1848+: Last and First Men

We are thrust into our subject, post haste, The Future of Work: Where the Labor Movement Is Heading

Global Labor Strategies. Posted September 1, 2008.
Conventional trade unionism is pretty much over. On Labor Day, it’s time to figure out what should come next.

I post a comment,…
The old ‘old left’ and the future

Posted by: nemonemini on Sep 1, 2008 7:04 AM
The labor movement is the child of the old ‘old left’ which since the (fortunate) passing of Bolshevism is essentially defunct, both theoretically and in practice. Isolated labor movements are sitting ducks without the larger framework of a true left. The future needs something new in the way of a theory/philosophy of history that can base the idea of the left in something more than the Leninist distortions and revolutionary adventurism. Behind the errors of Marx and his denunciation as a failed prophet lies the reality that he prophesied the exact situation that neo-liberalism has created for us. But his flawed theories have proven the left’s own downfall. So, for a first thought, we need to both disown the old left, and yet have no illusions about the acute insights of such as Marx that essentially produced the classic diagnosis of our situation. This diagnosis is still mocking us a century and half later. But the old left is in many way in the way of new thinking.
It popped into my head to start a blog on this issue: 1848+: Out of Revolution, (no content yet, but it’s the idea that counts)