Reformism

[Guest1]

I have a friend who worked a really shitty textile factory job for a long time. Then, the company started talking about shutting them down.

I suppose supporting them in their fight for wages, hours and conditions, and to keep their jobs, is not revolutionary?

I agree that we should take a clear stand against allowing reformists membership, but ignoring the day to day struggle is not revolutionary. Revolutionary demands only become conceivable to the working class when it becomes clear to them that even the most elementary demands cannot be achieved under the constraints of Capitalism. The role of the Marxists in the movement is to march side by side with workers in their struggles, supporting their daily battles even for the basic issues like wages, and push forward more radical demands and ideas. Pushing for free education and healthcare, while making it clear that we don't think it's possible under Capitalism for example. Workers learn, through their fights, and an ounce of practice is worth a tonne of theory. They will, and they do, come to the right conclusions as they see how even the minor struggles cannot be won without going all the way.

That's the only role reforms can have. And that's the way forward for revolutionary leftists, not placing yourself out in the middle of nowhere without any support whatsoever shouting like a madman.

[RevolutionarySocialist MadRedDog]

Originally posted by Che y [email protected] 22 2005, 08:32 AM
I have a friend who worked a really shitty textile factory job for a long time. Then, the company started talking about shutting them down.

I suppose supporting them in their fight for wages, hours and conditions, and to keep their jobs, is not revolutionary?

I agree that we should take a clear stand against allowing reformists membership, but ignoring the day to day struggle is not revolutionary. Revolutionary demands only become conceivable to the working class when it becomes clear to them that even the most elementary demands cannot be achieved under the constraints of Capitalism. The role of the Marxists in the movement is to march side by side with workers in their struggles, supporting their daily battles even for the basic issues like wages, and push forward more radical demands and ideas. Pushing for free education and healthcare, while making it clear that we don't think it's possible under Capitalism for example. Workers learn, through their fights, and an ounce of practice is worth a tonne of theory. They will, and they do, come to the right conclusions as they see how even the minor struggles cannot be won without going all the way.

That's the only role reforms can have. And that's the way forward for revolutionary leftists, not placing yourself out in the middle of nowhere without any support whatsoever shouting like a madman.
Exactly...great post.

[redstar2000]

Originally posted by Che y Marijuana
I have a friend who worked a really shitty textile factory job for a long time. Then, the company started talking about shutting them down.

I suppose supporting them in their fight for wages, hours and conditions, and to keep their jobs, is not revolutionary?

Not a bit.

We support your heroic struggle to stay in the shit!

Of course, people always like you when you support them. So if you're just "trying to make friends", that's a good way to do it.

But it has nothing to do with revolution at all...not even remotely.

Now, if you were in a position to tell those people why that factory was closing down...you might communicate to them a useful message of how capitalism works.

That would be, in a very small way, a revolutionary act. At this point in time, anything that reinforces proletarian cynicism about their masters is helpful.

And that factory is going to close...and nothing you nor any of those workers say or do is going to change that.

Indeed, telling people these days to "mobilize" for a "great struggle" to "save their jobs" is just setting them up for a big disappointment.

Instead, tell them the truth. Capitalism is going to fuck you!


Pushing for free education and healthcare, while making it clear that we don't think it's possible under Capitalism for example.

That's called talking out of both sides of your mouth at the same time.

People will conclude, at best, that you are simply confused...if they can make any sense out of such a "mixed message" at all.

Either "free education" is possible under capitalism today or it's not.

If it is possible, then go ahead and fight for it -- though it's certainly a reformist demand...and is entirely irrelevant to any revolutionary perspective.

If it's not possible (which it isn't, in my opinion), then tell people that.

Tell them not to waste their time and energy fighting for something that is not possible.

Tell them that the "age of reform" is over.

The bitter truth is far more revolutionary than the pleasant lie.

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[RevolutionarySocialist MadRedDog]

Originally posted by redstar2000+Dec 22 2005, 12:26 PM--> (redstar2000 @ Dec 22 2005, 12:26 PM)
Che y Marijuana
I have a friend who worked a really shitty textile factory job for a long time. Then, the company started talking about shutting them down.

