StockholmSyndrome
28th April 2011, 05:53
http://theactivist.org/blog/archives/michael-harrington-marxism-and-democracy
Another bit from from Mr. Harrington. Strikingly radical, yet convincingly pragmatic. He makes a case for the democratic roots of Marx's philosophical endeavors. Indeed Marx was never an enemy to parliamentary tactics or the forming of coalitions. I think Harrington's mission here is to force ordinary bourgeois liberals to reflect on the shortcomings of bourgeois democracy to address material inequalities. It is the political task of the proletariat to extend democratic demands beyond the realm of bourgeois formalism. A more direct and participatory democracy is not enough, it is merely a tool. Socialist transformation depends on a fully mature and class conscious mass movement to take democratic political power and use it to transform capitalist property. Democracy is not something that comes afterwards, it is the oxygen of the socialist movement and must not be abandoned. References to Rosa Luxembourg are illuminating. Please read.
Another bit from from Mr. Harrington. Strikingly radical, yet convincingly pragmatic. He makes a case for the democratic roots of Marx's philosophical endeavors. Indeed Marx was never an enemy to parliamentary tactics or the forming of coalitions. I think Harrington's mission here is to force ordinary bourgeois liberals to reflect on the shortcomings of bourgeois democracy to address material inequalities. It is the political task of the proletariat to extend democratic demands beyond the realm of bourgeois formalism. A more direct and participatory democracy is not enough, it is merely a tool. Socialist transformation depends on a fully mature and class conscious mass movement to take democratic political power and use it to transform capitalist property. Democracy is not something that comes afterwards, it is the oxygen of the socialist movement and must not be abandoned. References to Rosa Luxembourg are illuminating. Please read.