This is a final paper that I wrote over seven years ago concerning, very broadly speaking, the achievements of 20th century leftist politics and the prospects for left-wing social and politcial movements in the 21st century. It also concerns progressive organizing campaigns at Vassar College back when I was a student at that institution. Names of other students who were mentioned in this paper have been redacted out of respect for their privacy. Aside from its broad conceptual outlines, I don't think the paper holds up in terms of the details. I tried to write a follow-up paper in 2011 but I wasn't able to do so due to other responsibilities and priorities then. However, I may see about writing follow-up pieces for this paper. Hopefully in the near future.

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Professor Bill Hoynes Stephen Cheng
Sociology 298: Independent Work (Social Movements) May 7 to 17, 2010
Final paper
This is the final paper for an independent study with Professor Bill Hoynes of the
Department of Sociology at Vassar College on social movements. Unlike the two
previous brief papers, this final paper is a longer paper that covers the theoretical and
historical issues concerning social movements associated with the political left during the
later twentieth century and the first decade of the twenty-first century. The paper consists
of two parts. The first part is about the actual topic of the final paper while the second
part is a personal commentary on the independent study, the subject matter, and my
experiences as a left political activist and college student.
With regard to the first part of the paper, I introduce the argument that progressive
social movements during the upheavals and struggles of the 1960s helped contribute,
knowingly or not, unwittingly or not, to the neoliberal political and economic
transformation that took place since the 1970s while securing democratic (in the social
democratic and/or liberal, or bourgeois, democratic sense) gains for the excluded
fractions of societies that have the capitalist mode of production including racial and
ethnic minorities, women, et cetera and contributing to the success of anti-imperialist
movements for national liberation in the underdeveloped countries of the “Third World”
through opposing military interventions by advanced capitalist countries in “the West”
as was the case with the United States’ military and political presence in the former
Indochina during the Viet Nam War of 1959 to 1975.
This paradoxical set of results for the left, more properly identified as the New Left,
during a period known for decolonization, the social welfare state in forms such as but
not limited to the Fordist social contract, social democracy, the struggle for civil rights,
etc. reflects the dual political and historical roles of the left. To use the classical and/or
traditional Marxist terminology, the left has had to accomplish the bourgeois-democratic
revolution that is associated with the development of capitalism and the proletarian
revolution that, in turn, involves the rise of socialism and later on communism. In the
case of the social upheavals and struggles of the 1960s and the neoliberal turn of the
1970s, the movements of the New Left succeeded in achieving and/or aiding and abetting
bourgeois-democratic revolutions which ultimately strengthened the capitalist “world-
system” (to borrow a term from theorists such as Fernand Braudel, Immanuel
Wallerstein, Giovanni Arrighi, etc.) and in the process contributed to a left that became
marginal and fragmented due to emergent and resultant social facts in a capitalist
context such as de-politicization and individuation.
Likewise, the “velvet revolutions” in the actually existing socialist Eastern European
bloc of nation-states in 1989 and the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991 symbolized
what appeared to be, simultaneously, the vindication of the ideals of the bourgeois-
democratic revolution and the discredit of the ideals of the proletarian revolution.
During the late 1980s and early 1990s, the neoconservative political theorist Francis

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Fukuyama referred to this symbolization as marking “the End of History” in which
liberal, or bourgeois, democracy alongside capitalism in its neoliberal form make up the
final and ideal phase of development for all human societies. Of course, and rightfully so,
left intellectuals and activists have called Fukuyama’s argument into question and even
now social movements of the left continue to be active. Likewise, there continue to be
social struggles and upheavals. However, the fact that there was a declaration of history
(or History) coming to an end (or End) means that the ideological victory of the
bourgeois-democratic revolution is real. Furthermore, the left, in its dual role,
contributed to such a victory, albeit certainly at a tremendous cost and with little or no
credit received either.
Yet, at the same time, there are still social movements as the structural instabilities of the
capitalist world-system continue to accumulate and intensify. These instabilities have
culminated in the ongoing global financial crisis that began in 2007. Likewise, the United
States of America, a nation-state that became hegemonic within the post-World War II
capitalist world-system, continues to exercise military and political power over regions
associated with the “Third World.” Although there have been large-scale protests
against neoliberal political-economic policy and the “war on terror,” there is as yet no
lasting and effective left opposition to speak of, since the left has had to start over, in a
sense, because of the consequences of completing and/or initiating bourgeois-democratic
revolutions and the seemingly all-encompassing reach of the neoliberal transformation.
This paper will end, then, by answering the question of “What is to be done?” in a
contemporary context.
Introduction: How to begin from the beginning
In the May/June 2009 issue of New Left Review, Slavoj Zizek writes on the idea
of “how to begin from the beginning.”1 He specifically references Vladimir Lenin who
alongside fellow revolutionaries had to contend with the devastation wrought upon
Russia by World War I and the Russian Civil War through the passage of the New
Economic Policy (acronym: NEP). In this case, immediate retreat was necessary in the
hope for some kind of advancement in the future. In other words the Bolshevik fraction
of the Russian Social Democratic Party, later reorganized as the Communist Party of the
Soviet Union, had to start over, in a sense, since the NEP entailed the use of private
sector capitalist means, an obvious retreat from pursuing an anti-capitalist project, to
1 Slavoj Zizek. “How to Begin from the Beginning.” New Left Review Vol. 57, May/June 2009, 43-55.