I suppose supporting them in their fight for wages, hours and conditions, and to keep their jobs, is not revolutionary?

Not a bit.

We support your heroic struggle to stay in the shit!

Of course, people always like you when you support them. So if you're just "trying to make friends", that's a good way to do it.

But it has nothing to do with revolution at all...not even remotely.

Now, if you were in a position to tell those people why that factory was closing down...you might communicate to them a useful message of how capitalism works.

That would be, in a very small way, a revolutionary act. At this point in time, anything that reinforces proletarian cynicism about their masters is helpful.

And that factory is going to close...and nothing you nor any of those workers say or do is going to change that.

Indeed, telling people these days to "mobilize" for a "great struggle" to "save their jobs" is just setting them up for a big disappointment.

Instead, tell them the truth. Capitalism is going to fuck you!


Pushing for free education and healthcare, while making it clear that we don't think it's possible under Capitalism for example.

That's called talking out of both sides of your mouth at the same time.

People will conclude, at best, that you are simply confused...if they can make any sense out of such a "mixed message" at all.

Either "free education" is possible under capitalism today or it's not.

If it is possible, then go ahead and fight for it -- though it's certainly a reformist demand...and is entirely irrelevant to any revolutionary perspective.

If it's not possible (which it isn't, in my opinion), then tell people that.

Tell them not to waste their time and energy fighting for something that is not possible.

Tell them that the "age of reform" is over.

The bitter truth is far more revolutionary than the pleasant lie.

http://www.websmileys.com/sm/cool/123.gif [/b]
Jees...Have you ever heard of a transitional programme? What you are saying is so sectarian!

Together with the struggle to safeguard and improve the position and living conditions of workers conscious marxists put forward transitional demands, such as re-nationalisation of big companies under workers' control in the form of committees with elected representatives who are subject to permanent recall and who recieve an average workers wage.

In that way we try to improve the workers' consciousness about why capitalism should be overthrown and replaced by socialism. Your strategy is screaming " revolution" when and as loud as you can, without keeping in mind that consciousness is something that needs to be cultivated and that the current level of consciousness does not offer the objective circumstance for a socialist revolution in most countries. Such a strategy is gonna leave you nothing but being isolated.

[redstar2000]

Originally posted by RevolutionarySocialist MadRedDog
Jees...Have you ever heard of a transitional programme?

Sure. It's the Trotskyist "magic wand" that turns reformism into revolution. Unfortunately, no "working model" has ever been demonstrated. But Trotskyists really believe that someday they will actually come up with a list of "demands" that workers will enthusiastically embrace...and, as a consequence, magically become revolutionary.

It's the same old Leninist "primacy of ideas" crap.


What you are saying is so sectarian!

Why? I'm not saying that CyM should run out and attack other left groups or deliver an erudite lecture on the history of the 3rd International or anything else that would normally be associated with sectarianism.

I'm suggesting that he tell people at that factory the truth about their situation.

Is the truth "sectarian"?


Together with the struggle to safeguard and improve the position and living conditions of workers conscious marxists put forward transitional demands, such as re-nationalisation of big companies under workers' control in the form of committees with elected representatives who are subject to permanent recall and who receive an average workers wage.

You're not "marxists", you're just reformists full of big promises that you'll never deliver on.

The only thing you ever accomplish with all that hot air is to make workers cynical about Marxism.


Your strategy is screaming " revolution" when and as loud as you can...

It is not necessary to "scream"...it's just necessary to tell people the truth about the situation that they're in. Indeed, a rational "matter-of-fact" tone might be most suitable in the present period...might stimulate more interest than Leninist hyperbole.


...without keeping in mind that consciousness is something that needs to be cultivated...

Evidently "like a garden"...with the generous application of reformist manure.


Such a strategy is gonna leave you nothing but being isolated.

In a period of reaction, even reformists like yourself are "isolated".

Isolation does not relieve revolutionaries of the obligation to tell people the truth.

Reformists wouldn't know the truth if it ran up and bit them in the ass.

Which is what usually happens. :lol:

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[RevolutionarySocialist MadRedDog]

Originally posted by RevolutionarySocialist MadRedDog
Jees...Have you ever heard of a transitional programme?

