100 years after the Russian Revolution of 1917 and almost ten years after the financial crisis that drove a stake of austerity through many of our surviving social democracies, this week on The Laura Flanders Show we talk about alternatives; alternatives to both soviet-style socialism and Wall-Street style financial capitalism, and we consider, what might the movements look like that take us to that new place?
For the last couple of years, I’ve been part of an initiative promoted by the Transnational Institute in Amsterdam (TNI), and incorporating activists and organizers from all over the world in a conversation about what many are calling “new politics.” If the Russian Revolution is what factory workers and peasants came up with to challenge inequality under industrial capitalism and feudalism in the 19th Century, and social democracies — with their taxes and social programs — were what liberals in the 20th century came up with to tackle inequality under financial and corporate capitalism, what might activists in the 21st century come up with to move to a less exploitative, less extractive world where power is more equally shared. And what might the movements look like that take us there.