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restore the economic viability of the then- young and fledgling Soviet Union. According
to Zizek,
In his wonderful short text ‘Notes of a Publicist’ – written in February 1922 when the
Bolsheviks, after winning the Civil War against all odds, had to retreat into the New Economic
Policy of allowing a much wider scope to the market economy and private property – Lenin uses
the analogy of a climber who must backtrack from his first attempt to reach a new mountain peak
to describe what retreat means in a revolutionary process,and how it can be done without
opportunistically betraying the cause […]2
That analogy illustrates Zizek’s own interpretation of Lenin’s writings during 1917 as the
February revolution that brought in the Provisional Government led to the October
revolution that led to the Bolshevik takeover and of revolution in general.3 To Zizek,
revolution is basically a self-repeating, cyclical process in which starting over again is
necessary and to be expected. As Zizek later writes in the same New Left Review essay,
[‘Notes of a Publicist’] is Lenin at his Beckettian best, foreshadowing the line from
Worstward Ho:‘Try again. Fail again. Fail better.’ His conclusion – to begin from the beginning
– makes it clear that he is not talking about merely slowing down and fortifying what has already
been achieved, but about descending back to the starting point: one should begin fromthe
beginning,not from the place that one succeeded in reaching in the previous effort. In [Soren]
Kierkegaard’s terms, a revolutionary process is not a gradual progressive but a repetitive
movement, a movement of repeating the beginning, again and again.4
The necessity of beginning from the beginning arose earlier in Lenin’s career as a
“professional revolutionary” as well.
In this earlier case, Lenin and other revolutionaries like Rosa Luxemburg had to
come to terms with the fact that World War I occurred with the legislative approval of the
mainstream fractions of the Social Democratic parties throughout continental Europe. In
Lenin’s case, a coming to terms and likewise a beginning from the beginning entailed
retreating into a period of study so as to investigate the causes of a continental war that
2 Zizek, “How to Begin from the Beginning,” 43.
3 The relevant volume containing Vladimir Lenin’s political writings from 1917 is Revolution at the Gates:
Selected Writings of Lenin from 1917, edited by Slavoj Zizek and published by Verso in 2002.
4 Zizek, “How to Begin from the Beginning,” 45.

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had global implications and ramifications. The result of this investigative study was the
publication of Imperialism: The Highest Stage of Capitalism which introduced concepts
and terms such as “monopoly capital” and “imperialism” into the Marxist lexicon.5
Yet the notion of beginning from the beginning extends beyond Lenin and the Russian
Revolution. The idea is just as applicable in a more contemporary context with regard to
college campus politics. The Killer Coke campaign at Vassar College, which lasted from
the autumn semester of 2006 into the spring semester of 2009, and the subsequent
initiative of establishing a United Students Against Sweatshops (acronym: USAS)
affiliate represent a beginning from the beginning in relation to activism at Vassar
College.
The case of Killer Coke
The demise of the Killer Coke campaign represented a return to the beginning, of
going back to square one, whereas the effort to establish a USAS chapter symbolized
the beginning from the beginning, of starting from square one again. In the process,
student activists can draw lessons from the previous effort as they pursue the present,
subsequent effort. From the defeat of the Killer Coke campaign, we have witnessed the
rise of an amorphous and premature “Tea Party” reactionary response that manifested
itself in the comments sections on the Mads Vassar Web log and in the “Keep Coke”
counter-campaign by the Moderate Independent Conservative Alliance. With the attempt
at establishing a United Students Against Sweatshops affiliate, we have had to come to
terms as to how Killer Coke ended and what we can do to move on. Although there have
5 These concepts and terms also became the staple terminology in Marxist-Leninist ideology and theory. In
the case of “monopoly capital,” Paul Baran and Paul Sweezy, two of the founding editors of the self-
described “independent socialist magazine” known as Monthly Review, wrote and published a book in 1966
that was devoted to that concept and term and which was titled, appropriately enough, Monopoly Capital:
An Essay on the American Economic and Social Order.

