Hobsbawm catches my attention (once again)
This incredible interview for BBC: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-16217726
…and I quote:
“The traditional left was geared to a kind of society that is no longer in existence or is going out of business. It believed very largely in the mass labour movement as the carrier of the future. Well, we’ve been de-industrialised, so that’s no longer possible.
“The most effective mass mobilisations today are those which start from a new modernised middle class, and particularly the enormously swollen body of students.
“They are more effective in countries in which, demographically, young men and women are a far greater part of the population than they are in Europe.”
And I’d recommend as a “background read” on the subject this text from 2009 he wrote for the british newspaper The Guardian: http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2009/apr/10/financial-crisis-capitalism-socialism-alternatives
