That was then, And This is Now: Socialist Reflections on Responding to Capitalist Crises: Priority #9: Build a Socialist Left, Inside and Outside of the Unions (Forum on Labour and the Economic Crisis: Can the Union Movement Rise to the Occasion?) (Essay‪)‬

SOME HAVE SUGGESTED that the present global financial meltdown and resulting worldwide recession compare with and rival in significance the economic collapse of the 1930s. It is commonplace to hear in the capitalist west that we now face the worst economic downturn since the Great Depression. It is difficult to adjust the television set to CNN and not hear this. It has become part of Obamaspeak. There are other analogies (more political than economic) to the 1930s that are also made, and that labour and socialist activists must consider carefully, as well. They often relate to how workers and their organizations responded to capitalist crises, past and present.