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been suggestions about restarting the campaign, there have also been opinions in favor of
ending Killer Coke and pursuing different issues. At the same time, the specter of yet
another “Tea Party”-like uprising looms should Vassar United Students Against
Sweatshops prove, hopefully, successful. Yet in keeping with the Beckettian logic that
Zizek references, should Vassar USAS fail then hopefully it has failed “better” than its
Killer Coke predecessor (i.e., Vassar USAS having more success and/or effectiveness
than Killer Coke, Vassar USAS having a greater longevity than Killer Coke).
The Killer Coke campaign, during its lifetime, went through multiple bureaucratic
channels so as to meet its goal of getting all Coca Cola products off Vassar College’s
campus as part of a student- involved boycott. For instance, student activists involved
with Killer Coke submitted a report during the autumn 2007 semester to the Campus
Investment Responsibility Committee (acronym: CIRC) which laid out the case for
boycotting Coca Cola and documented the human rights, labor rights and environmental
violations which have been attributed to the Coca Cola company. Likewise, it gauged
public opinion twice over the course of the spring 2008 semester by holding a taste test
with samples of alternate and local beverage products (mostly soft drinks, iced teas, and
juices) and through an online survey that Vassar College Dining Services helped develop
and circulate. By the autumn 2008 semester, __________, the main organizer of the
Killer Coke campaign, called an audience with the student government of Vassar
College, the Vassar Student Association (acronym: VSA), which, after spending a week
for VSA representatives to gauge constituent opinions, passed a resolution urging the
Vassar administration to come to a decision in relation to the presence of Coca Cola
products on campus in light of the charges that have been leveled against the company.

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The “Tea Party”- like reaction which followed, singling out people such as
________________ went a long way in derailing Killer Coke at Vassar.6 Although the
fate of the campaign was and still is unfortunate, it nonetheless provides some key,
essential lessons for student activists involved with the present United Students Against
Sweatshops initiative.
Looking back, it was clear then that the student left at Vassar was too weak to
withstand the onslaught. There were not enough activists on the ground to readily defend
the resolution.7 At the same time, Killer Coke relied excessively on bureaucratic channels
and lacked a strong grassroots base (if not necessarily a mass base of popular support
from the Vassar student body). Furthermore, the case of Killer Coke once again led
student activists to ask among themselves the same vexing, frustrating questions such as,
Why is the left so marginal at Vassar? Why do so many students at Vassar identify as
politically liberal yet stop short of acting on, or for that matter staying true, to their
political views and principles?8 Of course, and not surprisingly, Vassar United Students
Against Sweatshops will have to encounter these same questions. Furthermore, there is
the issue of “right-wing” “backlash” which pervades not just student and campus politics
at Vassar College but also politics within the United States.9
6 Additional details on the Killer Coke campaign at Vassar can be found in the first independent study
paper that I wrote and submitted to Professor Hoynes earlier in the spring 2010 semester.
7 In light of the strong anti-VSA sentiment, or perhaps ressentiment, which translated into demands of
abolishing the VSA for the supposed “offense” ofpassing the resolution, I thought that a popular front in
solidarity with the VSA was necessary.Fortunately,such sentiment was only limited to Mads Vassar
comments.
8 The notes for the minutes of a Vassar Killer Coke campaign meeting from at least three years ago
included this memorable rhetorical, yet not so rhetorical, question,“What happened to liberal Vassar?”
9 I use quotation marks here for both terms, right-wing and backlash,deliberately given that “backlash” is
not really an appropriate term, since it implicitly legitimizes the premature “Tea Party” response that arose
contra Killer Coke. Likewise, “right-wing” may not be an accurate descriptive adjective either. Although
I’m making a vague connection here, I think Gaspar Miklos Tamas’ essay “On Post-Fascism” is relevant

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National politics in the United States
At the level of national politics in the United States, there is an actual “Tea Party”
movement, or set of politically and socially conservative currents, out on the streets
agitating against the Barack Obama presidential administration. Informing both the
Vassar-based premature “Tea Party” reaction and the actually existing “Tea Party”
agitation are strong undertones and overtones of racism, nativism, conspiracism,
ressentiment, anticommunism, etc. In spite of the marginal and fragmented state of the
far left in the United States, “Tea Party” activists and many conservatives and
reactionaries speak and write as if there will be, or has been, a 1917 redux with
revolution at the gates. If only. The Obama administration has essentially continued the
“war on terror” policies of the previous George W. Bush administration. Similarly, as of
the time of this writing, it is bailing out the financial sector of the US economy, just as
the Bush administration tried to do so in late 2008. Even though the “Tea Party” fractions
within US politics are, essentially, waging war against their own delusional phantoms,
they themselves are real threats to the very ideals (conceivably, life, liberty and the
pursuit of happiness) they so loudly proclaim allegiance to. As yet there is no actually
existing revolutionary left to counter the “Tea Party” fractions and currents.
The plight and state of the left
The marginal and divided state of the left, likewise, points to the problems that
contemporary social movements face. These problems that inform left social movements
trace back to the neoliberal political-economic turn of the 1970s. Although these
movements were affected by that turn, they too, ironically and in their own way,
for understanding why “right-wing” is a dubious term. It is available on the Web site of Boston Review:
http://bostonreview.net/BR25.3/tamas.html