Sure. It's the Trotskyist "magic wand" that turns reformism into revolution. Unfortunately, no "working model" has ever been demonstrated. But Trotskyists really believe that someday they will actually come up with a list of "demands" that workers will enthusiastically embrace...and, as a consequence, magically become revolutionary.

Oh uh well maybe because Trotsky was killed..... :huh:

But if you need an example, take a look at this (http://www.marxist.net/trotsky/programme/index.html).




What you are saying is so sectarian!

Why? I'm not saying that CyM should run out and attack other left groups or deliver an erudite lecture on the history of the 3rd International or anything else that would normally be associated with sectarianism.

I'm suggesting that he tell people at that factory the truth about their situation.

Is the truth "sectarian"?

No but the way in which you think you can 'educate the masses' is: it would only alienate workers from you.



Together with the struggle to safeguard and improve the position and living conditions of workers conscious marxists put forward transitional demands, such as re-nationalisation of big companies under workers' control in the form of committees with elected representatives who are subject to permanent recall and who receive an average workers wage.

You're not "marxists", you're just reformists full of big promises that you'll never deliver on.

I didn't know marxism consisted of ultra-left sectarianism. :P


The only thing you ever accomplish with all that hot air is to make workers cynical about Marxism.


The only thing you will ever accomplish is people no longer willing to listen to you, since you are unable to stand with two feet on the ground beside them.



Such a strategy is gonna leave you nothing but being isolated.

In a period of reaction, even reformists like yourself are "isolated".

Isolation does not relieve revolutionaries of the obligation to tell people the truth.

Maybe not, but enlarging the level of isolation is not gonna help in your holy task of spreading the 'truth'.

[Guest1]

I do recall specifically saying to support them in their struggle, while at the same time explaining clearly how it is connected to the failures of Capitalism, and how under Capitalism none of those changes can be achieved in any meaningful way.

But I guess "truthfully explain" means, to redstar at least, tell the starving worker to eat revolutionary propaganda.

A Marxist who can't do anything for people in the here and now, can't even bring themselves to support workers in their most basic day to day struggle for their needs, is worth nothing at all.

[redstar2000]

Originally posted by Che y Marijuana
A Marxist who can't do anything for people in the here and now, can't even bring themselves to support workers in their most basic day to day struggle for their needs, is worth nothing at all.

So...go open a soup kitchen.

Like all reformists, you would have us here believe that "Marxism" is social work.

Nothing wrong with social work for those who like that sort of thing...you get to feel good about yourself because you're "really helping people".

It just doesn't have anything to do with Marxism or revolution at all. You may deny that unpleasant truth...but it's still true.

As you will learn, no doubt.

Leninists have been following your "recipe" for some seven or eight decades in the "west"...and it's been a long time since your ideological "soup kitchen" actually served any soup.

Even at McDonald's, people eat better. :lol:

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[Guest1]

Union organizing is soup kitchen work?

I guess you think the IWW are Leninists and reformists too then?

I guess you believe that the Spanish revolution was no revolution at all then, considering that the Anarchist unions responsible for it are obviously Leninist reformists?

No one is saying that union work is the revolution. What I'm saying is that people only come to revolutionary conclusions through increasingly intensified and radical conflicts. Before understanding that all the bosses must be fought, and that all workers must fight them together, they need to understand that their boss needs to be fought, and all the workers at their workplace need to fight him together.

And yes, they can, and often do, win that fight on a small scale. If only temporarily, they win a small victory. That victory emboldens them, teaches them their power when united. The next time the bosses move, they meet them quicker and push back harder. They begin to understand that so long as there are any bosses anywhere, they will always have to keep fighting to stay alive. They learn that the small victory is not enough, that they have to work with workers elsewhere, at other factories to win the battle for all.

General strikes aren't born out of nowhere, they are born of the smaller battles teaching people what needs to be done, and teaching them that it can be done.

