Eurozone Debt Deal – Still Not Enough

[Q]

Arthur "Boffy" Bough commented on his blog on the recent European deal (http://boffyblog.blogspot.com/2011/10/eurozone-debt-deal-still-not-enough.html). He provides some insight in the agenda's of the involved countries and the impact of this deal on the longer term.

The quoted text is not in the original layout, some elements - such as pictures and boldness of words - are missing. Click here for the original article (http://boffyblog.blogspot.com/2011/10/eurozone-debt-deal-still-not-enough.html).


The Eurozone have come up with a deal, which will stave off the markets for a few days. Indeed, the markets, led by the Banks, whose shares have soared, has risen very sharply on the news. But, as I have set out previously, the measures announced, and sums of money involved, are nowhere near enough to actually deal with the problem.

The main reason the markets seem to have rallied is that, at least, the core Eurozone politicians appear to have begun to act in, something approaching, a co-ordinated manner, and the main idea, that what is required is the establishment of European fiscal and political union, seems to have been taken on board, and is being discussed openly. The markets realise they cannot bring it about immediately, but seem prepared to give them breathing space, provided this is seen as the first step along the road to it, and the solutions actually required.

The general terms of the deal had been well signalled in advance. There is €450 billion in the EFSF bail-out fund. However, after what has already been committed, only €250 billion of this remains. This is not even adequate to bail-out all of Greece's debt, let alone the debt of Spain and Italy, who are the main concern for EU leaders, fearful that contagion could spread to them.

€2 trillion would be required to cover all of Italy's debt alone. So, what is proposed is to use this €250 billion, essentially as security, against which to borrow additional funds on the world market. Some of the additional borrowing will be provided by EU Government's, but with this security essentially being backed by Germany, the idea is to borrow large sums of money from investors such as China's Sovereign Wealth Fund. There are some weaknesses with this, which I will come to later.

The second part of the plan is for the private Banks and Finance Houses, that lent irresponsibly to Greece, to have to pay the cost for their bad decisions. They have agreed – after Merkel threatened them with losing all their money via a complete collapse of Greece – to write off 50% of the money they lent to Greece, and have also agreed to do this “voluntarily”, thereby not triggering a “credit event”, which would have meant that claims against Credit Default Swap insurance would be made. Although, the Banks, that made the loans, would be able to claim, against any CDS they had taken out, there is an incentive for them not to do so, and to agree to a voluntary haircut. That is because, as was seen with the Sub-Prime Crisis, these CDS are bundled into other investment vehicles, which are traded on Capital Markets.

Indeed, it is possible to buy a CDS even against loans you have not made. In other words to gamble that someone else's loan will go bad, just like betting on a horse race. Consequently, no one really knows what the total value of these CDS, and related derivatives is, who owns them, who will be liable for paying out on them, and so on. So, any Bank or Financial House that has been involved in trading these derivatives could find that it has counter-party risk, or that the Bank that might be due to pay it, will be driven out of business itself. Although, the amount of money written off by the Banks seems astronomical to most people, it is not that large – for Deutsche Bank, equal to only half its profits for last year – and certainly not worth the risks that a full blown global financial crisis would represent. There are also problems with this part of the plan that I will return to later.

The Third part of the plan is that European Banks have to recapitalise themselves, that is they have to increase the ratio of their assets to the amount of loans they make. It is intended that the Banks will do this by selling more of their shares in the market to raise additional capital. They have to raise the amount of their Tier 1 Capital to 9%. Some of the Banks have said they will do this by reinvesting some of their huge profits rather than paying them out as dividends to shareholders. However, it seems that many Banks will achieve the same result not by increasing their Capital, but by reducing the size of their Loan Book i.e. lending less money, and calling some of their existing loans in. This is particularly likely in the case of small Banks such as the Spanish Cajas, or Regional Banks. That is because they do not find it easy to raise Capital by selling shares, and they have already had their credit ratings downgraded. The Spanish Government is trying to bring about mergers amongst the Cajas, but largely without great success. It has also tried to get the Spanish Banks to take them over. The Big Spanish Banks have an incentive to do so, because the Cajas have borrowed large sums from those Banks with which to finance their activities.

The problem is that those activities have almost exclusively been to finance the huge Spanish property and construction bubble of the last 20 years! If the properties, against which these loans were made, were valued at realistic prices, many, if not most, of the Cajas would be insolvent, and the crash in the Spanish property market, so far, would seem like just a small blip, as loans were called in, and properties foreclosed upon. That would then hit the Spanish Banks who were the originators of the finance to the Cajas. So, the Spanish Banks will have an incentive to take over the Cajas if necessary, in order to try to keep that bubble in the air for a while longer.

But, international Capital markets are not completely stupid, which is why the Spanish Banks have themselves been downgraded by the ratings agencies. If they took over a load of bankrupt Cajas, they would see their Credit Rating reduced to junk, and that would inevitably mean the State having to come in to nationalise them. But, Spain has had its credit rating reduced several times. Even with the ECB stepping in several times over recent weeks, to buy up Spanish and Italian Debt, the Spanish 10 Year Bond Yield has risen again to 5.5%, and Italy to 6%. This is where the other problems with the plan become important.

Firstly, France had wanted to ensure that, where any national Banks needed bailing-out, as described above, then the money, to do this, would come from the EFSF directly. France also wanted to ensure that if the EFSF could not raise the necessary funds on international markets, then the ECB could step in to simply print money to cover the difference i.e. Quantitative Easing of the kind already undertaken by the Federal Reserve in the US, and Bank of England.

Germany opposed this. So, the deal currently requires national states to bail-out their own banks, and then, if this state requires a bail-out, the EFSF will provide the funds to the State. You only have to understand the consequence of this to see, why Germany wanted this course.

Most of the Banks, that are likely to need bail-outs, are in countries that themselves are in a weak position. Although, this means primarily Greece, Portugal, Spain, Ireland, and Italy, it also now seems likely to include some very big French Banks, that lent on a large scale to Greece. The problem for France is that for several months the credit rating agencies have been looking at the possibility of withdrawing its Triple A rating.

If it had to bail out one or more of its major banks, it would probably tip it over the edge, causing its sovereign debt to be downgraded. That is not to say that it would be placed in the same position as Greece, or any of the other peripheral economies, but it would mean it had to pay more for its own borrowing – the Yield on the 10 year OAT has already risen sharply – and it would mean that France's standing in the world would be diminished. With a determined move towards a greater centralisation of power within a core Europe, on the way to the establishment of a United States of Europe, this would further strengthen the position of Germany.

But, although its clear why this is in Germany's interest, in the short term, it is not in the interest of providing a longer-term solution for the Eurozone, and, therefore, is not in Germany's longer term interest either. Ultimately, Germany is the back-stop for all this funding, so it is in its interests that the immediate costs of financing are kept to the lowest possible.

