The Gary Null Blog

The “occupations” now building around the country are a necessary and justified response to the outrages of a political-economic system that substitutes posturing for decision-making, looking the other way as the top one percent runs off with almost a fourth of the nation’s income and more wealth than the bottom 90 percent combined. The largely student/youth organized efforts might even be historic—if, that is, they come to terms with the reality that the challenge we face is systemic, not merely political and, that the crisis is also highly unusual in its demands.

For over a century, liberals and radicals have seen the possibility of change in capitalist systems from one of two perspectives: the reform tradition assumes that corporate institutions remain central to the system but believes that regulatory policies can contain, modify, and control corporations and their political allies. The revolutionary tradition assumes that change can come about only if corporate institutions are eliminated or transcended during an acute crisis, usually but not always by violence.

But what happens if a system neither reforms nor collapses in crisis?