Building a successful political alternative to globalized capitalism will take even more than that. It will mean the construction of a new political language and methods of organization to reach constituencies fragmented by gender, class, race, nationality and language. It will demand that well-meaning white liberals and environmentalists will have to learn from and acknowledge central roles of leadership to black people and other people of color. Radicals sometimes think that as conditions worsen, oppressed people will become desperate, and will begin to demand basic change. This viewpoint is completely wrong.
History shows that the capacity for resistance is always enhanced by the winning of small victories.
This should not be considered a matter of political conversion,'' or ideologically coercing people into submission, but by persuading them through our work and activities that meaningful democratic change is possible. Small victories do matter, when combined with a broad but radical social vision. Oppressed people never struggle solely to realize abstract ideas. They struggle to improve their children's and their own lives, within the real world, here and now. What most exploited people want are the tools to make meaningful changes in their material environment and circumstances.