When I and others queried him as to why he thought socialism isn’t a possible outcome to the present crisis, he answered that not too many academics or government policy makers are interested in socialism these days (as opposed to the 1930s).
Now, while demanding immediate government measures to protect people
from the worst effects of the crisis (e.g., a moratorium on foreclosures or public works) is hardly groveling before the bourgeoisie, Harvey has gone a lot further. He seems be writing off any kind of explicitly socialist program as unrealistic and in its place presenting a long term program for capitalist renewal. And it occurs to me that this is where one major strand of the “new social movements” (of which Harvey seems to be putting himself forward as a major theoretician, and from whose latest gathering at the World Social Forum in Brazil he20had just returned) may indeed be headed.
It was also interesting that, while to Harvey the prospects for socialism seem to depend mainly upon current thinking in academic and government circles, such things as riots in Greece and Latvia, the fall of a government in Iceland, and huge demonstrations in Paris, Rome and Dublin, were hardly mentioned. Why does the Marxist David Harvey aim to save capitalism when former treasury secretary Paul Volcker says its survival is only probable? Should Marxists limit their horizons to the possibility of another 1936 when national security adviser Dennis Blair is worrying publicly about the possibility of another 1917?
Jim Creegan