Is Systematic Change Possible?

This is Richard Wolff from Democracy at Work responding to another Ask Prof Wolff question from our patreon.com community. And this one comes from Tara. Tara asks an important question and I want to really thank her for sending it in because it shows me that more and more of you who send us these questions are concerned with how we get out of the mess that so often I’m describing in responding to your questions. Tara asks do you believe that the equality we seek, and I appreciate being together with you on this and you’re quite right about it can that be brought about by a swift and sudden collapse of corporate fascism, Tara’s words, or a civil war, Tara’s words, or an evolution in culture through the constant promotion of Marxist and socialist thought. In other words, how do you get out of where we are to a far better place? The big question, if ever there were a big question.

So let me try to respond and I hope it isn’t frustrating. We need it all Tara! We need the development of critical thought about what we have and about how and why it could be better, we need struggle with people who don’t want us to go there, who want to keep the system the way it is because they think it’s the best or it simply benefits them, and we can’t rely simply on the collapse of the existing system because those leaves open the question what will happen in such a collapse. Where will things go?

So, we need it all! Yeah, we need the collapse of the institutions that are keeping this system going. We need struggles with those who want to keep this system and we need to develop the consciousness that knows how to respond when the system breaks down as for example ours does these days. And to drive home the point a few examples. Before ever the American Revolution happened back in 1774, 5 and 6, there were developments of thought at that time which were thoughts about how and why it would be good to be independent of Great Britain. There were thoughts and criticisms both abroad and in the then colonial United States about what was wrong with the British Empire and what was very bad about being a part of it. So, there was lots of development of critical thought then. There were also developments in England that made the British Empire weak, unable to do many of the things it once had been able to do, a breakdown of the existing institutions and then there was a struggle. The war of Independence between those who lived here and wanted to keep the British empire and those who didn’t.

All of that had to come together to make possible the break which was achieved by the war of Independence and then again later by the war of 1812. The same is true of changes in ways of thinking in the 18th century building up before the French Revolution. The polarization of French society, the degradation of the regimes of the absolute monarchs, Louis xiv, Louis the 16th and so on, and it was true in the Russian revolution. You had the development of Marxist and revolutionary socialist thought across the 19th century in Russia, building up a kind of consciousness, World War one which broke down the ability of the Russian government to keep things going and the Russian economy to provide land bread and all the basic things Russians needed, so you need it all.

And you know, it’s possible to give you examples from the United States as well. The people who love and believe in capitalism, private enterprise, the market, letting enormous inequality blossom in this country as it always has, but particularly in the last half century, those people have built all of this to serve their interests. They started by pumping out an ideology ever since World War II in reaction to what happened in the Great Depression, the New Deal, and Roosevelt.

These right-wing ideologues celebrate the market as if it were some perfect engine of economic well-being which it never was and which it certainly isn’t today and hasn’t been for these 50 years for most Americans, but they pushed it and they found allies to work with people in the religious community particularly fundamentalist religious community, people in the gun community, in the abortion prohibition community and they went around and they captured a political party didn’t they? The Republicans. So now they’ve got a part of the civil strife in the country.

The Republicans organized to be very pro-capitalist to hold on, the Democrats have done more or less the same. They don’t oppose capitalism, so they haven’t done that could one oppose capitalism and build not just the consciousness but to mobilize for struggles with those who oppose you to take advantage if the system breaks down of that breakdown to chart a new direction. Sure, it could.

We actually have an example. Very recent. June 12th to be exact, Sunday not very long ago an election in France where the president of France Mr. Macron walked away his party against a left-wing challenger, a unified party of socialists, communists, greens, and other left wingers, which got of the vote one-tenth of one percent different. The greatest challenge from the left in modern European history wow what’s happening in France. Those political left-wingers got together, and they understood we mount a social movement, but we coordinate with a political effort we coordinate and make a critique of a government that isn’t working really well, of institutions that are breaking down yeah you put these things together and all kinds of breakthroughs are possible. So, Tara, we need it all! Coordinated would be better than not organized, crucial if it’s going to happen.