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

Monday, November 26, 2012

The class issues in the “fiscal cliff”

Click here to access article by Andre Damon from World Socialist Web Site.

This website continues to cut through all the obfuscation provided by ruling class institutions of indoctrination, by liberals, and other assorted progressives who are more concerned about their careers than telling the truth.
While the ruling class may seek to deny it and the pseudo-left may seek to contain it, the class struggle operates with an irrepressible logic. The interests of the working class cannot be secured except through the revolutionary transformation of all of society, replacing capitalism with socialism.
The much abused word "socialism" must be refined into some basic principles that we working people can rally around. It seems to me that the principles can be condensed into two basic ones: 1) public ownership and control of the economy, and 2) replacement of hierarchical structures with their opposite--bottom-up decision-making ("subarchy?"). The practical details of the second principle remain to be figured out, but I have no doubt that people can work them out once the "privateers" are defeated. In the meantime, cooperative enterprises can serve as an incubator of ideas and practices of the second principle.