A system is breaking up. What next? (A short essay in three parts.)

One

There are three great arguments against a radical overturn of the political economy of the west. In one way or another versions of these old arguments filter into public discussions and form attitudes among millions, especially in the leading classes in society. But the current deep crisis means that these traditional arguments can be tested, once more, against the facts. Ultimately, the facts of our status quo will not be overthrown by the clash of ideas of course, but rather by other facts. New facts are being created by millions who fight for their lives; for a just and secure existence for themselves and their children. The facts of this new revolt will both create new arguments against all that already exists, and also, in time, resolve the debate over ideas, but through action and practice, in real life.

The first major claim is that any actual alternatives to the present political economy, to capitalism, are invariably worse. Leaving aside the myriad of speculative utopias that get raised in late night student discussions, the target of this point is invariably the failure of the Soviet Union and the adoption of the capitalist market policy (with apparent great success) by the leadership of the Chinese Communist Party.

There are many weighty tomes on the collapse of the USSR. Their production became a minor industry in the 1980s and 1990s. Indeed, lots of our current crop of pundits owe their status to the 'leg up' they were given, by their various establishments, at that time. Poorly served in academic and media circles were the thinkers and writers who had predicted the collapse of the USSR in some cases decades before it occurred. And least of all was serious attention paid to participants in the creation of the USSR, seminal among which was Trotsky, who made a devastating critique of the politics and the economy that he himself had helped to create, from the late 1920s onwards.

We are all now some distance from the failure of the Soviet Union and the collapse of Eastern Europe. The first observation to make now is that the crushing effects of the collapse of the USSR belong to a previous generation. I believe it is no exaggeration to say that both the South African revolution and the incipient Brazilian revolution were partly snuffed out by the fact that, with end of the USSR came the extinction, at that time, of any global centre that could provide sustenance and support against the power of western capital and its corporations. The scope for an independent path, especially in an underdeveloped country, appeared to be closed. This contrasts dramatically with the international support for the progress of the Cuban revolution in the 1960s or the Vietnamese revolution in the 1970s.

While not so obvious in day to day life, the effects in the West of the collapse of the USSR were also profound. The massive offensive against organised labour ratcheted up. Socialist Parties shed any commitment to an alternative type of society to that of capitalism. They were both deep signals of capitalism triumphant.

Today, much of that old debate has dissolved into mist. Indeed, the last line of defense of the capitalist, 'free' market system when faced with the collapse of the banks is - to nationalise them! The system is forced to tear up all its old 'principles' to protect itself - from itself! Today, everybody in the West with common sense can see that western capitalism is in a state of collapse. It has immensely more resources of course that were ever available to the USSR - and all of them are in play - and yet collapse is still a serious and long term threat according to the world's leading bankers, including the ever mournful Mervyn King. The search for an alternative to capitalism in the west, especially among big sections of the youth, has begun.

Everybody in the west also understands that Chinese (and Indian) growth is based on their mountain of cheap labour and not the innate superiority of the market approach to economics. That recognition of reality as opposed to the fantasy of the never-ending energy of the capitalist system, is a worrying, fragile, even threatening premise for a stable, productive and secure future as far as many millions in the west are concerned.

Finally, most in the west are now deeply aware of who are the gainers and who loses from this 'best of all possible worlds' system. As the bankers and top bosses reveal themselves and their frauds and greed and self-serving arrogance, and the politicians who defended them while preparing their own future fortunes now bay for banker's blood, so our rulers become the common place thieves and hypocrites in the public's mind. Deep down, and sometimes producing apathy and withdrawal, here in the west the plebeian classes just do not believe in it any more.

So two profound ideas are emerging out of the turmoil. The first is that governments, or at least reformed political leaderships, should influence, should regulate, and in some cases should control, the insane economic system - for the benefit of us all rather than the few. And second, that a class of people have risen above the rest of us, and that this is a class whose greed and self interest has become the mechanism which has driven our whole world. These ideas, which are gathering strength and momentum, are the premise for any discussion about an alternative way of life. The way the argument is caste now, especially among the young in the west and the middle east is, of course there is an alternative, and we must find it!

Two follows