What does it mean to be a leftist in our time? There are those who still call for and believe in revolution—those, that is, who conform to an earlier version of the Left—but more widely, it seems safe to say, few think such an event will occur in our lifetime. In this moment in time, it seems that for most people such a revolution is impossible, nearly unthinkable. When we speak of revolution today in much of the world, we generally mean the creation or restoration of liberal democracy, not the overthrow of capitalism. The overthrow of Hosni Mubarak and other events currently sweeping across the Middle East.