abandonment or gutting of the Marxist materialist dialectic has taken the life out of Marxism, and reference the work that reveals the origins and praxis of dialectics (Bertell Ollman's Dance of the Dialectic), I get no replies.

When I state that the new, revolutionary sciences of the organization of life show us how to organize our lives and revolutionary processes out of capitalism, I get no replies.

When I state that I have a viable red-green theory of life, community, and revolution worked out and ready for popular development, I get no replies.

So, without actually wanting to be offensive, I must observe that you guys and gals are currently just playing games, while I want to develop revolutionary processes into a human future.

As I posted earlier, I'm no prize, but I am a revolutionary Marxist, and I'm looking for others.

[TheRedAnarchist23]

I don't beleive in socialism so I can't vote...

[bcbm]

I don't see world revolution as something that is likely to occur in the next fifty years, but I do see indications that class consciousness may be broadly re-emerging in the USA for the first time since the 1930s.

Generally, IMO Workersadvocate makes an important point about the depth of commitment necessary to carry out a revolution. In addition to the level of commitment amongst workers, the other salient point is that revolutions don't usually occur until the ruling class has demonstrated an inability to maintain the current order. While I regard the 2008 economic crisis as a major failure of the economic system, I do not believe that it rises to the level where we can say that revolutionary change is imminent. That type of crisis could be twenty years away, but it also could be fifty or a hundred years in the future. Suffice to say that the masses won't turn to revolution until the system fails more profoundly than it has as of now.

i think social change happens in ways we generally don't comprehend and its silly to say 'well it probably won't happen in 20 years, maybe in 50' cuz who the fuck knows? lenin thought he wouldn't see a revolution in like 1915, april '68 in paris was a month like any other, i doubt many saw the arab spring coming, let alone the wisconsin 'uprising' and the occupy movement and so on... there are such a number of factors at play that its impossible to say. what seems unlikely today or in the following decades might be beyond common sense tomorrow.





that said, i'm pretty sure we're fucked.


If revolution isn't likely, in time to stop the system-caused threats to human survival, then what?

Do we just accept our impending doom, because the majority of humanity did and rolled over?

Or maybe we could do something radical yet: actually try to save some of humanity and the planet itself, while accepting the fact that most of humanity probably is too determined to kill itself or will remain chained in essentially a coma from which it will never awaken and arise.

eco-fascist cadres must seize power

[Искра]

I'm not Gandalf. So I don't play with crystal ball.

[GoddessCleoLover]

Actually, I seem to recall writing that he did not expect revolution in his lifetime unless Russia was plunged into a major war. Perhaps I ought to articulated myself better; I don't expect revolution in my lifetime unless there is a truly catastrophic collapse of capitalism, wither an economic crisis MUCH worse than that of 2008, a major war amongst the world's largest powers or some similar catastrophic event (s).

[∞]

I don't know, what do I look like? A psychic?

[Ele'ill]

The world will grow colder and a great shadow will pass over all hope- with the realization that we were living our only chance at revolution a decade ago and it will crumple us into the fetal position on the ground faster than multiple stab wounds. All hail the barren plains the roaring blue abyss of forever after our deaths.




Edit- oops, yeah I think we'll see socialism at some point.

[Tavarisch_Mike]

Im optimistic as hell! i belive that it will occure sometime during my life, and thats because of the material conditions of today. Never before have we had such a great productivity, thats requires less manpower, where so much value and resources are being wasted. Today most transactions are done without hard cash and it makes the first steps in the abolishon of money. This cant go on for too long time. People will eventually crave for a different world and take action.

[RedSonRising]

This shit won't last; the organic alternative that is socialism is inevitable.

[NewLeft]

I voted not likely, I don't even know if there will be a proletariat in 50 years.

[Ele'ill]

I voted not likely, I don't even know if there will be a proletariat in 50 years.

Only one thing will exist in 50 years. Thunderdome.

[∞]

You guys got some fucking crystal balls.