Having each country continue to raise money, in the Capital Markets, with the EFSF only acting as a guarantor, does not achieve that. The real solution is for the issuing of Eurobonds, by a central European Debt Management Office, as every other state does. It can then dispense these funds to the member states accordingly. Because this debt would be issued by the whole Eurozone – i.e. directly rather than proximately backed by Germany – the interest rate on it would be much lower than any of the other individual countries could borrow at.

Germany will not currently agree to this for two reasons. Firstly, Merkel might get such a proposal through the Bundestag – because the SDP and Greens support Eurobonds - even if some of her own Party and Coalition partners would vote against it – but would probably face a backlash from the conservative supporters of the Government at the up coming elections. Eurobonds, will be introduced, and Germany will support it, but, she will let the next Government push it through. Secondly, it would be stupid, and very bad negotiating tactics to simply offer it up to other EU countries at the present time. If a new United States of Europe is to be set up, Germany wants to ensure it has a major role within it. Italy is in a weak position, and has a joke for Prime Minister. France remains strong, and has for the last couple of decades been drawing closer to Germany, but it remains in competition. But, France's economy is not as strong as Germany, and if its credit rating is downgraded it will be in a weaker position still. Germany is in the driving seat. Britain, of course, as I wrote the other day, has excluded itself from the proceedings, and is heading towards irrelevance, as even the UK media seems to be recognising.

Germany wants a United States of Europe, and will settle for some measure of fiscal and political union as a step towards that. But, it wants it on its terms, and “he who pays the piper calls the tune”. A small part of the agreement increases the extent to which each country will now oversee, and control the Budgets of other countries. That is an essential element of the conditions that Germany will want. If ultimately, it will produce the deficit funding for a European State, it will want to have control over those Budgets, and to have some say in how the money is used for investment to increase growth in each country, so that the need for such deficit funding is removed.

The basic ideas of the plan have been seen before in some elements. In the 1980's, as the Asian Tigers grew their economies rapidly, they borrowed huge sums of money from western banks and finance houses. So long as they could continue expanding and selling their output, this could continue. Moreover, alongside the economic boom, went a property boom, as easy money went into blowing up asset price bubbles. In fact, the experience of Ireland has been probably closest to this.

When the crisis blew up, the IMF stepped in to provide financing. The Asian economies then used this to clear their debts to the western banks – which was the real reason the IMF had intervened in the first place. Then they pulled out, sending the economies into a major deflationary downturn. However, and again Ireland is similar here, the money that had gone into these economies had not, by any means, all gone into property and other asset bubbles. Real investment, and productive capacity had been created, which then laid the basis for those economies to grow strongly on a sounder financial basis.

That is largely what has happened here. Over the last year or so, large chunks of Greek debt have been transferred out of the hands of private banks, and into the hands of state bodies, including the ECB. That is why the Banks can be persuaded to exchange their worthless Greek Debt for other debt provided to them with only half the face value. In fact, as far as Greece is concerned, the deal goes nowhere near dealing with its problems either in the short or the long term. Even with this write-off, of its debt, its debt to GDP ratio will only fall to 120%, which is impossible to sustain. But, for that reason, it does absolutely nothing to deal with its larger problem, which is the need to restructure its economy, so as to be able to pay its way.

What is required for that is for measures to be undertaken, which are the opposite of austerity, measures which create growth, and encourage investment. But, the measures, demanding the recapitalisation of the Banks, are the opposite of that. At the very least, it means Capital being drawn in to finance the Banks rather than to finance productive investment. Worse, if Banks cut back their lending, it will mean that Capital will become more scarce, the cost of Capital will rise, investment will fall, and economic growth will be reduced. At a time when we are already entering a new Credit Squeeze, which could be worse than 2008/9; that is the opposite of what is required.

In fact, there has been lots of talk about the need for a growth strategy in Europe, but currently, the policies proposed by the right-wing populist parties, in control of much of Europe, are headed in the opposite direction. Under current conditions, you cannot get growth without confidence; confidence of consumers to consume, confidence of businesses to invest. That requires that workers have to be confident that their jobs are safe. It will require additional large scale borrowing. The current measures will paper over the cracks for a few more weeks, and allow the current debts to be covered, but they will do nothing to cover the future debts, or to create the conditions by which economic growth is sufficient to meet the costs of borrowing internally.

As I wrote in my blog Greek Fudge, I estimate the real cost of dealing with the Greek situation would be something of the order of €750 billion over a ten year period.

That would not just cover the cost of financing existing debts, but would enable on going deficits to be covered, whilst a process of investment and restructuring was undertaken to modernise the Greek economy. Applying this across Europe ,to those economies that need a similar restructuring, I estimate that a figure of something like €15 trillion would be required.

For now, this problem can be left on hold, and markets appear happy that some more definitive move has been made to deal with the immediate problem, but EU politicians will need to get ahead of the curve, or the markets will have them scurrying to the next set of crisis meetings before they know it.

[Q]

Personally, while I think he is correct in his assessment, I think Boffy is too vague regarding his assumption that the European politicians are set to move towards a "United States of Europe". He should have given this more emphasis, given that much of the left is assuming the opposite: That the EU is on the verge of a meltdown.

Otherwise, the text is quite good.

[Die Neue Zeit]

Somewhere else you posted that you were for a "European Democratic Republic" as opposed to a "United States of Europe." The former term reeks too much of the former GDR, just to let you know. A Euroworkers Demarchic Commonwealth would be the ideal. ;)

[Q]

Somewhere else you posted that you were for a "European Democratic Republic" as opposed to a "United States of Europe." The former term reeks too much of the former GDR, just to let you know. A Euroworkers Demarchic Commonwealth would be the ideal. ;)

I wasn't proposing a specific term for such a future state. I was merely using Engels' terminology (http://www.revleft.com/vb/united-kingdom-out-t163244/index.html?p=2274003#post2274003). I agree that using "democratic republic" these days is a pretty bad idea.

While I agree with you with a demarchic commonwealth in content (which is how I envision a democratic republic to operate), I don't think it is a particularly strong title either.

Let the future working class deal with such details at a time when it is deemed required.

[Q]

So, perhaps any other opinions?

[Bronte]

Without social control of capitol, "debt" packages are merely attempts to stop the Workers Unions from gaining control of the economy, they're Capitalist smoke and mirrors, nothing more.

[Q]

Without social control of capitol, "debt" packages are merely attempts to stop the Workers Unions from gaining control of the economy, they're Capitalist smoke and mirrors, nothing more.

