[lbo-talk] Shoplifters of the world, unite

[Wojtek S]

One more observation - debating whether rioters as either criminals
(the right) or revolutionaries (the left) misses an altogether
different point - that they are both, or perhaps neither.  The main
objective of their action seems to be self-gratification - to get
their ya yas out or take an advantage of the disorder and pick up some
free goodies.  But they are also proto - revolutionaries, or perhaps
canaries in a coal mine that signal a revolutionary potential ahead.
Their actions signal that the capitalist world order is starting to
break and the existing political institutions are no longer able to
contain the discontent of the grunts.  Semi-criminal and lumpen
elements are the first to take advantage of this  increasing inability
of the existing neo-liberal institution to maintain social order -
they transgress that order mainly for self-gratification but by so
doing they send a signal that the neo-liberal emperor has no clothes,
the legitimacy of the system is broken and the only way the
neo-liberal overlords can maintain it is either through bribery of its
functionaries and stooges or through raw force.

However, it still takes an organization to turn that increasing
breakdown of the system and energies it releases into a progressive
force.  Without such an organization, all that we will see is a series
of riots followed by increased repression.

Wojtek