Did We Miss the Window?

Is it too late for socialism?

I've already alluded to this, but the first industrial revolution (approx. from the 1760s to the 1840s) and second industrial revolution (from the 1870s to the 1920s) were characterized by imperialism, exploitation, enclosure, violent "primitive accumulation," child labor, etc., but they also introduced the factory system, which created conditions of economic interdependence that resulted in opportunities for cooperation and solidarity among workers, giving rise to a labor movement with real political power and the potential for the struggle for serious, impressive gains.

But it could be argued that the third industrial revolution, which began, according to some, in the 1950s, and reached a decisive, transformative step in the 1970s, and the fourth industrial revolution, which many say is underway right now, have tended in the opposite direction.  Rather than tending towards larger and larger factory enterprises, with more and more people, we seem to be more and more isolated, interacting more with screens than with other people.  Perhaps this change in the relations of production is partially responsible for the decline of union membership and the power of the labor movement in general.  The possibility of organizing a general strike seems ever more remote.  At this point, the "Merger Formula" famously advocated by Kautsky in chapter five of his "The Historic Accomplishment of Karl Marx", which formed the basis of socialist strategy for Lenin and for many of the other socialist leaders at the beginning of the 20th century - that is, the "merger" between socialism and the workers' movement - seems obsolete, both because there is not much of a international socialist party structure, and because there is not much of a workers' movement for it to "merge" with.  Is this trend reversible?  Is reversing it possible, or desirable?  Maybe we missed the opportunity for socialism... or perhaps the meaning of socialism and the strategy for how to attain it will have to be redefined to suit the 21st century mode of production.