Doug writes
"Wait a minute. You think revolutionary socialism has a chance in the current environment? Or if it all falls down it will? Is that your position?"
I'm not going to be trapped into some gauche error under cross-examination, Doug. Of couse I don't think that the revolution is going to happen tomorrow. Nor am I celebrating the collapse of capitalism - but insofar as the system is in trouble (and the extent of the problem is, as you know, a debatable question) I don't think you advance the possibility of an alternative by insisting on the stability of the system of private property. This is their crisis, not ours. Our interest is to make sure that they don't make us pay the price for it.
If we take as our starting point the need to stabilise the system of private property, then we have tied our hands behind our backs before the fight has even started. I have to say, I am truly quite shocked that the indication that capitalism is not a self-equilibriating system has brought forth such a determination to stabilise the capitalist order at all costs. In the end the possibility or otherwise of revolutionary socialism is a subjective question. If you refuse the very possibility of thinking an alternative, then that will become a self-fulfilling prophecy. The status quo will be stabilised, at our expense, because we are incapable of arguing for something better.