The
social conditions of wide layers of the population, including young
people especially, are more and more desperate. Social inequality,
poverty, low wages, homelessness, drug addiction, unemployment and
under-employment, the destruction or unavailability of decent education
and health care – these social facts confront tens of millions in the
US. Meanwhile, a handful of CEOs and Wall Street swindlers live like
emperors.
2018 has seen the first stages of an upsurge in the
class struggle, as popular outrage has begun to erupt. The strikes by
tens of thousands of teachers and school employees in West Virginia and
Oklahoma was a powerful indication. Teachers in Arizona and other
states, bus drivers, telecommunications workers and many more may well
walk out. The conditions for a general strike are brewing.
Beyond
the borders of the US, there have been strikes this year by
metalworkers in Germany and Turkey, airline workers in France and
university lecturers in the UK. In the Czech Republic, Skoda autoworkers
are threatening to strike. Protests by workers have erupted in Iran,
Tunisia, Morocco, Greece and elsewhere.
What does this resurgence
mean for art? The suppression of the class struggle in recent decades
has been very harmful to culture too. Major strikes in the US reached
one of their lowest points in history in 2017. Art and the artists are
very sensitive to popular moods. Filmmaking in particular is nourished
by rebellion and resistance. What will it do for the cultural and
intellectual atmosphere if millions break out of the straitjacket of the
trade unions and the Democratic Party?
World Socialist Web
Site Arts Editor David Walsh will discuss the implications of this
explosive change in the global political and social situation for art
and culture. |
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