According to John Gray, Marx's analysis of the capitalist system was correct. It is unsustainable and ends up destroying its own social base; Marx called that the bourgeousie, today we call it the middle classes.

So - what's to be done? Politicians got us into this mess - can we trust them to get us out of it? Or is a middle-class revolution on the cards? Or will people just stick their heads in the sand and hope the good times will return when it all settles down again?

What do you think?

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Read about life in the pueblo: La Vida Alcalaina

I think you should read on.... You will then find that Gray distinguishes between capitalisms. He is no fan of ideologies so is no Marxist. He is referring here to neo-con econ capitalist doctrine.He is a proponent of the Rhineland model of capitalism. He is an adroit demolisher of Marxism and other political religions.
Neo-cons such as Francis Fukuyama also admit that free market capitalism destroys the middle-class, the traditional family structure and the old-fashioned career path which was the backbone of the middle class. Socialism and neo-conservatism are alike in that they believe in 'creative destruction'.
Politicians didn't single-handedly get us into this mess, though, did they. I think the markets may have had something to do with it...
Who apart from politicians do you think could get us out of this mess? Businesspeople? The military? Please don't say 'the people' because there is no such thing... The 'people' is composed of individuals of a variety of political views.
A middle-class revolution is most certainly not on the cards. And if there were ever to be one it would be a revolution of the Right, not the Left. What may well be on the cards though is a resurgence of the anti-immigrant far right, all over Europe. It's happening now.
Yes, people will just stick their heads in the sands because the history of capitalism is one of boom and bust. Like most other things in history, economic events are cyclical.
In Europe and much of the world, life will go on as per usual until the good times roll again. Belts will have to be tightened for some -we are' not all in this together' - but no-one will starve and tv, films, parties and social life will go on as usual. The workers of 2011 have much more to lose than their chains.
The poor will go on being poor, especially in those countries in Africa and the Middle East where crackpot dictators have ruined their economies and oppressed their people by following the 'socialist path'.
Marx made some reasonable although obvious sociological pronouncements with which I agree, namely that economics determines much in life and is more important than identity politics.
That's why talk of the black or the gay 'community' makes my toes curl.
You're reading 'Heresies', aren't you? A good introduction to Gray's thinking.
'Black Mass; the Death of Apocalyptic Religions' has an excellent demolition of both Marxism and neo-Conservatism.
'Straw Dogs' is his most important work as it deals with the fundamental questions of human existence.

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'The Owl of Minerva spreads her wings only at the onset of dusk'.

we are in the 2nd guilded age...studying what happened during the 1st guilded age might be an answer to the question...

If you believe as I do that history is cyclical, that's good advice.
The problem is that we in the West tend to see history as a process of improvement which, scientifically and technologically it is. But to think that moral and spiritual progress is a concomitant of this is a delusion.
Who was it who said'History repeats itself, the first time as tragedy, the second time as farce'. ?
Whoever, s/he was right.
Just out of interest, what periods would you include under the 'first gilded age'?

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'The Owl of Minerva spreads her wings only at the onset of dusk'.

Incidentally....who would lead a middle-class or any other revolution? Politicians, of course, and probably not ones of a democratic mindset.
Modern hi-tech society needs leaders, whether they are Government Minsters or managers or CEOs of Companies.
Can you imagine IBM, Tesco or BT being run by a collective?

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'The Owl of Minerva spreads her wings only at the onset of dusk'.

Before we go any further I just want to point out that I did read the whole article and don't necessarily agree with what this guy is saying.

I posted it for discussion (knowing that Mary often refers to Gray's ideas), to try and get us away from riots and miners' strikes, and because I've seen quite a few articles in right-wing publications recently proclaiming that Marxist economic theory was the only one that correctly predicted/explained the crisis.

OK folks, carry on ...

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Read about life in the pueblo: La Vida Alcalaina

I have got a copy of 'Heresies', but I confess I haven't yet got beyond the Introduction. I'm finding it quite hard to work out what he is actually saying, beyond a string of seemingly unconnected statements presumably intended to be provocative.

So what's this Rhineland model and how do we get there from here?

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Read about life in the pueblo: La Vida Alcalaina

The Rhineland model is broadly speaking a set of economic principles which form the basis of a social market economy. The framework for this was established, ironically, by the 1945 Labour Government in what was then the British Zone of Occupation.
It rests on a diluted form of corporatism where the interests of both workers and employers in maintaining a productive economy in order to provide not only the highest wage remuneration but also a high level of 'social wage' in the form of high quality public services and welfare benefits.
German tax levels are higher than those in many EU states -remember Merkel wanting the ROI to raise its Corporation Tax as part of the bail-out deal?
One of the key planks of this successful model is what is known in Germany as 'Mitbestimmung'. All enterprises with a certain number of employees (not sure of the number but it's quite low) must by law have a Management Board consisting of a proportionate number of elected workers who may or may not be trades unionists. The advantages of this are obvious. Full access to the financial affairs, a voice in decision-making, in short, a stake in the success of the enterprise.
This is one reason why Germann employers preferred to put skilled workers on short time during the recession rather than get rid of them and thus were able to swiftly resume production when the economy picked up.
There are other component parts of this model: compulsory education or training until the age of eighteen and a smaller number of trades unions, to give two examples.
In short, an absence of the 'them and us' culture that has blighted British labour relations.
When British trades unionists were given the opportunity to have a stake in their workplaces (the Bullock Report and Castle's proposed 'In Place of Strife' legislation) the likes of Scargill and other would-be revolutionaries rejected it as they wanted no part in making capitalism work.
That to me is the major lost opportunity of the past decades and led directly to Thatcherism.
Now on a positive note: OH tells me that she heard on the radio last night that the new IMF Head Christine Lagarde has called for EU states to abandon austerity and go for growth....favour demand rather than supply-side economic....in other words, adopt Keynsian stimulus policies.
If this is so, then it represents a major shift in thinking at the IMF and may well see the end of its domination by the neo-con Chicago -school economists.
That could well be the answer to the second part of your question.
As for Gray: I think his style is straight-forward and his message is clear.
Put not your trust in ideologies is the key. It is provocative because it smashes the cosy 'progressive' consensus and demolishes cherished myths.
His central thesis is that the Enlightenment idea of human spiritual progress is a fairy tale.
Looking at the two millenia of recorded human history, I'd say that it is very obviously true and extremely provocative to those who believe we can achieve a perfect society.

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'The Owl of Minerva spreads her wings only at the onset of dusk'.

That just isn't true.
Anyone looking at history since the sixteenth century could predict the crisis. Gray predicted the crisis. Larry Elliot in The Guardian amongst others predicted the crisis.
When Marx wrote his works in the late nineteenth century he did not know and could have made no insightful comments on the speculation-led financial crisis of 2008.
Most of Marx' work is of mere historical interest, like the Treaty of Utrecht.
I had to read it -and be examined on my knowledge of it - when I was a CP member....

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'The Owl of Minerva spreads her wings only at the onset of dusk'.

You? A member of the Conservative Party?