GLOBAL PROTESTS IN 2011 REPRISE REVOLUTIONS OF 1848

Mark Twain once said: "History does not repeat itself but it rhymes." The present worldwide demonstrations throughout Europe and the United States, and the "Arab Spring" of 2011 rhyme with the European Revolutions of 1848.

Both were liberal political uprisings impelled by the displacement of middle-class workers by what I call "Megacycles" (the transformation in the human enterprise wrought by technology). Then it was the Industrial Revolution displacing the artisans, today it is the Electronic/Automation Revolution displacing white- and blue-collar workers. In both cases these urban, middle-class and student revolutionaries protested against an entrenched aristocracy (monarchy then, plutocracy now) which had managed to rig the game so they scooped up most of the fruits of economic growth, resulting in great inequality of wealth, in large part stemming from the shift in the tax burden from the rich to the rest. Both took place within the context of financial turmoil and severe economic contractions producing high unemployment. Both occurred in cities where workers and students could join together in protest. In both instances, the aggrieved workers were being undersold by foreign laborers (immigrants and overseas labor). In both cases protesters/revolutionaries sought to diminish the control of the ruling classes and expand the participation of the disaffected people in the political process. The term "Spring" was used to describe the events ("Springtime of Nations"/"Springtime of Peoples" in 1848; "Arab Spring" in 2011).

You will recall that the Revolutions of 1848 turned out badly for the revolutionaries in the short run -- within a year, reactionary forces regained control in most of the affected areas, Then as now, the protesters were essentially leaderless without a coherent statement of purpose -- although Marx and Engels supplied "The Communist Manifesto that year at the behest of the Communist Party in 1847. (It would take over half a century for Marx's vision to be realized in what he would have thought the unlikeliest of places, Russia, which was insufficiently developed to participate in the 1848 Revolutions.) However, over time, most of the demands of the revolutionaries (democracy and an end to totalitarian monarchy, liberal reforms, nationalism) were fulfilled.

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I would venture to predict the current protest movement would meet the same fate if Republicans were to win the elections in 2012, followed by a resurgence of the Left not long thereafter as the Republicans reprise their disastrous, self-serving policies which gave us the Panic of 2008 and the Great Recession. If, on the other hand, the protesters get their act together and unite behind effective leadership and common purpose, they might succeed in achieving sufficient success in the 2012 elections to implement liberal reforms -- starting with public funding of national elections.

I'd say the time is ripe for a revival of "Les Miserables."

Monitor this space for "The Liberal Manifesto."