I don't think you're quite right. Debt indeed has a function of social control, to keep the working class disciplined within capitalism. But the capital relation runs deeper than this and we should be aware of the commodity relation, the capital cyclus, wageslavery and other basic mechanisms, in order to be able to break with them and build a society based on human need and genuine democracy.

Secondly, and linked to the first point, the unions and other current working class institutions are thoroughly integrated within the capitalist system or at least often have a leadership that respects the boundaries of the system and often have a personal stake in it.

It is a task of the communists to fight against such leaderships and try and convince the working class movement of a communist programme for its own liberation, to form this movement into a party through that process.

This is a bit off topic though, but important nonetheless.

[Q]

A normal lively thread has about 10 views for each post. This one has 30 for each post. I wonder why there is such a lack of interest for such an important topic.

[socialistjustin]

I am horribly uneducated when it comes to the EU debt crisis. I am interested though.

I heard Greece is running trade surpluses so can't they say fuck you to the EU and create their own currency?

[Die Neue Zeit]

I'm surprised Greece is running trade surpluses, considering the situation of manufacturing there.

[Mather]

Applying this across Europe, to those economies that need a similar restructuring, I estimate that a figure of something like €15 trillion would be required.

Does this mean that any debt deal the EU comes up with is going to automatically fail, given that all current and any future debt deals will fall very short of 15 trillion Euros?

[Q]

A related post on Boffy's blog regarding Germany's stance on Eurobonds (http://boffyblog.blogspot.com/2011/11/is-germany-going-to-change-policy-on.html). I've added some boldness regarding interesting parts.


Is Germany Going To Change Policy On The ECB and EU Bonds?
There was an interesting interview this morning on Bloomberg with peter Bofinger the economic adviser to Angela Merkel. Bofinger argued that, it was important that the ECB acted like other Central Bnaks, and became a lender of last resort, engaing in Quantatitive Easing, to buy up the Bonds of Eurozone countries such as Italy, Greece, Spain, Portugal and Ireland, which are facing falling prices for their Bonds on Capital Markets, which mean that they will face higher borrowing costs in future when they come to sell further Bonds. He also argued in favour of the establishment of EU Bonds.

Given that the meain obstacle to both these changes has come from Angela Merkel, it is important that Bofinger came out on Bloomberg today, as the Eurozone Debt Crisis rumbles on, with Italy now being drawn into the whirlpool. On the other hand, Bofinger has been making simialr arguments for several months now.

The importance of these two measures has been demonstrated over the last week or so. Firstly, it became clear that not only was the proposal to leverage up the size of the EFSF to €1 Trillion, still not enough to deal with the situation, but without a single state like Germany standing behind it, the markets would not have the necessary confidence in it, to bring in the necessary investment. China, which could provide the funds quite easily, said openly that it would not do so unless Europe itself got its house in order, and showed itself prepared to defend its own currency. In otehr words, Europe had to create a single state that would stand behind the Euro, and which would have the credibility to guarantee its debt. That is where EU Bonds, issued by the whole Eurozone, and with the whole of the Eurozone i.e. Germany, standing behind them.

Secondly, before the Capital Markets would invest in EFSF Bonds, or EU Bonds, they would need to see some lender of last resort already in the market, providing the necessary liquidity, and ultimately the ability to step in to ensure that the value of those Bonds could not drop through the floor as happened with the existing peripheral economy Bonds. At the moment, EU Law prevents the ECB from printing money. It can step in to buy Bonds in the secondary market, but cannot buy in the primary market. Even its purchases in the secondary market have to be "sterilised", by the withdrawal of liquidity from elsewhere in the system.

As Bofinger set out, in order to have the kind of heavy weaponry needed to show the Capital markets that it meant business, it would be necessary to have the ability to rapidly buy up Bonds, using hundreds of billions of Euros at a time. It is not possible to do that, if you have to withdraw a similar amount from elsewhere.

The German argument against enabling the ECB to act as lender of last resort, and have the ability to print money is supposed to be based upon its experience of the Weimar Republic. Then large amounts of paper currency was printed that led to a rampant hyper-inflation. People carried home notes in wheelbarrows, which were worth more than the millions of Deutschmarks carried in them. But, this argument is spurious. As Ben Bernanke has pointed out in relation to the US policy of Quantatitive Easing, central banks know how to stop hyper inflation, you stop printing money and raise interest rates. What they have difficulty with, however, is deflation, as the current experience in Japan has shown, where falling prices have persisted for more than a decade, despite negative real interest rates, and massive money printing.

The Weimar Republic printed vast amounts of money, as a means of paying off the terrible burden that the Allied Powers - minus the US, who opposed the action of Britain and France in that regard - imposed on Germany as part of the Treaty of Versailles. In short they paid back their debtors with worthless money. It was a strategy that the US has adopted from the 1970's onwards. The printing of vast amounts of money, would undoubtedly raise inflation, but that has always been the means by which Governments going back to Moses have used to clear their debts. It would be a much less painful solution than the counter-productive austerity measures being advocated by neo-liberal dogmatists at the moment.

Germany has also opposed EU Bonds, on the basis that without the kind of Budgetary discipline that comes from having a single state, and fiscal union, it would be guaranteeing the loans taken out by other countries, who might borrow recklessly to finance consumption rather than the investment those economies need to restructure, and make competitive their industries, and infrastructure. But, the reality is that if the Eurozone is to continue, Germany has to pay that cost one way or another. For the last decade, Germany's economy has done very well from selling Mercedes and other goods, to other parts of Europe, including those peripheral economies, that borrowed to pay for them. If those economies sink, then German's economy, which is reliant upon exports, will sink with them.

In fact, what Germany has been manouvring to achieve, is the establishment of a fiscal and political union on its terms. In the last couple of weeks, we have seen Germany and France, essentially impose Governments on Greece and Italy. Measures have now been introduced that enable Eurozone countries to exercise control and oversight of the Budgets of other Eurozone economies. In other words, the basic framework of a fiscal union is being established. It is being done, bureaucratically and manipulatively, in the way that the EU has proceeded for much of its history. But, given the immediate need to bring about these changes, and the likelihood that attempting to do it, via democratic means would simply result in a logjam, like that which has caused the political crisis in Europe so far, they probably have concluded that these kinds of methods are the only ones available to them.

That is no reason that workers should accept that. On the contrary, it is the opportunity to demand that the EU be subject to a thorough democratisation from top to bottom.
The boldness refers to the political tasks of the working class movement: Our solutions and alternatives can only begin on a European level (as opposed to the national level), therefore the political task is to demand "thorough democratisation from top to bottom" (as Boffy phrases it).

