It's not earth-shattering, but Socialist Alternative candidate Kshama Sawant seems to have won a Seattle city council seat. Among other things, it will be interesting to see how her opposition to tax breaks and advocacy for the working class can actually affect things. There doesn't seem to be much room for such an approach as long as neighboring municipalities can adopt more business-friendly policies. Much the same problem confronts Bill de Blasio in New York City.
This is an old problem that the Soviet Union faced. Whereas Stalin wanted to build "socialism in one country," Trotsky was convinced that only a worldwide revolution would succeed in replacing capitalism. Then again, you have to start somewhere. Ultimately, I think that alternatives that can be economically competitive within a capitalist context, such as worker-owned cooperatives, along with some public enterprises, will be needed to replace capitalist social and economic structures.
In the meantime, electoral alternatives to capitalist political parties are needed, if only so that the will of the people, so feared by right-libertarians like Peter Thiel, has an outlet. This is necessary to keep the working class politically-engaged. (Guess what: The Democratic Party is not doing that.) On that level, Kshama Sawant and Bill de Blasio are Peter Thiel's worst nightmare: a real electoral alternative, however powerless they are to effect immediate change.
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