What if? Politics and Post-Capitalism

Abstract

A variety of pessimistic economic forecasts predicts a long period of poor growth and continued high levels of unemployment even as the stock market has reached new highs. Trend extrapolation suggests we can expect continued rising inequality in income, wealth and political influence. Because these developments are so visible there was widespread positive reaction to Occupy Wall Street and its analysis of the causal factors at work shaping the political economy of the contemporary conjuncture. This article argues that these developments should inform the work of social movements and considers the strengths and weaknesses of the Social Forum/Occupy activists and the socialist/Marxist wings of the broad left movement and drawing on contributions of selected European theorists suggests a perspective enabling these poles of the movement to work together while maintaining, as they must, their different foci and political philosophy priors.