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contributed to it as well.
The neoliberal political-economic turn of the 1970s entailed a “setting free” of
capital which entailed surface processes such as de-industrialization, financialization,
deregulation, digitization, etc. The policies and programs associated with the neoliberal
project, and likewise the social and economic processes which powered neoliberalism,
sustained yet found justification in ideologically freighted notions and phrases like “free
markets,” “efficiency,” etc. A “setting free” of capital, then, is a fitting observation, as is
the very phrase of “setting free.”10 At the core of this transformation within the capitalist
world-system was the maturation of the value-form and its universal expansion, or its
expansion around the globe. In doing so, the processes associated with the value-form
(commodity exchange and production, the valorization process, the labor process, capital
accumulation, primitive accumulation, C-M-C, M-C-M’, etc.) have become situated
throughout the world.11 For instance, then, the growing prominence of Wall Street in the
economic and financial life of the United States, the reality of de-industrialization in the
“developed” or advanced capitalist nation-states, and the grim realities of debt and “de-
peasantization” in “Third World” countries all reflect the international presence of the
value-form.
But the internationalization and “universalization” (for lack of a better term) of
the value-form neither magically nor instantaneously occurred. The generalization if its
presence throughout the capitalist world-system arose from previous social struggles and
10 Karl Marx, in a series of notebooks that was published as the Grundrisse: Foundations ofthe Critique of
Political Economy (Rough Draft), writes in blunt terms, “It is not individuals who are set free by free
competition; it is, rather, capital which is set free” (p. 650).
11 For a detailed discussion of the value-form as a concept,see Karl Marx and Ben Fowkes (translator),
Capital:A Critique of Political Economy (Vol. 1) (Penguin Classics, 1990) 125-177.

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movements, even though the participants of those struggles and movements were
obviously not willful promoters of capital “set free.” Nonetheless, their actions helped
pave the way whereas their ideologies became subject to cooption and recuperation as
revolutionary possibilities turned into opportunities for capitalist consolidation (as
opposed to capitalist “restoration”) under a new framework, context. This process of
consolidation has contributed to a new form of capitalism under which it has become
more difficult to establish and organize new social movements when, under the previous
framework and within the older context, social movements were able to take shape. The
crucial question here is how the previous social movements contributed to the transition
that took place, historically, during the 1970s in reaction to the struggles and upheavals of
the 1960s, and in the process contributed to their own marginalization and defeat (i.e. rise
of the New Right, neoliberalism) and the construction of an environment far from
conducive to the organizing of new social movements (i.e. culture of de-politicization,
individuation within society, consumerism, the problems with student activism at Vassar
College).
In terms of the United States, the social movements included the civil rights
movement, the antiwar movement, the second-wave feminist movement, etc., which
mostly started out in the early 1960s and lasted into the 1970s. The objective role that
these movements had in the generalization of the value-form was as bourgeois-
democratic revolutionary movements. These movements, in pushing through the
bourgeois-democratic revolution, made possible reproduction of the capitalist world-
system as a more expansive and comprehensive social and economic system. To draw
one example, then, the antiwar movement, by opposing the war in Viet Nam, made