[Die Neue Zeit]

Too bad Boffy can easily shoot himself in the foot in the Comments section. :(

http://www.blogger.com/comment.g?blogID=6263577133333272085&postID=5659764424717108127 ("Vote Yes for an EU Referendum")

[Vladimir Innit Lenin]

Somewhere else you posted that you were for a "European Democratic Republic" as opposed to a "United States of Europe." The former term reeks too much of the former GDR, just to let you know. A Euroworkers Demarchic Commonwealth would be the ideal. ;)

Any such change would require a revolutionary change in the political landscape.

I doubt you'll get that by talking amongst yourselves about 'Euroworkers Demarchic Commonwealth' or whatever.:rolleyes:

[Die Neue Zeit]

Who said I disagreed with your sentiment? :confused:

[promethean]

A related post on Boffy's blog regarding Germany's stance on Eurobonds (http://boffyblog.blogspot.com/2011/11/is-germany-going-to-change-policy-on.html). I've added some boldness regarding interesting parts.


The boldness refers to the political tasks of the working class movement: Our solutions and alternatives can only begin on a European level (as opposed to the national level), therefore the political task is to demand "thorough democratisation from top to bottom" (as Boffy phrases it).
Still continuing with your bizarre re-enactment of 19th century politics? A Euopean-level democratic state is still as nationalist as a Dutch democratic state or an African-level democratic state. If we were living in the 19th century and you and DNZ were Lasallian "leaders" of the SPD and spouting such social-patriotic rubbish, then one might have to take your nationalist nonsense seriously. Unfortunately, we live in the 21st century and you and other similar posters on this board are just isolated nutters who think they are "leaders" of some non-existent party.:rolleyes:

Like I said earlier to DNA, you should seriously consider an online reenactment of the politics of the Merovingian dynasty.

[Die Neue Zeit]

Still continuing with your bizarre re-enactment of 19th century politics? A Euopean-level democratic state is still as nationalist as a Dutch democratic state or an African-level democratic state. If we were living in the 19th century and you and DNZ were Lasallian "leaders" of the SPD and spouting such social-patriotic rubbish, then one might have to take your nationalist nonsense seriously. Unfortunately, we live in the 21st century and you and other similar posters on this board are just isolated nutters who think they are "leaders" of some non-existent party.:rolleyes:

Your utopian left-com tendency doesn't have much of a geopolitical solution, with your "international revolution" being a bankrupt cover for an equally bankrupt chain of national revolutions regardless of the existence of a more centralized "world party."

Like I said earlier to you or another left-com, you should seriously consider moving shop to Libcom.

[promethean]

Your utopian left-com tendency doesn't have much of a geopolitical solution, with your "international revolution" being a bankrupt cover for an equally bankrupt chain of national revolutions regardless of the existence of a more centralized "world party."

Like I said earlier to you or another left-com, you should seriously consider moving shop to Libcom.
I was not aware that any "utopian left-com tendency" proposed any bankrupt chain of national revolutions and I was also not aware I belonged to such a tendency.

The one saving grace of Stalinists and Maoists who advocate similar social-patriotic rubbish on a regular basis is that they actually exist in the real world and have the potential to actually carry out their nationalist plans. This is as opposed to yours and your band of "leaders" of a non-existent party who can only keep posting social-patriotic threads on online forums.

[Die Neue Zeit]

I was not aware that any "utopian left-com tendency" proposed any bankrupt chain of national revolutions and I was also not aware I belonged to such a tendency.

Tightly knit national revolutions are still a series of national revolutions, no matter the rhetoric for "international revolution." I mean, there was the Russian Revolution, then the Hungarian Revolution, then the German Revolution, right? OTOH, a democratization process for the EU provides the means for simultaneously all-continental revolution.


The one saving grace of Stalinists and Maoists who advocate similar social-patriotic rubbish on a regular basis is that they actually exist in the real world and have the potential to actually carry out their nationalist plans. This is as opposed to yours and your band of "leaders" of a non-existent party who can only keep posting social-patriotic threads on online forums.

I'm quite sympathetic to the CPGB-PCC and its call for a Communist Party of the European Union. The latter may be "non-existent," but it's more realistic than left-com minoritarianism.

Oh, and whatever happened to your usual derision of real and fictitious links between Orthodox Marxism and "Anti-Revisionism"? :glare:

[promethean]

Tightly knit national revolutions are still a series of national revolutions, no matter the rhetoric for "international revolution." I mean, there was the Russian Revolution, then the Hungarian Revolution, then the German Revolution, right? OTOH, a democratization process for the EU provides the means for simultaneously all-continental revolution.I know of the existence of similar online nutcase third worldists who advocate a similar all-continental revolution for Africa and other third world continents. No doubt such nutters are dear to the yourself, since your brand of first world chauvinism is a nice complement to the third world chauvinism that they demonstrate.


I'm quite sympathetic to the CPGB-PCC and its call for a Communist Party of the European Union. The latter may be "non-existent," but it's more realistic than left-com minoritarianism.I'm sure you and your band of online leaders are sympathetic to many such non-existent parties, not that such things have to have a relation to the real world as such. Such pastimes are very good hobbies to have in your spare time. My hope is that for their next show, WNZ and his online band of leaders will transform from their reenactment of Lasalle and company to provide an online reenactment of Dagobert II and company.

[Die Neue Zeit]

Oh, look, for all the baseless cries of me changing topics, look who's changing topics here?


I know of the existence of similar online nutcase third worldists who advocate a similar all-continental revolution for Africa and other third world continents. No doubt such nutters are dear to the yourself, since your brand of first world chauvinism is a nice complement to the third world chauvinism that they demonstrate.

Um, I'm not a First World chauvinist, if you're referring to my realistic position of caution for proletarian demographic minorities against conducting some uprising that would result in anti-democratic measures against equal suffrage and such. :rolleyes:

But yeah, contrast that to your position which would adventurously throw away millions of Third World proletarians into the slaughterhouse for butting heads against the "socioeconomically patriotic" elements of the more numerous Third World petit-bourgeoisie.

[Q]

If we were living in the 19th century and you and DNZ were Lasallian "leaders" of the SPD and spouting such social-patriotic rubbish...

To confuse the politics of the "battle for democracy" classical Marxism ("classical" as in Marx and Engels' own politics) with those of Ferdinand Lassalle really exposes you as someone who doesn't know the elementaries of communist politics.

But keep on trolling.

[promethean]

Um, I'm not a First World chauvinist, if you're referring to my realistic position of caution for proletarian demographic minorities against conducting some uprising that would result in anti-democratic measures against equal suffrage and such. :rolleyes: No. You are a first world chauvinist because you call for a left version of the European Union and Europe, as most people should know, is a big part of the First World. As for the rest of your positions for this and that, I am not interested in the make-believe programs of delusional people.


