I have often described the usual scene in Kennedy Plaza , Providence , Rhode Island by the title of American socialist writer Jack London's book " The People of the Abyss ". The figure of a man in the foreground looks like he is just about to collapse in a drug stupor . This " People of the Abyss " scene in Kennedy Plaza has not changed much in 50 years . The " dialectic of History " is in slow motion indeed ! Could it be that the class of wage slaves produced since the Industrial Revolution are no more able to REVOLT successfully than the completely " unfree " slave class in ancient Rome ( that hopeful moment in time known as the " Spartacus Revolt " ) . Before Christ HOPE was crucified on many crosses on the Appian Way !
But I am being too pessimistic . As Winston Smith writes in his " 1984 " diary : " If there is hope, it lies in the proles " . His last thought in Big Brother's " Ministry of Truth ". See less