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possible a bourgeois-democratic revolution’s occurrence in the underdeveloped world. At
the same time, the success of that bourgeois-democratic revolution in the context of the
1960s and 1970s coincided with the neoliberal political-economic turn of the 1970s and
1980s that, in turn, marginalized and fragmented the social movements that were
involved then. This process was possible through two ways: 1) the accomplishments of
the social movements to begin with and 2) the recuperation and cooption of the ideals and
symbols of these movements. As a result, the fruits of the bourgeois-democratic
revolution(s) and the neo-liberal transition at these points in time led to social facts such
as a culture of de-politicization, etc. David Harvey, Tony Judt and Gaspar Miklos Tamas
offer some relevant and helpful insights and observations from different vantage points.
Harvey, Judt, Tamas
David Harvey, who has written briefly on the history of neoliberalism and on the
condition of postmodernity, notes that during the neoliberal turn one part of the
worldview/thinking of social movements became rejected in favor of yet another part of
the worldview/thinking of social movements,
The movements of the 1960s had that dual character. During the 1960s they could sort of
combine rather uneasily around the idea that individual liberty and freedom and social justice and
sustainability and the like were things we were all collectively concerned with. But in some
instances there were realschisms within that movement, I think what happened in the 1970s is
that when the neoliberal move came in, the idea erupted that, okay, neoliberalism will give you
individual liberty and freedom, but you just have to forget social justice and you just have to
forget environmental sustainability and all the rest of it. Just think about individual liberty and
freedom in particular, and we’re going to meet your desires and your interests though the
individual liberties of market choice – freedom of the market is what it’s all about. In a sense,
there was a response by neoliberals to the sixties movement by saying, we can respond to that
aspect about what the sixties was about, but we cannot respond to that other aspect. And I think
therefore what we see is a movement in the 1970s where many people who were active in the
1960s were co-opted into the neoliberal train of thinking and neoliberal ways of consumerism as
part of how neoliberalization established itself.12
12 Sasha Lilley, “On Neoliberalism: An Interview with David Harvey,” MRZine, June 19, 2006. Available:
http://mrzine.monthlyreview.org/2006/lilley190606.html

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Although Harvey adds that the above is “a very broad way of looking at it,” there is
plausibility to the scenario. Despite the rather obvious legitimacy of the causes of the
civil rights and second-wave feminist movements, activists and intellectuals on the New
Right have nonetheless been able to claim, with straight faces, that policies such as
affirmative action amount to “reverse racism” and therefore violate civil rights and the
very notion of political and legal equality and that there is a necessity for a “men’s rights”
movement. Likewise, if only in terms of semantics, the ideologically infused notions of
“personal responsibility,” “family values” and “rugged individualism” that have become
part of the dogma and staple reasoning of the New Right do not openly contradict other
notions more traditionally associated with the left such as “equality.” But Harvey is not
the only one to make such an argument either. Indeed, Tony Judt provides similar
argumentation, albeit from a moralistic view that is rather critical of the historical New
Left.
According to Judt,
Above all, the new Left – and its overwhelmingly youthful constituency – rejected the
inherited collectivism of its predecessor. To an earlier generation of reformers from Washington
to Stockholm, it had been self-evident that ‘justice’, ‘equal opportunity’ or ‘economic security’
were shared objectives that could only be attained by common action. Whatever the shortcomings
of over-intrusive top-down regulation and control, there were the price of social justice – and a
price well worth paying.
A younger cohort saw things very differently. Social justice no longer preoccupied
radicals. What united the ‘60s generation was not the interest of all, but the needs and rights of
each. ‘Individualism’ – the assertion of every person’s claim to maximized private freedom and
the unrestrained liberty to express autonomous desires and have them respected and
institutionalized by society at large – became the left-wing watchword of the hour. Doing ‘your
own thing’, ‘letting it all hang out’, ‘making love, not war’: these are not inherently unappealing
goals, but they are of their essence private objectives, not public goods. Unsurprisingly, they led
to the widespread assertion that ‘the personal is political’.13
It was this “individualism”, presumably on the part of the New Left (and, perhaps,
13 Tony Judt. Ill Fares the Land (New York: The Penguin Press,2010) 86-88.

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the counterculture), that became compatible with the neoliberal turn in theory and in
practice, which also undoubtedly and rather obviously contributed to the later
marginalization of the New Left.
Likewise, Gaspar Miklos Tamas, who was an activist and intellectual involved
with the dissident movements in the Eastern European bloc during the Cold War which
culminated in the “velvet revolutions” of 1989, told Chris Harman in a 2009 interview for
International Socialism that the Free Democratic Alliance, the liberal party in Hungary,
of which he was a member was,
[…] rather left wing as regards human rights, minority rights, cultural freedom, equal
rights for gays and lesbians and so forth – in this respect very much like American liberalism. But
economically it was neoconservative. And I, too, proposed a mixture of this kind.14
Tamas, who described himself as being “on the right wing” of the Free Democratic
Alliance, had after 1989 and in the course of the 1990s and 2000s made a move to the left
and currently describes himself as a “revolutionary socialist” in a later interview in
Mediations. As a matter of fact, he criticized and condemned the role that he and fellow
dissidents took on in a post-1989 Eastern Europe,
And let it be said quite clearly: I am blaming myself and my friends for having helped to
introduce an inhuman, unjust, unfair, inefficient, anti-egalitarian, fraudulent, and hypocritical
system that is in no way at all superior to its predecessor,which was awful enough. We’ve been
criminally blind and thought, immaturely and selfishly, like many generations of victors before
us, that our political success and fame meant a better deal for all. Ridiculous.15
What Harvey, Judt and Tamas have in common with their argumentation, albeit
in very different contexts and situations, is the fact that the social movements which took
as some of their ideals individual freedom and individual rights became victim to
14 Chris Harman and GM Tamas, “Interview: Hungary – ‘Where we went wrong,’” International Socialism
123. Also available at: http://www.isj.org.uk/index.php4?id=555
15 Imre Szeman, “The Left and Marxism in Eastern Europe: An Interview with Gaspar Miklos Tamas,”
Mediations 24.2 Spring 2009: 24. Also available at: http://www.mediationsjournal.org/articles/the-left-and-
marxism-in-eastern-europe

