> I haven't had a chance to read David Harvey's piece yet, but I did hear him
> last Monday night at the Brecht Forum in NYC. His reasoning went as follows:
> socialism is impossible at present. Therefore the left should aim to build a
> saner, greener capitalism, which would include such things as "a new design
> for urban living" to replace the existing grid of highways, suburbs and
> exurbs. This would require big investments in mass transit, among other
> things. Partial nationalizations, he said, might also be in order.
>
> 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
>
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While I have a great deal of sympathy for Harvey and his ideas, I sort of agree. Coming from a country which is definitely facing a major economic depression and watching the people around me fall into total confusion as to their future may have radicalised me somewhat (many of my friends are just about to graduate from college only to join a dole queue, while for the past ten years - i.e. their major formative years - they've been promised positions within the new "affluent society"). But to think that something other than capitalism is impossible under these circumstances seems naive. You mentioned all the chaos going on in Europe, but I don't think that this can be properly fathomed without taking into account the stagnant conditions beforehand and the rapidity with which social movements responded. As well as this I'd point to the fact that the general consensus is that China will be the next dominant economic player and something tells me that capitalism will prove to have been a passing fancy for the Chinese.
One observation I will make: In the past few weeks I've become aware of how little support business interests have among most people - even some of those in the higher echelons of the middle-class. It seems that in the past few years, with the wealth gap gradually widening, people have become rather envious of the super-rich who they know run things. The concrete support for these people is a hell of a lot less than I ever suspected...