Our only power against the bosses is the ability to take away theirs. Their power is the factories only because we let it be, it can be our power at their expense. But what you're calling for is a flat out rejection of classwar in favour of nothing but a fight for ideas disconnected from material reality. Ideas need to spread from experience. It is the conflict which will lead to revolution, and to decry the conflict is to destroy any hope of change.

[Luís Henrique]

It's the same old Leninist "primacy of ideas" crap.

You are the one arguing that revolutionaries should "tell the truth" instead of partaking working class struggles. It sounds to me that you are the one incurring in "primacy of ideas"...


I'm suggesting that he tell people at that factory the truth about their situation.

Well. I do not know what the metaphysical truth is, but the practical truth is, our wages are lower than we need.

Perhaps those who are members of a self-elected club of truth-sayers have the luxury to wonder about Pilates' question, but I am a member of the working class. If I do not struggle for higher wages, my life standards fall, whether I am saying the truth or not.

So, let's put the vanguardist sectarianism aside. The "truth" is, wages are always "unfair", but $2.00 is more than $1.00, and workers that do not organise for a wage raise will never organise for putting an end to "wage slavery".


Is the truth "sectarian"?

Of course. And the belief that we "know" the "truth" is even more sectarian.

Luís Henrique

[redstar2000]

Originally posted by Che y Marijuana+--> (Che y Marijuana)Union organizing is soup kitchen work?[/b]

It depends on the organizing campaign, the organizers, the union, and the "ideological framework" that "sets the tone" of the campaign.

I rather strongly suspect that most union work these days does have a "soup kitchen" stink about it.

There may be some exceptions to this...but probably few in number.

Recall that the trade union was the very first form of organization that workers developed to struggle against their capitalist masters. It goes all the way back to the 1830s, if I'm not mistaken.

For a hundred years or so, it "looked revolutionary". Indeed, the "syndicalist tradition" in Europe was explicitly revolutionary up to, at least, World War II. Even today in France or Italy (or Quebec?), trade union work may still be far more explicitly revolutionary than it is in other countries.

But in the rest of North America?

Perhaps it's time for something "more advanced" than trade unions.

Evidently workers must think so...as the number of unionized workers continues to decline.

A lot of young workers don't see trade unions as "their organizations" anymore -- they see them as just another alien bureaucracy that seeks to fuck them over in one way or another.

Not without justification.


What I'm saying is that people only come to revolutionary conclusions through increasingly intensified and radical conflicts.

Yes, that has long been the traditional "theory" of "class consciousness" in the left.

Is it true?

Are workers "inherently incapable" of "abstract reflection" on their class position? Do they really need to "crawl" before they can "walk"?

And what is the role of those who tell them that they "should only crawl" and that walking is "ultra-left"?


But what you're calling for is a flat out rejection of class war in favour of nothing but a fight for ideas disconnected from material reality. Ideas need to spread from experience. It is the conflict which will lead to revolution, and to decry the conflict is to destroy any hope of change.

It is hyperbolic to call the ritual dance of "capital and labor" class war.

What's really needed are new forms for waging real class war...and new ideas to match that.

What Leninism offers, as usual, is just the same old dreary shit.

The working class yawns.


Luís Henrique
You are the one arguing that revolutionaries should "tell the truth" instead of partaking [in] working class struggles.

Not every "working class struggle" is useful to revolutionaries.

We should participate in the ones that actually show potential for advancing revolutionary ideas.

The remainder are, historically speaking, trivial.


The "truth" is, wages are always "unfair", but $2.00 is more than $1.00, and workers that do not organise for a wage raise will never organise for putting an end to "wage slavery".

I'm not so sure about that one.

Did all the slaves who "ran away" do so only after first humbly petitioning their masters for a modest increase in their food rations?


And the belief that we "know" the "truth" is even more sectarian.

As you wish. If you think that we are "hopelessly ignorant" or perhaps that the truth is "unknowable", then I find it difficult to understand how you manage to find your way to work every morning...much less ask for a raise.

I think humans learn the truth about their objective reality over time...and then communicate what they've learned to other humans.

Of course, we are often mistaken...but outright lying is held in universal contempt.

Telling people that "something good can be done" about a situation that we know will only get worse is lying.

Sincere reformists really believe what they're saying...so they're just wrong, not liars.