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recuperation and cooption and therefore faced the likely risk and in fact grim reality of
marginalization and fragmentation. In Harvey’s case, some of the ideals of the social
movements in the 1960s and 1970s fell in line with neoliberal theory and practice in the
1970s and 1980s and so the latter was able to co-opt and defeat the former. As for Judt,
the apparent fetishization of the individual and her or his interests on the part of the New
Left allowed for the takeoff of neoliberalism and the defeat of the New Left. With regard
to Tamas, the dissident movements of 1989 ultimately contributed to the economic
meltdown that transpired in post-Cold War Eastern Europe. As millions went jobless,
former dissident groups such as the Free Democratic Alliance continued to prioritize
political and legal matters over social and economic ones.16 This happened in no small
part due to the neoliberal political-economic ideals that certain fractions of these
movements championed.
In all these points of view, the common thread of thought is that, by implication,
the transition to neoliberalism did not happen by its own volition. Given that the
economy is, ultimately, a set of social relations that is dependent on the actions of its
participants (actions which also help make up the structure, mechanisms of the system
that is the economy. Thus the former gives the latter motion, an internal dynamic), the
economy will be affected by participants’ actions. In concrete terms, the social
16 I might as well quote Tamas, again and at the risk of appearing deferential to his writings, here, “The
political groups on the ground who possessed a little critical sense had been those which fought the former
regime and continued to fight its ghost for a long time to come, and pushed the post-World War II liberal
agenda – freedom of expression, constitutionalism, abortion rights, gay rights, anti-racism, anti-clericalism,
anti-nationalism – certainly causes worth fighting for but bewildering to the popular classes,who were
otherwise engaged – without any attention to the onset of widespread poverty,social and cultural chaos.
[…] I remember – I was a member of the Hungarian parliament from 1990 to 1994 – that we discussed the
question of the republican coat of arms (with or without the Holy Crown; the party of ’with’ won) for five
months, but there was no significant debate on unemployment while two million jobs went up into the air in
a small country of ten million,” from G.M. Tamas, “Counter-Revolution Against a Counter-Revolution:
Eastern Europe Today,” in Leo Panitch and Colin Leys (editors), Socialist Register 2008:Global
Flashpoints:Reactionsto Imperialism and Neoliberalism (London: The Merlin Press, 2007) 289.

14. 14
movements which were active in the advanced capitalist countries of the West when
Keynesianism, social democracy and Fordism made up the order of the day as of the
1960s and the movements active in the actually existing (or nominally) socialist countries
in eastern Europe and the Soviet Union during the 1980s contributed to a shift in the
capitalist world-system, as it were, by aiding in, knowingly or not, unwittingly or not,
the transition from capitalism in its Keynesian, social democratic and/or Fordist forms to
capitalism in its neoliberal cast. How was this possible? What made it possible?
Contributing to the neoliberal turn: The dual role of the New Left
This transition was possible because of the dual role that left social movements,
movements of the New Left, held. To use the classical and/or traditional Marxist
terminology, the left has had two political-historical roles: 1) completing the bourgeois-
democratic revolution and 2) achieving the proletarian revolution. In terms of
what would become the advanced capitalist countries that make up the core of “the
West”/”First World,” the bourgeois-democratic revolutions took place over protracted
periods of time in the former North American colonies and ancien regime France. In the
case of the underdeveloped countries that became subject to colonization by imperial
powers, the bourgeois-democratic revolutions were carried out by anti-imperialist
national liberation movements in the names of socialism and communism.
With the ideological identification of the bourgeois-democratic revolutions in the
underdeveloped countries/regions as socialist and communist revolutions, New Left
movements such as the New Communist movement considered themselves to be fighting
for socialism and communism by way of advocacy for “Third World” national liberation.
Yet when countries such as China and Viet Nam began implementing market reforms by

