ROAR Magazine has posted two thought provoking articles on social movements and the contest for political power: an interview with John Holloway on movements and the state, and a reflection from Greece on the current and potential role of the leftist Syriza alliance.
From the latter story:
The effects of such a [left] electoral victory would be equivocal for grassroots movements, since, on the one hand, such a victory may tilt the power balance and, thus, provide breathing space to the movements in their confrontation with capitalist domination, but, on the other hand, it could accelerate the disquieting trend of co-optation and assimilation of social movements by the logic of state management.
The Greek writers reflect on recent experiences from Latin America, as well as Europe, in order to try navigate this challenging terrain, and conclude, in part:
The endeavors in libertarian communitarianism point towards the creation of politically active communities and the use of local institutions as a bulwark against globalized capitalism and as an appropriate field of application of precepts of de-growth and localization. The promise of the self-management of labor, of worker cooperatives and peer production, indicates a path within, against and beyond the state and the market. In any case, the new constituent power will be diverse, reflecting the infinity of militant subjectivities that the domination of capital in all aspects of social life engenders.
The full stories are at http://roarmag.org/2014/09/john-holloway-cracking-capitalism-vs-the-state-option and http://roarmag.org/2014/09/syriza-government-autonomous-movements.