But yeah, contrast that to your position which would adventurously throw away millions of Third World proletarians into the slaughterhouse for butting heads against the "socioeconomically patriotic" elements of the more numerous Third World petit-bourgeoisie.As always, you have no idea of what you are talking about. Such statements only show the kind of delusionist we are dealing with. To be clear, I don't have any any such position, nor have I ever stated such a position. If you think I have, please provide a link where I stated such a position.


To confuse the politics of the "battle for democracy" classical Marxism ("classical" as in Marx and Engels' own politics) with those of Ferdinand Lassalle really exposes you as someone who doesn't know the elementaries of communist politics.

On the contrary, it is clear that you are the actual troll here. I am not aware of any politics of democracy that were held by either Marx or Engels. Quite the opposite, in fact. For example, in the Eighteenth Brumaire, Marx states (http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1852/18th-brumaire/ch03.htm):


A joint program was drafted, joint election committees were set up and joint candidates put forward. The revolutionary point was broken off and a democratic turn given to the social demands of the proletariat; the purely political form was stripped off the democratic claims of the petty bourgeoisie and their socialist point thrust forward. Thus arose social-democracy. The new Montagne, the result of this combination, contained, apart from some supernumeraries from the working class and some socialist sectarians, the same elements as the old Montagne, but numerically stronger. However, in the course of development it had changed with the class that it represented. The peculiar character of social-democracy is epitomized in the fact that democratic-republican institutions are demanded as a means, not of doing away with two extremes, capital and wage labor, but of weakening their antagonism and transforming it into harmony. However different the means proposed for the attainment of this end may be, however much it may be trimmed with more or less revolutionary notions, the content remains the same. This content is the transformation of society in a democratic way, but a transformation within the bounds of the petty bourgeoisie. Here, Marx is talking of the reasons behind the formation of the social-democratic party during the in the French Second Republic. He explains how the communist programme of the French proletariat was forced to be mixed with the democratic politics of the petit-bourgeoisie and this was one of the causes for the ultimate failure of this party in the French Republic and the eventual rise of the lumpen thug, Louis Bonaparte to the position of Monarch.

If you, dear troll, can explain how Marx or Engels had any politics to do with "battle of democracy", I would happy to change my mind.

As for democratic politics being a form of Lasallism, this much should be evident to anyone with a cursory knowledge of the history of the SPD and its long history of conflict between the Lasallian democratic/patriotic wing and its Marxist wing. It is clear that in the course of your and DMZ's play-acting, you have assumed the role of the Lasalleans.

[Die Neue Zeit]

No. You are a first world chauvinist because you call for a left version of the European Union and Europe, as most people should know, is a big part of the First World. As for the rest of your positions for this and that, I am not interested in the make-believe programs of delusional people.

How is that chauvinist? I thought "First World chauvinism" was the twin of Maoism-Third Worldism.

Anyway, you don't have a revolutionary program, without which there can be no revolutionary movement.

[promethean]

How is that chauvinist? I thought "First World chauvinism" was the twin of Maoism-Third Worldism.

Anyway, you don't have a revolutionary program, without which there can be no revolutionary movement.
Third Worldism is not of just the Maoist variety. It includes people who supported the Non-aligned Movement and continue to support every other tin pot dictator who pops up in the third world.

[Jose Gracchus]

To confuse the politics of the "battle for democracy" classical Marxism ("classical" as in Marx and Engels' own politics) with those of Ferdinand Lassalle really exposes you as someone who doesn't know the elementaries of communist politics.

But keep on trolling.

What is laughable is you think that the SPD program is what the proletariat needs to do. There's no bourgeois revolution to complete, no bourgeois state to make 'as it should be'. This is 2011, not 1890.

Oh, and LOL @ DNZ's ravings about a 'revolutionary program'; like having a "program" ad personam he conjured up on spreadsheets with excessive personal time advances the class project.

Organizations have programs. You have megalomania.

[Q]

What is laughable is you think that the SPD program is what the proletariat needs to do. There's no bourgeois revolution to complete, no bourgeois state to make 'as it should be'. This is 2011, not 1890.

I'm not proposing to simply copy-paste the 1891 Erfurt programme, nor the 1903 Bolshevik program me which was based on Erfurt and which they carried on until they adopted a new programme in 1918. Times have indeed changed. But Erfurt was a programmatic basis from which we can learn a lot today. Given that the far left is so radically lost in its marginalisation and irrelevancy and clearly finds no way back up again, besides trying to build their own sect, it is useful to trace back our history and see what we can learn.

I content that we can learn a huge amount from the Erfurt/Bolshevik approach in building mass formations, party-movements based on a Marxist programme that seeks to organize the whole class as a class-collective. That is the point I'm trying to translate.

As an aside, the Erfurt programme doesn't speak about "completing the bourgeois revolution", its essence is about winning the battle for democracy.

[Die Neue Zeit]

What is laughable is you think that the SPD program is what the proletariat needs to do. There's no bourgeois revolution to complete, no bourgeois state to make 'as it should be'. This is 2011, not 1890.

Who said programming class struggle and social revolution involved copying-pasting the Erfurt Program and not fleshing out its methodology on the minimum-program-as-demands-on-the-state?


he conjured up on spreadsheets with excessive personal time advances the class project.

Organizations have programs. You have megalomania.

Typical left hostility to spreadsheets as a means of making organizational charts, Gantt charts, generic diagrams, etc. reeks of being stuck in mid-20th-century methods of education. You have prognosis and doubts. I always emphasize Suggested Solutions.

Also, your comment on spreadsheets was just low, considering who else has these.

[Jose Gracchus]

Don't make ludicrous remarks like "BUT DUH REVOLUTIONARY PROGRAM IS NECESSARY FOR THE REVOLUTIONARY MOVEMENT" as if that applies to you if you don't want someone to call you out on it and its utter absurdity. Although who knows why I or anyone else bothers, if you had any shame or social awareness you would have quit this a long time ago.

[Die Neue Zeit]

Don't make ludicrous remarks like "BUT DUH REVOLUTIONARY PROGRAM IS NECESSARY FOR THE REVOLUTIONARY MOVEMENT" as if that applies to you if you don't want someone to call you out on it and its utter absurdity.

:glare:

All I'll say is that there's constructive criticism of attempts (and underlying methodology) to forge a revolutionary program required for a revolutionary movement to emerge, and there's merely sticking, stubbornly, to prognosis without offering concrete solutions both in the here-and-now (definitely "this side of revolution") and further out. Just recall the "trade union control over immigration" exchanges, for example, which was not my proposal at all.