"Marxists" who echo reformism are indeed liars. Or, if you prefer, they are reformists who just have a sentimental attachment to "Marxist" terminology.

Either way, they're not worth the attention of revolutionaries...except to attack whatever their latest fashionable nonsense might be.

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[Guest1]

Originally posted by [email protected] 23 2005, 04:22 PM
Yes, that has long been the traditional "theory" of "class consciousness" in the left.

Is it true?

Are workers "inherently incapable" of "abstract reflection" on their class position? Do they really need to "crawl" before they can "walk"?

And what is the role of those who tell them that they "should only crawl" and that walking is "ultra-left"?
<_<

This is the difference between materialism and idealism. Ideas don&#39;t fall out of the sky like a holy stone of commandments, unconnected to anything. They don&#39;t just spring forth out of thin air. They are a product of material conditions, experiences, etc... Yes, some people reach the right conclusions with need for fewer experiences, others need more individual experiences to draw the generalizations from them. The reality is, if you want a revolution, you can&#39;t rely on a small handful of advanced workers only. You need the mass of workers to reach those conclusions and take their lives into their own hands.

If it was just a matter of them being exposed to the ideas, then the revolution would have been won long ago. Clearly, the ideas mean nothing if not connected to our everyday experience.

Every revolution has shown that the disconnected struggles of individual workers reach a critical point where they connect and it is at that point where there is a potential for radical ideas to gain a following, not just at any point in the development of the conditions.


It is hyperbolic to call the ritual dance of "capital and labor" class war.
You&#39;ve been seperated too long if you truly believe it is anything but a war.


What&#39;s really needed are new forms for waging real class war...and new ideas to match that.
Again, we don&#39;t create new ideas where there is no material need for them. The battle lines are drawn and our aims are clear, end wage slavery and bring the control of the economy into a democratic regime of the working class to the exclusion of all other classes.

If we are not going to change our goals, then how can we just randomly change our methods? Our methods must flow from both our goals and the conditions today. The conditions are that we have a working class waging war with its bosses, if they are to win, they must be organized and united. What method beyond unions are open to us?

Workers&#39; organizations, united, and armed with the ideas of Marxism are the only way forward. We can&#39;t just say "we need another way" and leave the rest to chance. We can&#39;t abandon what we have (and what is working, despite your assertions otherwise), if we have no alternative.


Not every "working class struggle" is useful to revolutionaries.

We should participate in the ones that actually show potential for advancing revolutionary ideas.

The remainder are, historically speaking, trivial.
Do you know the struggles, the trivial events, that led to the Paris Commune? Or how about the ones that toppled the Czar&#39;s regime? You can&#39;t expect workers to just one day wake up and say "let&#39;s topple the government and establish soviets", those "trivialities" are a necessary part of the road to advanced class consciousness. Would you call your first political activities important? Of course not, they were frivolous and generally meaningless, more so than a struggle for wages, same as my first steps. But we learned from them, and we set our sights higher. To expect people to learn any differently, to skip the human process of trial and error, is idealism at its worst.

But fear not, there are moments when people&#39;s consciousness doesn&#39;t take such a slow route, and they learn in days what generally takes years. Unfortunately for you, that happens to be the explosion of clture and human potential when a revolution is already blooming.


I&#39;m not so sure about that one.

Did all the slaves who "ran away" do so only after first humbly petitioning their masters for a modest increase in their food rations?
Do you really think that every slave just woke up one day and decided to run? It&#39;s only reasonable to assume that there was alot of abuse, and the will to fight it, before the will to run.

But that&#39;s not the real question is it. The comparison here is that before slavery could be overturned, individual slaves had to escape one by one until the struggle could be generalised through the railway. So for wage slavery to end, every wage slave needs to fight their "frivolous" fights before they can unite those fights together to tackle the greater threat of wage slavery as a whole.


Of course, we are often mistaken...but outright lying is held in universal contempt.

Telling people that "something good can be done" about a situation that we know will only get worse is lying.
But we know precisely the opposite. We know for a fact that just standing by and arguing Marxist history, instead of applying Marxist practice, leads to a weakened working class. A class without organization and unity, a class without any backbone that does not rise to the occasion when the battle is called, is an impotent class that will be stripped of all of its rights one by one.

