[WS:] The problem is that the change that you are describing almost never occurs by spontaneous social movement - it requires a catastrophic event that will wipe out the elite hegemony, such as a war, foreign occupation or a total economic meltdown. Think of Russia in 1917, or China & Europe after WW2. Or even US in 1929 - economic meltdown coupled with elites legitimately fearing Communism.
The US of A today is not in a similar situation, not even close. The elites may have gotten some of their feathers ruffled, but they still maintain their hegemonic position quite firmly, and there is nothing comparable to Communism of the early 20th century that they can fear.
So actually it does take a catastrophic event to bring social change - not to mobilize the masses as many Leftists erroneously think, but to break the backbone of the ruling class and make them unable to resist the change.
Wojtek
--- On Mon, 3/23/09, dredmond at efn.org <dredmond at efn.org> wrote:
> From: dredmond at efn.org <dredmond at efn.org>
> Subject: Re: [lbo-talk] US 2009 = USSR 1990
> To: lbo-talk at lbo-talk.org
> Date: Monday, March 23, 2009, 3:23 AM
> On Sun, March 22, 2009 6:36 pm, Chris
> Doss wrote:
>
> > Considering what happened to living standards in the
> USSR post-1991, I
> > wouldn't be so sanguine about wishing for a repeat in
> the US.
>
> Oh, I don't wish for a repeat at all. Unlike some
> self-proclaimed
> Leftists, I have never, ever thought of hard times as a
> boon for humanity.
> Economic crashes bring out the worst in people, not the
> best.
>
> But the grim reality is that market fundamentalism has
> self-destructed,
> some nineteen years after the suicide of bureaucratic
> fundamentalism. It's
> not just the financial markets -- our health care system is
> busted, our
> industrial base is near death, our energy economy is
> broken, our pension
> system is broken, our political system is broken, our mass
> media is
> broken. The US urgently needs an entire galaxy of social
> movements, feisty
> unions and organized trouble-making to turn things around.
>
> -- DRR
>
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