[promethean]

I'm not proposing to simply copy-paste the 1891 Erfurt programme, nor the 1903 Bolshevik program me which was based on Erfurt and which they carried on until they adopted a new programme in 1918. Times have indeed changed. But Erfurt was a programmatic basis from which we can learn a lot today. Given that the far left is so radically lost in its marginalisation and irrelevancy and clearly finds no way back up again, besides trying to build their own sect, it is useful to trace back our history and see what we can learn.

I content that we can learn a huge amount from the Erfurt/Bolshevik approach in building mass formations, party-movements based on a Marxist programme that seeks to organize the whole class as a class-collective. That is the point I'm trying to translate.

As an aside, the Erfurt programme doesn't speak about "completing the bourgeois revolution", its essence is about winning the battle for democracy.
One can't surely make all this up and still pretend to be sane. Didn't the SPD basically win the "battle for democracy" when it became the ruling party following the 1918 democratic transition of Germany from a monarchy in the form of the Weimar Republic? I wonder what they did once they got power.... that's right... they suppressed the revolution and allied with the ultra-nationalist Freikorps. That surely worked out very well for the working class, didn't it?:thumbup1:

By the way, you still haven't proved how Marx or Engels or so-called classical Marxism also fought for this battle for democracy or how this fake "battle" is still valid today. Last time (http://www.revleft.com/vb/showpost.php?p=2294052&postcount=41), you made an argumentum ad populum and then tried to appeal to the authority of Marx and Engels. Try harder next time.

[Q]

Didn't the SPD basically win the "battle for democracy" when it became the ruling party following the 1918 democratic transition of Germany from a monarchy in the form of the Weimar Republic?
No. The battle for democracy, in the sense Marx & Engels were using the phrase, referred not to bourgeois "democracy" at all, as I have already explained. It referred to the political hegemony of the working class, the dictatorship of the proletariat. This was not the case in 1918 Germany, to put it mildly.


By the way, you still haven't proved how Marx or Engels or so-called classical Marxism also fought for this battle for democracy or how this fake "battle" is still valid today. Last time (http://www.revleft.com/vb/showpost.php?p=2294052&postcount=41), you made an argumentum ad populum and then tried to appeal to the authority of Marx and Engels. Try harder next time.
I haven't responded to it because:
a. Anyone remotely familiar with Marx and Engels, especially in their work post-Paris Commune, knows their emphasis on the political struggle of the proletariat via the Democratic Republic (Marx for example described the Paris Commune as (http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1871/civil-war-france/ch05.htm): "It was essentially a working class government, the product of the struggle of the producing against the appropriating class, the political form at last discovered under which to work out the economical emancipation of labor.", Engels described the Paris Commune, the Democratic Republic, as the "the form of the dictatorship of the proletariat").
b. I don't have the time nor the interest in getting involved in an extensive "quote war". I'm well aware in how quotes can be used to make people say anything to anyone.
c. You are a troll, a somewhat sophisticated one for sure, but still. I do not feed trolls, or at least try not to.

[Q]

Related to this discussion, Ben Lewis wrote a report (http://www.cpgb.org.uk/article.php?article_id=1004620) on the last Historical Materialism conference. In it he reports, among other things, also on the SWP'ers that were present and were having a similar disdain of the demand of the democratic republic. I think Ben makes a reasonable defense, given the space of the article.

I'll be looking forward to the contributions in the next Historical Materialism.


Debating the republic and extreme democracy
Ben Lewis reports on some interesting exchanges at the 'Historical Materialism' weekend

Capitalism is widely questioned, Marxism is increasingly popular ... but the left is uselessly divided
The eighth annual Historical Materialism conference held at the School of Oriental and African Studies last weekend was a genuine success, with four days rammed full of papers, plenaries and discussions. While it is hard to tell just how many attended over the four days, an indication of the total is given by the fact that 750 people came to the final plenary on the Arab revolutions. This session saw particularly good speeches from the American International Socialist Organisation’s Ahmed Shawki, who spoke on the Arab spring and US imperialism, and Adam Hanieh, who spoke on counterrevolution and the Gulf Arab states.

I gave two talks: one as a discussant on a special Revolutionary History panel devoted to the history of the early Comintern, and a paper on ‘Karl Kautsky’s defence of republicanism’, which explored Kautsky’s 1904 work Republic and social democracy in France.[1]

The panel had a total of four speakers and it touched on some thought-provoking questions in relation to the German Revolution and its many paradoxes. Mike Jones of Revolutionary History was in particularly fine form and, while I think he occasionally overstates the case in defence of Paul Levi’s expulsion of the ‘left’ from the early Communist Party of Germany (KPD), he was absolutely right to endorse Levi’s focus on winning the rank and file of the Independent Social Democrats (USPD).

In the time available to me, I also concentrated on the question of the KPD and the USPD, arguing that some of the KPD’s weaknesses resulted from the fact that it was born both too late and too early. Only with the Halle congress of October 1920 - ie, as a result of the struggle to win the USPD rank and file - could the KPD be seen as a mass party. As in my November 10 Weekly Worker article, ‘From Erfurt to Charlottenburg’, I also sought to locate some of the KPD’s shortcomings at the level of programme.

I gave my main paper in a session on Karl Kautsky entitled ‘Seedtime of Comintern’. My co-panellist was the independent scholar and author, Lars T Lih, who explained Kautsky’s (and Lenin’s) concept of world revolution through the prism of Georgi Lukács’s 1924 Lenin: a study in the unity of his thought. It is perhaps testament to the work that Lars and others have put in that a whole panel was given over to the thought of Karl Kautsky and his ideas as the “seed” of communist politics. In the face of so many recently translated documents (for example, in Richard Day’s and Daniel Gaido’s Witnesses to permanent revolution: the documentary record), only the most dogmatic can deny Kautsky’s role as a revolutionary writer and politician.

One little-known work that must force us to rethink the usual narrative on Kautsky is Republic and social democracy in France, which I argued was popular in the Russian movement because of its defence of Marxist republicanism against those in the Second International who held bourgeois republican illusions in the French Third Republic. Kautsky’s contribution was to underline how, for Marxists, republican agitation does not cease with the removal of a monarch, but continues until the working class come to power. As such, the Marxists needed to articulate a different constitutional order to the French Third Republic, which was commonly known as a “monarchy without the monarch”.

Moreover, by making this case, Kautsky was simply following in the footsteps of both Marx and Engels. They viewed the Paris Commune, the democratic republic of 1871, as “the form of the dictatorship of the proletariat” (Engels),[2] the “political form at last discovered under which to work out the economic emancipation of labour” (Marx).[3] I then compared this ‘state of the commune type’ with Kautsky’s later understanding and application of the minimum programme during the German Revolution.[4]

SWP v Cliff
Given that such an approach is rather unorthodox on today’s far left, one thing I regretted was that I did not take more time to anticipate some of the criticisms that this would provoke. After all, it is common currency on today’s far left that the need for a minimum programme and the struggle for a republic is a waste of time.