Without actively fighting the ruling class, nationalized healthcare would have never been implemented. Today we are at that point where the bosses feel workers have abandoned the unions enough for them to be able to shut those systems down, but instead they are seeing general strikes appearing, and a reinvigoration of the struggle. If the workers win this struggle, the will be emboldened. Victories such as these show the way, teach workers just how much power they hold in their hands when united, and teach them that they can do things better than the bosses.


"Marxists" who echo reformism are indeed liars. Or, if you prefer, they are reformists who just have a sentimental attachment to "Marxist" terminology.
I suppose that&#39;s a serious accusation, coming from someone calling for an end to class struggle, the abolition of the unions, and suffering from a serious god complex: "let there be revolution", and so there was, out of nowhere.


Either way, they&#39;re not worth the attention of revolutionaries...except to attack whatever their latest fashionable nonsense might be.
While sectarians declare the struggles of the working class to be unworthy of their attention, the working class is on the move across the world, with a revolution in Venezuela where workers have created a South American federation of "reclaimed factories" and have put workers&#39; control firmly on the agenda yet again. It is the working class who cannot be bothered with the criticisms from the sidelines.

What have the sectarians achieved?

[redstar2000]

Originally posted by Che y Marijuana
If it was just a matter of them being exposed to the ideas, then the revolution would have been won long ago.

Is that true?

Well, first of all, how many working class people have ever been exposed at all to the idea that workers are a class who could rule?

I mean this excludes all the Leninist parties, for example. All they ever tell working people these days is follow me and I&#39;ll set you free.

They invite working people to choose them for their new bosses because they&#39;ll be "better" than the bosses that exist now.

Not exactly a "sexy" appeal. :lol:

The groups that have advocated working class revolution in a clear and unmistakable way are few in number, very small, and probably have not reached any significant numbers of workers even with a single leaflet or poster.

Secondly, a historical materialist approach to revolution yields the inescapable conclusion that workers make revolution only when they perceive it is in their material interests to do so.

Insofar as capitalism still "works" for most working people, revolution is not "on the table" in our era.

This clearly enhances the "appeal" of reformism to the well-meaning. It&#39;s something "we can do right now".

And we "all know" that the "struggle" for reforms "leads to" revolutionary class consciousness.

Well no, I don&#39;t "know that" at all.

In fact, history suggests rather the opposite. The "struggle" for reforms leads to the corruption of the reformers and the demoralization of the working class as a whole.

This is especially the case over the last few decades or so. In my opinion, the "age of reform" is over. In fact, the existing reforms will be severely weakened or entirely dismantled over the next half-century...at least everything points in that direction.

If we look at "reform struggles" in the "western" world, we can&#39;t help but notice their defensive character.

A sense of "impending defeat" is not going to do much for revolutionary class consciousness, in my opinion.


While sectarians declare the struggles of the working class to be unworthy of their attention, the working class is on the move across the world, with a revolution in Venezuela where workers have created a South American federation of "reclaimed factories" and have put workers&#39; control firmly on the agenda yet again.

"Workers&#39; control" in capitalist Venezuela?

Since "Marxist" reformists are no longer capable of achieving any real victories, they must perforce cloak whatever they do manage to accomplish in the costumes of "victory".

Thus the Venezuelan "New Deal" is "dialectically transformed" into "a revolution". :lol:

Without all that tedious stuff involving proletarian insurrection, smashing the old bourgeois state, building up organs of proletarian power, etc.

Just locate a "Napoleonic" ex-general and put him in charge...and things will work out "just fine".

Break out the champaign&#33; :lol:


What have the sectarians achieved?

Nothing of any significance. We&#39;re still trying to figure out what is worth "achieving" under the despotism of capital.

And our numbers are still so small that practical activity is perforce quite marginal at this point.

Making us an "easy target" for our critics. :(

On the other hand, we haven&#39;t lied to anyone.