15. 15
the late 1970s (in China’s case) and the mid-1980s (in Viet Nam’s case), there were
growing concerns about “capitalist restoration,” as can be seen in leftist, especially
Marxist-Leninist (or, more precisely, Maoist) discussions of China since 1978.
At roughly the same time, second-wave feminism also came to the fore so far as
progressive activism was concerned. Nancy Fraser traces the trajectory of second-wave
feminism. Although this feminist movement did, along with the New Left, call into
question aspects of “state-organized capitalism” prior to the neoliberal turn, it also ran the
risk of recuperation and cooption in the course of and after the turn. Fraser notes and
describes the specific criticisms that second-wave feminists have made against “state-
organized capitalism” (presumably, capitalism which existed in aforementioned forms
such as Keynesianism, social democracy, and the Fordist social contract) such as
economism, andocentrism, etatism, and Westphalianism. However, the advent of the
neoliberal project meant that these specific feminist criticisms were potentially subject to
“resignification.” Through resignification, neoliberalism and feminism mirror
accommodate each other. One example then is the feminist criticism that state-organized
capitalism is andocentric, in which a “family wage” is paid to an “ideal-typical citizen”
who is “an ethnic-majority male worker – a breadwinner and a family man.” Yet with the
rise of the neoliberalism, “second-wave feminism’s critique of the family wage has
enjoyed a perverse afterlife. Once the centerpiece of a radical analysis of capitalism’s
androcentrism, it serves today to intensify capitalism’s valorization of waged labour.”17
“Resignification” in this case certainly refers to recuperation and cooption. At the same
time, it points to the possibility that second-wave feminism, like the other social
17 Nancy Fraser, “Feminism, Capitalism and the Cunning of History,” New Left Review 56 March-April
2009: 100-113.

16. 16
movements that were progressive or were associated with the New Left, served a
bourgeois-democratic revolutionary (and thus pro-capitalist) role by integrating more
women into the commodity and money relations that define capitalism at its roots
through processes such as professionalization and proletarianization. The fact that
increasing numbers of women are outpacing men in terms of formal education and
carrers exemplifies the former, while the feminization of the waged labor force in sites of
commodity production such as the maquiladoras serves as an example of the latter.
Furthermore, the issue of class relations is relevant as well.
Harvey, in a 2009 interview on the global financial crisis, describes neoliberalism
as “a political project, which formed in the 1970s. And it was a political project to try to
consolidate and reconstruct class power.”18 Not uncommonly, the neoliberal turn was
seen as the initiation of a class war “from above” as the wealthier fractions of societies
with the capitalist mode of production have ably built social, political and economic
policies and structures designed for their own benefit. Yet the working class, the
proletariat, has been left powerless as state-organized capitalism in general and
Keynesianism, social democracy and the Fordist social contract in particular gave way to
“free market” capitalism. At the same time, the extension of the capitalist world-system
points to proletarianization the world over as commodity production and exchange
become facts of life for more and more people. However, there is no class struggle to
speak of which can potentially lead to the proletarian revolution and the destruction of
18 Amy Goodman, “Marxist Geographer David Harvey on the G20, the Financial Crisis and
Neoliberalism,” Democracy Now! April 2, 2009. Also available online at:
http://www.democracynow.org/2009/4/2/marxist_geographer_david_harvey_on_the

17. 17
capitalism. This view of class struggle, which has long been a part of Marxist and
Marxist-Leninist ideology, was rendered invalid in the eyes of many advocates and
sympathizers of the neoliberal project especially at the end of the Cold War.
As the Cold War concluded with the collapse of the actually existing socialist
countries in the Eastern European bloc and the Soviet Union, the left essentially lost its
legitimacy and socialism and communism came to be seen as utterly discredited.
Capitalism, in its neoliberal, “free market” form became the order of the day, in ideology,
in theory, in fact. It could be said, then, that 1989 was a bourgeois-democratic
revolutionary movement in its own right, albeit and indeed certainly one that was
agreeable so far as right-wing neoliberal (and neoconservative) political forces of “the
West” were concerned (hence the portrayal of 1989 as “the fall of Communism” and the
confirmation of capitalism’s supremacy and legitimacy, despite the facts that the Polish
Solidarity movement was originally a political and social movement in favor of workers’
councils and that not all of the dissidents were dogmatically in favor of neoliberal
capitalism). Francis Fukuyama, for instance, advanced his “End of History” thesis that
the liberal-democratic (or bourgeois-democratic) “stage,” for lack of better wording, of
history is the last one. So strong, then, was the ruling ideology of the then- newly
emergent post-Cold War status quo. Yet the social movements of the 1960s had a role in
the making of such a supposed “end,” as did the dissident movements of 1989. Although
the “End of History” represented the ideological confirmation of the neoliberal project, of
the internationalization and “universalization” of the value-form, its beginnings trace
back to the New Left activism of the 1960s and 1970s.
The effects and the aftermath