The Socialist Workers Party’s John Rose, for example, wondered why I made such a fuss about Kautsky’s republicanism. “So what?” he wondered, especially when the experience of Germany in the early 1920s shows that republics do not necessarily equate to working class power. George Paizis wondered whether the key difference between the soviet form and the democratic republic - a distinction Kautsky could not have been aware of in 1904 - was that the former smashed the state and replaced it with something else. Another comrade suggested that republicanism was all well and good for places like tsarist Russia, but not for countries without absolutist monarchs.

Ottokar Lubahn, one of the leading historians on Rosa Luxemburg, highlighted the significance of the question of the republic - not just for Engels in 1891, as I had pointed out - but also in relation to Luxemburg’s later struggle to bind the party to republican agitation. In further evidence of the party shifting to the right, and minimum demands being conflated with maximum demands, she was sidelined by the party leadership, Kautsky included. The slogan was deemed too “radical” for the party’s day-to-day work, not least in the party’s joint work with the trade union leaders.

This is exactly the point. The question of republicanism matters because for Kautsky “when he was a Marxist” - as for Lenin, Marx and Engels - the democratic republic (annual elections of officials, recallability, workers’ wages for bureaucrats, the armed people, etc) was the culmination of the demands of the minimum programme: ie, the rule of the working class. This is why the soviets are merely a form of the democratic republic. It is the content that is paramount.

Interestingly Tony Cliff made exactly the same point in State capitalism in Russia. The SWP founder took a rather different view from that of comrade Rose and used the Engels quotation above, along with several others from both Engels and Marx, to contrast “the real content of workers’ states to Stalinist bureaucracy”. According to Cliff, the dictatorship of the proletariat was “Marx’s and Engels’ conception of a workers’ state: a consistent, extreme democracy”.[5]

And indeed, as I pointed out to comrade Paizis in my response, we should not forget that the Paris Commune resulted from the equivalent of an election to a local city council, which then proceeded to dissolve the old means of rule: ie, to “smash the state”. Such a route to power is perfectly conceivable in today’s conditions too, but it presupposes majority support. For example, as the December 1918 programme of the Spartacus League put it, “The Spartacus League will never take over governmental power except in response to the clear, unambiguous will of the great majority of the proletarian mass of all of Germany, never except by the proletariat’s conscious affirmation of the views, aims, and methods of struggle of the Spartacus League.”[6]

The historian, John Riddell, whose interventions always cause me to think, made some excellent points from the floor about how the early Comintern and its affiliates had not been able to fully assimilate “Russian lessons”. As somebody who has spent a lot of time researching and translating Comintern documents, he argued that some of the basic tenets of strategy that the Bolsheviks had drawn from the Second International - not least the fight for the democratic republic - had been either overlooked, forgotten or buried. In this sense, I could only agree with his assertion that the Second and Third Internationals need to be studied together, not as separate phenomena. Indeed, it strikes me that the contemporary left’s particularly crude interpretation of the Third International, combined with its disdain for the revolutionary traditions of the Second International, have in part led us to where we are now - ie, organised in a swathe of competing sect projects with next to no immediate prospects of revolutionary party unity.

Moreover, given the fact that the English record of the Fourth Congress of Comintern has only just been made available in English (thanks to the translation work of comrade Riddell himself), the notion that left unity today must be built on the basis of the “first four congresses” of Comintern appears even more absurd ...

These sessions were thoroughly rewarding, and the organisers should be congratulated for facilitating such important discussions. I thoroughly enjoyed the opportunity to present these ideas and engage in a discussion with leading SWPers like John Rose, along with other leading members from groups like Workers Power, the International Socialist Group, Alliance for Workers’ Liberty. Such discussions really do not happen anywhere near enough.

While the debate got at times rather heated, the atmosphere was always friendly, which shows what can actually be done if the left breaks with its current modus operandi and actually starts to talk to each other properly. We have a lot of work to do if we are to rise to the many challenges thrown our way. If we can discuss extremely important questions of our history in this manner, then surely we can do the same for the political questions that face us today. This can and must happen not just amongst the ‘intellectuals’ on the left, but at a rank-and-file level too.

Notes

The first three parts of that seven-part series can be read in Weekly Worker April 28, May 19 and May 26.
F Engels, introduction to K Marx The civil war in France London 1941, p19.
K Marx The civil war in France: www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1871/civil-war-france/ch05.htm
See ‘From Erfurt to Charlottenburg’ Weekly Worker November 10 for a more detailed account.
T Cliff State capitalism in Russia: www.marxists.org/archive/cliff/works/1955/statecap/ch02.htm
R Luxemburg, ‘What does the Spartacus League want?’ (December 1918): www.marxists.org/archive/luxemburg/1918/12/14.htm

[promethean]

No. The battle for democracy, in the sense Marx & Engels were using the phrase, referred not to bourgeois "democracy" at all, as I have already explained. It referred to the political hegemony of the working class, the dictatorship of the proletariat. This just ignores the context of Marx's statements. Marx never considered such a democratic republic or dictatorship of the proletariat to be anything other than capitalist.

[Die Neue Zeit]

Related to this discussion, Ben Lewis wrote a report (http://www.cpgb.org.uk/article.php?article_id=1004620) on the last Historical Materialism conference. In it he reports, among other things, also on the SWP'ers that were present and were having a similar disdain of the demand of the democratic republic. I think Ben makes a reasonable defense, given the space of the article.

I'll be looking forward to the contributions in the next Historical Materialism.

Could you please double-post the article as a new Theory thread?

[S.Artesian]

Holy fuck, let's see people, or at least one and the same person, arguing for a so-called "democratic republic" and at the same time " Third World Caesarism." Can't make this shit up.

Marx never argued for a "democratic republic" abstracted from the social basis for such a republic. Thus in his support for Poland's "democratic struggle" he always pointed to the social relations, the social question of land and landed labor as the real issue, the determinant, the content that must be brought to the forefront.

But we're way beyond that. "Democratic republic" and/or Caesarism-- anything and everything to avoid, deflect, blunt, eviscerate the workers struggle as a "class for itself."

Yeah, there is a lot to be learned from the Erfurt program, and from the Bolsheviks. DNZ and co. have learned and by rote all the wrong things.

[Nothing Human Is Alien]

the far left is so radically lost in its marginalisation and irrelevancy and clearly finds no way back up again

And instead of learning from this -- from the real material conditions -- that there will never be a revolutionary mass party from here on out, you want to follow the old left-wing path to nowhere with double the resolve!

[Q]

And instead of learning from this -- from the real material conditions -- that there will never be a revolutionary mass party from here on out, you want to follow the old left-wing path to nowhere with double the resolve!

