Let's assume that last statement: "There's an unusual level of active identification with the system."
"Active identification," when you roll it over in your mind, is sort of a curious state of affairs. From 1942 when I first begin to respond to and remember political events to the early '60s I was, really, utterly unconsicous of (a) any real opposition to the system and (b) any identification, active or otherwise, with the system. (I don't even remember those words, "the system<" being used muc.) For me and my friends at Western Michigan the Wallace campaign in 1948 was an amusing joke. I seldom went to football games, but I remember the halftime at one game that year: the band played a song for each of the four candidates: the one for Wallace was Red Sails in the Sunselt. "The System" was perfectly safe, resistance to it invisible. But no _active_ identification with it either: merely automatic acceptance that that was the way things were.
Perhaps this is trivial, perhaps not. I just want to see examined a bit more deeply what "active identification" _means_; why it should be especially strong now -- and even whether that is necessarily a sign of political strength of capitalism, depending on whipping up active identification?????
^^^^ CB: I like Carrol's approach, especially noting that most people don't even consciously think in terms of a system. For most, it's just the way things are, and have to be. It's something like "identifying" with your language. Most are unaware that it is a system.
But on this issue today, it seems interesting that so much of the rightwing feels its necessary to defend the free enterprise system against "socialist" onslaught. And this is a period when all agree that Communism is dead , or as Eric says nobody likes socialism anymore (smile; I think this means Eric never liked socialism). By this, it is the rightwing who are potentially bringing to mass consciousness that there _is_ a system, which we leftists consider a first step in raising mass consciousness to class consciousness. Class consciousness is in part consciousness that there is a "system". In other words, by shouting their own active identification with the system, the rightwing may wake people up to the important fact that there is system, and that there can be a change at the systemic level.
Also, in the post-Soviet world, I notice that monopoly media uses the term "capitalism" much more than Soviet days. It's like they feel safe to name the system with no major existing alternative. This tends to promote the awareness that there is a system.
I remember in the movement upsurge of the 60's/70's many people were always talking about the "system" and the "movement" and "movement to change the system, " although, of course, not everybody had the same idea about what the system is.
An important part of the financial crisis is/was that the establishment mouthpieces claimed that there was a "systemic threat". In my opinion, the Left should republish this confession ten times a day.