Social Movements Will Not Free Us (part one)
Why did the Arab Spring lead to more brutal repression, instead of more democracy? Asef Bayat’s analysis provides some lessons for the left everywhere.
Has the Left Given Up on Ending Capitalism?
Is the age of left-wing revolutions over? Does this inevitably mean that the left has to accommodate itself to a capitalist economy and a capitalist world system? I firmly believe that the way forward to a more just society will be worked out incrementally by today’s left, especially by the left of that left who want to move society towards a new post-capitalist social system. But facts are facts, and right now the left is united around a set of sacrosanct principles that result in a refusal or incapacity to imagine practical ways of changing who is in power in society’s institutions.