The absence of such a current is itself a product of objective processes, some of which are described in this book. The last great wave of insurgency against the system in the late 1960s and early 1 970s failed to break through.69 Restructuring of the system through crises disorganised many of the forces involved in that insurgency just as defeat demoralised the left. The demoralisation was made more profound by the way the great majority of those on the left worldwide identified with the societies of the old Eastern bloc, societies which had, in fact, been absorbed into the system's dynamic of competitive accumulation and which suffered more than most from the crisis of the state capitalist phase of the system.
It was as if much of the left had to be born afresh when the latest phase of insurgency began to take off with the Chiapas rebellion in Mexico and a wave of public sector strikes in France in 1 995, the demonstrations against capitalist globalisation of 1 999- 2001 and the movement against the Iraq war in 2002-3. But being born afresh also meant having to learn afresh. Typically, activists talked about fighting globalisation or neoliberalism, not capitalism. But the runaway system has itself created the objective conditions for yet another shift.
As I write this, the sheer scale of the crisis facing the world system is forcing even those who run the system to talk about capitalism, and having to recognise that Marx had something to say about it long before Keynes. Many of the new generation of activists have begun to study his writings and many of the older generation suddenly find they have an audience to pass what they have learnt on to.
Who Can Overcome?
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