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Discussion on the way forward after May Day

Charlie | 02.05.2001 19:18

A discussion on the way forward for the anti-capitalist movement after May Day:

Yet again, a massive police operation has succeeded in containing the May Day protests. Apart from obvious things -such as making sure everyone knows you can legally refuse to give your name when searched under an s60 order - it will take a lot of hard thinking to work out the way forward for the anti-capitalist movement. But, when everyone from Naomi Klein to Anita Roddick can claim to be anti-capitalist, perhaps this is not such bad situation.

We should never lose sight of the fact that 'globalisation' or 'corporate greed' are not the real problem. After all, they had neither of thee things in the Soviet Union and people's lives were still miserable.

The real problem is the whole of capitalist society - a society in which none of us have control over our own lives. Instead, our lives are controlled by the need to work in tedious, pointless jobs just to earn money to survive. The only people capable of overthrowing this system based on forced work are the people on whom this work is forced - the working class.

That is why the only way forward for the anti-capitalist movement is to keep trying to link up with struggles such as those of the tube workers or fuel protesters - and to show people that anti-capitalism is not fundamentally about campaigning against Nike or McDonalds, but is about them freeing themselves from their present over-worked, stressful lives. Once people discover they could take over society and run it for themselves, not for capitalism, then no amount of 'zero tolerance' policing from Ken 'bomb Kosovo' Livingstone can stop them!

Charlie

Comments

Display the following 11 comments

  1. What We Achieved — Tom
  2. In Praise of Idleness — Proletariat
  3. You know... — Disillusioned kid
  4. and let's stop sacrificing our children — spiral woman
  5. ToKeN SuGGeStIoN — (A)(P)(F)=: ]
  6. Lazy CEOs? — Mr S
  7. Is John Lewis's anti-capitalist? — Fred
  8. An Apology for Idlers — Hamish
  9. future marches need to — steve
  10. The numbers game. — Keith
  11. An Armchair Anarchist's Post Mayday Musings — CeeRapp