We have never told people that they could "achieve" things that cannot be achieved under late capitalism. We&#39;ve never promised them a "benevolent" despotism. We&#39;ve never suggested that parliamentary cretinism is the "road to liberation"...or that superstition can be "progressive".

In short, we have not added to the sum total of bullshit that pollutes the planet.

In fact, we&#39;ve even done a tiny bit to subtract from that total.

And we "ultra-left sectarians" will do more in the coming decades...always with the explicit purpose of encouraging proletarian resistance to the despotism of capital and always with the explicit goal of proletarian revolution.

But you can&#39;t do that&#33;

Yes we can. :)

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[cormacobear]

Red Star almost has me convinced but he&#39;s not yet been willing condemn working with other leftists on issues of shared concern, since that gives us the oppertunity to influence other leftists to be more revolutionary.

[encephalon]

Among others here (including some that call for reformist restriction), I am of the opinion that capitalism has not yet played itself out and that a socialist or anarchist society is not possible with today&#39;s current mode of production. This translates to a benign support of capitalism in the sense that it is a resignation to the forces of history and the necessity of conditions that lead to revolution.

As such, I think gains made by the working class within the bourgeoisie dictatorship are a good thing (that is, when there aren&#39;t strings attached, which is rare). I do support bourgeoisie organizations such as the ACLU that attempt to prevent capitalism from regressing rather than progressing (although some of their assertions are frankly ridiculous). I also support groups that affect the direction of technology and the means of production, such as linux workshops; while these might at first don&#39;t seem at all to be political organizations, we should all know by now that political interests pervade all parties, especially those concerned with production.

Is this reformism? The only way I can see it being construed as such is by a strict adherence to Dialectical procedure, where everything moves forward no matter what happens. I simply find this false; indeed, the conditions for communism must be built by capitalism, but it will not automatically happen on its own (although some will disagree with me).

Granted, I also agree that participation in bourgeoisie electoral systems is fruitless to a large degree; but I think clarification needs to be made between those reformists that assert capitalism can be molded into a worker-friendly world and those who reject capitalism but find it necessary to influence it in degrees that are most agreeable to the establishment of a communist, socialist, anarchist or otherwise left-based society.

If no clarification is made, then any of us who actively support any bourgeoisie organization to date can be considered reformist, and I would suspect that most if not all CC members can be found guilty as such with enough information regarding their personal life.

I short: if "reformist" means those that believe capitalism can be changed without revolution for the ultimate benefit of society, then I agree; but if it means anyone who supports any bourgeoisie organization at any point in time, then I wholly disagree. To support the latter while still under the throes of capitalism would be suicide.

[redstar2000]

Originally posted by cormacobear+--> (cormacobear)Red Star almost has me convinced but he&#39;s not yet been willing condemn working with other leftists on issues of shared concern, since that gives us the opportunity to influence other leftists to be more revolutionary.[/b]

I think you mistake my meaning...or I yours.

A few weeks ago, someone posted a message about taking part in the RCP&#39;s "World Can&#39;t Wait" campaign.

My reply was: if you think it&#39;s useful, go right ahead...but make your own sign.

I am not, in other words, "opposed in principle" to the idea of working with groups that don&#39;t necessarily agree with me.

It depends a lot on what the issue is -- does it point in the direction that I think things ought to go?

And it depends on how free I am to put forward my own "line"? Can I say what I really think?

And this is my advice to all of you. By all means work with different groups if you think the issue in and of itself will radicalize people -- move them towards a revolutionary perspective -- and if you are free to actually articulate a revolutionary perspective.

For example, I think that police brutality and prison conditions are "good issues" for the "ultra-left" to work on. True, they are "reformist" in the sense that little real improvement can be reasonably expected.

But they expose people to the harsh realities of capitalist despotism.

And I think that has the potential to profoundly radicalize people. It may not necessarily "make" people into revolutionaries...but it will hopefully nurture a bitter contempt for the prevailing social order -- one that will be passed on to children and grandchildren.


encephalon
I do support bourgeois organizations such as the ACLU that attempt to prevent capitalism from regressing rather than progressing (although some of their assertions are frankly ridiculous).

