In great upheavals, analogies fly like shrapnel. The electrifying protests of 2011—the on-going Arab spring, the ‘hot’ Iberian and Hellenic summers, the ‘occupied’ fall in the United States—inevitably have been compared to the anni mirabiles of 1848, 1905, 1968 and 1989. Certainly some fundamental things still apply and classic patterns repeat. Tyrants tremble, chains [...]

  The Future of the Occupy Movement Jurist Guest Columnist Jules Lobel of the University of Pittsburgh School of Law says that if the Occupy Movement can create organizational forms that combine its democratic, egalitarian origins with ongoing direct action, a narrative of solidarity, equality and democracy over the long term, it will have made [...]

  “Turning-points in the history of humanity,” a contributor to the left-wing Algerian newspaper Le Matin observed in the summer of 2001, “are never simple for contemporaries to understand. Rarely are people able fully to assess the significance of these episodes, or their consequences. The developments concerned do not proceed in the manner, or at [...]

  In the last few decades there has been an enormous shift in the capitalist economy in the direction of the globalization of production. Much of the increase in manufacturing and even services production that would have formerly taken place in the global North—as well as a portion of the North’s preexisting production—is now being [...]

  The challenge for this new generation cutting their political teeth in the tent cities around the world will be to learn the lessons Mann tries to teach in this book.  One of the most important?  “Transformative organizers,” Mann says, “know a most precious truth: that much of the deepest healing, transformation and rejuvenation comes [...]

  When the union’s inspiration through the workers’ blood shall run, There can be no power greater anywhere beneath the sun; Yet what force on earth is weaker than the feeble strength of one, But the union makes us strong. We have passed by Longview, Washington many times on our way to Seattle or Mt. [...]

World Peace Forum Teach-In, Vancouver, Canada, November 12, 2011 (Modified from Notes) We are at what social theorists call a “historic moment,” in which real change suddenly seems possible.  It is therefore all the more important to learn from past struggles.  One of the first lessens of a long history of dissent from the early [...]

  General strikes were common in Europe and in the U.S. towards the end of the nineteenth century and in the first decades of the twentieth century.  They provoked great debates within the labor movement and within the revolutionary parties and movements (anarchist, communist, socialist). Much discussed were the importance of the general strike in [...]

  The Social Economy Context The Occupy Wall Street (OWS) movement has clearly expressed the hopes and great potentialities of the working class both in the U.S. and globally.  The 99 percent are speaking up and saying that they will no longer do the bidding of the 1 percent.  In essence it is the revolt [...]

  “Speculators may do no harm as bubbles on a steady stream of enterprise. But the position is serious when enterprise becomes the bubble on a whirlpool of speculation. When the capital development of a country becomes a byproduct of the activities of a casino, the job is likely to be ill-done.” – John Maynard [...]