This key question is also being debated among some in the Occupy Wall Street movement.

The Occupy Wall Street (OWS) movement is united in its outrage against grotesque social inequality and in its desire to bring an end to the dominance of a tiny minority (the “1%”) over the will of the majority. So it was disingenuous – or daft – for onlookers to say that the movement has no demand. The demand for social equality is clear enough, but the critics who ignored, then ridiculed the OWS movement understood “demands” in the specific sense of concrete reforms to make things less bad.

Somewhat strange logic, if you stop to consider it: as if it were up to the victims of capitalist inequality to figure out how to turn a profit-chasing system built upon worker exploitation and minority ownership of the elements of production into an egalitarian society.