Modern capitalism and the new marxism - part two

Part one of this post suggested that the excessive inequalities now being seen, especially since 2008, my be leading to a crisis of capitalism, perhaps as severe s 1968 or even earlier those in the nineteen-tens and twenties. But the prospect of hoards of the poor pouring into London from Cornwall, South Wales, Northern Ireland and Northern England seems rather remote. This kind of traditional revolutionary activity would be neither likely not effective. The growing importance of the Internet presents us, however, with a very different picture. The Internet, I would suggest, presents us with two alternative visions of revolution. The first is that revolutionary sentiments may become diffused by the internet. There may well be a groundswell of discontent, but this might lack focus and may fail to mobilise its forces effectively. the way in which the 'Occupy' movement seems to have blown itself out rapidly may be an appropriate model of such an effect. The second vision suggests that the Internet may indeed facilitate opposition to capitalism's excesses and may one day become so overwhelming that it will topple the vested interests that are promoting inequality. If we adopt a clasical marxist perspective, an Internet movement will not succeed because it would lack 'class consciousness'. The weakness of the working class, said Marx, lies in two of its characerists. One is a lack of awareness of its own position, notably its own exploitation. The other is the danger that memebers of the working class lack solidarity because individuals under capitalism are forced to compete with each other for scarce resources. The Internet certainly can encourage class consciousness, but it also prevents the formation of a class in the first place. Users of the internet are intensely individualistic - that is the nature of the beast and its attraction - and so it is difficult to envisage a coherent anti-capitalist movement springing from the social media. I therefore think I conclude that a marxist analysis does indeed suggest that the conditions for revolution certainly are coming into existence, but that capitalism will survive because of the lack of a strong enough class which could carry out the sentence of death that history has pronounced on it.