12-04-08, 12:15 pm
The global financial crisis, with its enormous proportions that is storming capitalist economies today, is an expression of the internal contradictions of globalized capitalism, revealing once again the inability of the system to resolve these contradictions, and also its desperate attempts to save its collapsed financial institutions so as to secure the interests of the financial cliques, through forcing the working people to shoulder the burden by using tax payers' money. These attempts have been best descried by the motto: 'Nationalizing losses and privatizing profits.'
There is almost total agreement that the current global crisis has signaled the failure of the extreme neo-liberal model of capitalism that has been dominant for more than 20 years. New horizons have, therefore, opened up, that have promising potential for an upsurge and for broadening the struggle by forces that are not only opposed to globalization, but are also opposed to capitalism itself.
One of the direct consequences of the crisis is that it has shaken one of the most important foundations of ideological hegemony that was imposed by neo-liberalism over several decades. The crisis has proved, once again, that the unconstrained market is not rational and leads to catastrophes. It has also shaken the conviction that there are no alternatives better than the present international economic system. Furthermore, it has given impetus to those who are fighting for an alternative that surpasses capitalism, with various degrees of radicalism.
Better opportunities undoubtedly exist for greater strides on the road to building a broad international movement to confront the internationalism of capital. But this requires a proper and sound basis for organizational forms that combine flexibility and effectiveness, to be able to accommodate the great diversity in the composition of the forces that are now participating, as well as those that will potentially be attracted in the future, to this international movement.