18. 18
The aforementioned effects of the above developments include, yet again, the
establishment of a culture of de-politicization, the marginalization and fragmentation of
the left, the rise of the condition known as postmodernity, etc. These effects represent the
domination of the value-form through the neoliberal turn, manifested by the growing
processes of commercialization and commodification in various parts of society. But such
effects and processes have not entirely undermined the existence and activities of social
movements on the left. For instance, movements such as those opposed to sweatshops
exist. Furthermore, there have been movements in resistance to globalization in its
neoliberal capitalist form which culminated in struggles such as the uprising in Seattle in
1999. Furthermore, the aftermath of September 11, 2001 led to the rise of antiwar
movements in resistance to the renewed and re-strengthened militarism under the
auspices of the neoconservative fraction of the US-American right wing. The prospects,
then, are not entirely bleak and there is the potential, however small, for a twenty-first
century New Left to take shape. New social movements can arise. But what is to be done
so as to improve the chances for these movements of the left to form?
What is to be done?
In the present day, what is to be done? The first thing is to recognize what has
historically been the dual role of the left. In pursuing that dual role, the left so far
succeeded in supporting and/or accomplishing bourgeois-democratic revolutions at its
own expense, thus leaving the proletarian revolution unfulfilled, like a far-off dream. In
light of the expansion of the capitalist world-system because of such bourgeois-
democratic revolutions (i.e., the end of the Viet Nam War in 1975 and the Doi Moi
market policies of 1986 in the Socialist Republic of Viet Nam), the role of historical anti-

19. 19
imperialism should be called into question. Were the anti-imperialist national liberation
movements ultimately bourgeois-democratic revolutionary or proletarian revolutionary
movements? Concerning class, it is time to debate whether class struggle does have any
anti-capitalist potential.19 Is it possible that the classes that exist within societies that have
the capitalist mode of production all have constituent roles in the capitalist world-system?
If so, class struggle will stay strictly within the confines of capitalism. Likewise, and
finally, can similar conclusions be drawn about the social movements that were part of
and/or allied with the historical New Left? The ultimate question is whether the dual role
of the left has become a single role because of the now nearly universal presence of
capitalism. If the answer is yes, then the challenge is how to move beyond capitalism.
Yet simultaneously, in current and practical terms, there is still a need to
advocate and agitate for a social democratic minimum. Ever since the neoliberal turn,
fractions and currents of the left have done precisely that in struggles against
privatization, deindustrialization, etc. and in demonstrations in favor of public institutions
and social services. Tony Judt, who calls for the renewal of social democracy in light of
the financial crisis, assigns to the left a more reserved function as opposed to a
revolutionary one,
The Left has something to conserve. And why not? In one sense radicalism has always been
about conserving valuable pasts. […]
‘[D]efensive Social Democracy has a very respectable heritage. In France,at the turn of the 20th
century, the Socialist leader Jean Jaures urged his colleagues to support small shopkeepers and
skilled artisans driven under by the rise of department stores and mass production. Socialism in
his view was not merely a forward projection into a post-capitalist future; it was also and above
all a protection for the helpless and those threatened with economic extinction.
We do not typically associate ‘the Left’ with caution. In the political imaginary of Western
culture, ‘left’ denotes radical, destructive and innovatory. But in truth there is a close relationship
19 Yet anotherreference to Tamas from me. He deals with the question of social and economic class in an
essay titled “Telling the truth about class” which appears in the 2006 edition of Socialist Register.

20. 20
between progressive institutions and a spirit of prudence. The democratic Left has often been
motivated by a sense of loss: sometimes of idealized pasts,sometimes of moral interests
ruthlessly overridden by private advantage. It is doctrinaire market liberals who for the past two
centuries have embraced the relentlessly optimistic view that all economic change is for the
better.20
Since the left already had to take on this essentially conservative role, Judt’s words
amount to idealization. However, he does have a valid point despite the possibility that
such a minimal program may be a form of recuperation and cooptation. A social
democratic minimum nonetheless allows people who will become participants and
organizers in new social movements access to means of survival. Similarly, campaigns
such as Killer Coke and student organizations like USAS can be said to be fundamentally
social democratic given that they aim to protect the trade union rights of workers.
Although the struggles waged by Killer Coke and USAS may exist within the boundaries
of the capitalist world-system, they are nonetheless essential struggles which social
movements of a twenty-first century New Left cannot do without. These movements will
have to begin from the beginning in light of the political, historical, social and economic
realities by coming to terms with the legacies of the twentieth century New Left and in
preserving what is left of the past social contracts such as social democracy while finding
ways of going forward. Likewise, with Vassar USAS, it will have to begin from the
beginning as it emerges from Killer Coke’s ashes.
20 Judt 221-223. Fred Magdoff and Michael D. Yates provide a detailed proposalfor a social democratic
program at the close of their book, The ABCs of the Economic Crisis, published by Monthly Review Press
in 2009.