Indeed, it is the collision of these "old ideas" with the rapid destruction of the world the American people have known which is causing their frustration and their questioning. The arising movement is fighting with the only tools it has - a partial sense of history and the distorted vision supplied by ruling class propaganda.
Old ideas, in different ways and to different degrees, dominate the social struggle and continue to shape political thinking despite changed conditions. What are some of these old ideas? That an individual is responsible for his or her own plight, that things can be changed by working through the system, that common interests are based on color and not on class, that social groups should organize to win points on their own separate agendas, and that the goods of society should be distributed according to who can pay for them.
These ideas did not appear out of thin air. As we have seen, they have a history and had a material foundation. They reflected and sustained a period of time when the capitalist system was expanding. Unlike today, it was then in the economic interests of the ruling class to restructure the system to accommodate demands in a limited way and to offer minimal support and services to a labor force which served the cyclical swings of the capitalist economy. Millions benefited from this social contract - which was no illusion. The illusion was that the ruling class provided these things for any reason other than the master feeds the slave or the driver waters the mule.
The ideology of the new proletarian movement - summed up as the unity of the poor regardless of color or nationality united around distribution according to need - breaks the chains of intellectual bondage and re-forms people's thinking around their real place in the world and their real interests - the program of the new class. This program is inspired by a vision of a world free from want and fear, one where all will share in the fruits of humanity.