If you are right and the working class will never be able to form itself as a class, independent from the state and with a political agenda of taking power (i.e. a proletarian party), then humanity is doomed. Capitalism after all will not end by itself and we would live forever in this system until the end of days.

I do not hold such a negative view on our capacity as a class however.

[Nothing Human Is Alien]

Sorry brother, but "the class for itself," or what Marx referred to as "the party" in the broad sense, ≠ (does not equal) some rehashed version of the SPD that you, DNZ and a handful of leftist nerds in Europe conjured up. There won't be any more "workers' gymnasiums" or whatever the hell you guys imagine, and even if there were it wouldn't be the path the overthrow of capital.

[S.Artesian]

Sorry brother, but "the class for itself," or what Marx referred to as "the party" in the broad sense, ≠ (does not equal) some rehashed version of the SPD that you, DNZ and a handful of leftist nerds in Europe conjured up. There won't be any more "workers' gymnasiums" or whatever the hell you guys imagine, and even if there were it wouldn't be the path the overthrow of capital.

That, the bold stuff, is the point. No more than the "fight" for a "democratic republic" is the point

[Die Neue Zeit]

Holy fuck, let's see people, or at least one and the same person, arguing for a so-called "democratic republic" and at the same time " Third World Caesarism." Can't make this shit up.

Marx never argued for a "democratic republic" abstracted from the social basis for such a republic. Thus in his support for Poland's "democratic struggle" he always pointed to the social relations, the social question of land and landed labor as the real issue, the determinant, the content that must be brought to the forefront.

But we're way beyond that. "Democratic republic" and/or Caesarism-- anything and everything to avoid, deflect, blunt, eviscerate the workers struggle as a "class for itself."

Actually, heads I win, tails you lose, again.

Heads I win: This thread is about the political struggle of proletarian demographic majorities (i.e., the First World). What you alluded to are different strategic orientations for different circumstances, and so Third World Caesarean Socialism is irrelevant (as opposed to, say, my thread on Indian farmers committing suicide).

Tails you lose: Leaving aside the question of random selections vs. elections, demokratia was interpreted by a number of Greek philosophers as class rule by the poor. In the Third World, both proletarian demographic minorities and the socioeconomically patriotic elements of the urban and rural petit-bourgeoisie count as "the poor."


Sorry brother, but "the class for itself," or what Marx referred to as "the party" in the broad sense, ≠ (does not equal) some rehashed version of the SPD that you, DNZ and a handful of leftist nerds in Europe conjured up. There won't be any more "workers' gymnasiums" or whatever the hell you guys imagine, and even if there were it wouldn't be the path the overthrow of capital.

I've already stated that Marx's understanding of the party was understandably primordial; understandable, but ultimately primordial. The original Socialist International and late Engels had a heightened understanding of the worker-class-for-itself.

[promethean]

Actually, heads I win, tails you lose, again.

Heads I win: This thread is about the political struggle of proletarian demographic majorities (i.e., the First World). What you alluded to are different strategic orientations for different circumstances, and so Third World Caesarean Socialism is irrelevant (as opposed to, say, my thread on Indian farmers committing suicide).

Tails you lose: Leaving aside the question of random selections vs. elections, demokratia was interpreted by a number of Greek philosophers as class rule by the poor. In the Third World, both proletarian demographic minorities and the socioeconomically patriotic elements of the urban and rural petit-bourgeoisie count as "the poor."



I've already stated that Marx's understanding of the party was understandably primordial; understandable, but ultimately primordial. The original Socialist International and late Engels had a heightened understanding of the worker-class-for-itself.
Stop deluding yourself. You are not an Orthodox Marxist. To be an Orthodox Marxist, you need to be in an Orthodox Marxist party. An Orthodox Marxist mass party like the SPD does not exist today and will never exist ever again since it was a product of its historical times. Nobody cares about your precious "program". Debating your "program", a product of comic delusions, is completely useless.

[Die Neue Zeit]

Some of us have the clear heads to attempt a revival of Orthodox Marxism for modern conditions as medicine against, among other illnesses, your and others' rampant and mutated ultra-leftist disease (not just infantile disorder).

Bebel and Liebknecht had to start with the SAPD. Lassalle and von Schweitzer had to start from scratch with the ADAV.

Meanwhile, keep going about your "revolutionary" non-politics.

[promethean]

Some of us have the clear heads to attempt a revival of Orthodox Marxism for modern conditions as medicine against, among other illnesses, your and others' rampant and mutated ultra-leftist disease (not just infantile disorder).

Bebel and Liebknecht had to start with the SAPD. Lassalle and von Schweitzer had to start from scratch with the ADAV.

Meanwhile, keep going about your "revolutionary" non-politics.
Capitalism has changed since the 19th century in ways that make the reformist politics of the SPD to be no longer valid. Bebel, Lassalle and the rest of the leaders of the SPD are mere historical phantoms. To attempt to repeat their efforts in creating a mass party is just a complete waste of time. Any such 21st century mass parties can only exist inside the heads of deluded individuals, but not in the real world.

[Die Neue Zeit]

Meanwhile, you have no solutions, because capitalism has changed since early 1917, Hungary 1956 (though with an uptick in neo-fascist activity), Mai 1968, Portugal 1975, etc. to the point where councilist delusions are definitely no longer valid. :)

[promethean]

Until a SPD-type mass party appears magically out of nowhere, engaging with any bizarre 19th century dinosaur "programs" are not worth the time, except maybe to historical role-players. In the meanwhile, people are free to continue to have delusions about a progressive reformist capitalism.

[Die Neue Zeit]

Keep to your UK-style riots, then. :)

[promethean]

Which riots? If you mean the ones in 2011, I wouldn't agree to handing over those poor rioting workers and lumpens over to the police, since that is what you seem to support. I didn't celebrate their desperate acts either.

[Jose Gracchus]

The forms of workers' power, and the material party of the working-class, are something which will emerge in the course of struggle. Like the commune-state, the workers' council, and the factory committee, none of which could or ought to have been anticipated, and certainly not by someone's pastiche one-man 'program'. Burnheim is not the one who discovered the permanent requisite form of the dictatorship of the proletariat. Not even he thinks so. But you know so. How? Well you say-so. I'm floored.

[Die Neue Zeit]

Which riots? If you mean the ones in 2011, I wouldn't agree to handing over those poor rioting workers and lumpens over to the police, since that is what you seem to support. I didn't celebrate their desperate acts either.

The usual defamation coming from you never ceases to amaze me! I never stated any support for handing them over the police. :rolleyes:

[promethean]

I'm surprised you didn't! In that case, are you sure you don't support the riots? It would seem a logical thing for you to call for rioters to be handed to the police.