I don&#39;t think that&#39;s necessarily harmful...as long as you don&#39;t spread the illusion (or fall victim to it yourself) that the ACLU can "stop fascism" in the "courts".

The truth is, they&#39;re actually "not very good" at what they purport to "do"...I&#39;ve actually seen some ACLU legal briefs and they are "wimpy" if not downright "lame".

You might want to have a look at these folks...

Center for Constitutional Rights (http://www.ccr-ny.org/v2/home.asp)

They seem to be considerably more aggressive than the ACLU.


I also support groups that affect the direction of technology and the means of production, such as linux workshops; while these might at first don&#39;t seem at all to be political organizations, we should all know by now that political interests pervade all parties, especially those concerned with production.

This kind of work could actually turn out to be revolutionary without a single "revolutionary word" ever being spoken.

If the people working on linux ever developed a genuinely "user friendly" version of their operating system, it could have a very dramatic effect on the global capitalist system.

It would be an actual living example that we could all point to and say: see...communism works better&#33;


I think clarification needs to be made between those reformists that assert capitalism can be molded into a worker-friendly world and those who reject capitalism but find it necessary to influence it in degrees that are most agreeable to the establishment of a communist, socialist, anarchist or otherwise left-based society.

The problem here is always (or nearly always) trying to see "inside someone&#39;s head".

There are still all too many people around who "know all the revolutionary buzz words" and can easily summon them up on appropriate (ceremonial) occasions.

Indeed, the Leninist parties in the last century developed a massive vocabulary to cloak reformism in "revolutionary" costumes.

One way to "solve" this dilemma is to pay careful attention to what these people say to the general public (instead of just what they say when they&#39;re arguing with other lefties).

Sure, they can tell us that they "support revolution" in the "long run". But if you look at what they&#39;re telling ordinary working people, you&#39;ll discover their real "outlook" on things.

Reformism&#33; :angry:

What they really want is not revolution; they want to be popular. And they ain&#39;t real "picky" about what they&#39;re willing to say to "be more popular" either.

Consider the various proponents of "market socialism", for example. The "utility" of the "free market" is presently fashionable in the bourgeois media and among bourgeois academics...so these "socialists" just jump right on the bandwagon.

If pressed by their "ultra-left" critics, they can always quote Lenin on the "New Economic Policy". :lol:

And so it goes and may well continue to go for quite a while. We who want to develop a real revolutionary perspective in this century "have our work cut out for us."

Nobody said this stuff would be "easy". :(

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[Luís Henrique]

Did all the slaves who "ran away" do so only after first humbly petitioning their masters for a modest increase in their food rations?

See, I have no qualms about rhetorics. Rhetorics are great if we wish to make a point.

So, the rhetorical expression "wage slavery" is very useful: it may open people&#39;s eyes to the fact that the conditions in our modern, civilised, post-historical capitalist world are not those parroted by the capital apologists.

But, rhetorics have no heuristical value. If we start using the analogies between wage slavery and chattel slavery as a tool to further understand either one, we are on the wrong track.

Which is to say, tactics that may work for those who need to fight chattel slavery might not be useful for those who have to fight wage slavery. And vice-versa.

There is a fundamental difference between chattel slavery and wage slavery. The latter is based upon the assumption that exploitation is a free contract between capitalist and worker. As such, it must recognise a juridical personality to the worker. Which means agreements between workers and capitalists are within the frame of the legal system. Pacta sunt servanda. Of course, the employers will always forget this, and betray their deals with workers. But they can only do this at the expense of their own credibility; nay, more, they can only do this at the expense of the credibility of the capitalist system. Each time they do it, they tear the Maia veil of bourgeois ideology.

Slavery sans phrase has other problems, but not this one. Slaves are not juridically
persons. A pact between slave and slaveowner is void; the slaveowners can break it at will without harming their ideology; on the contrary, they reinforce their ideology by breaking it.

So these are inherently different situations, that cannot be equated just because we use, for rhetorical purposes, the same word to describe both.


As you wish. If you think that we are "hopelessly ignorant" or perhaps that the truth is "unknowable", then I find it difficult to understand how you manage to find your way to work every morning...much less ask for a raise.

There is a huge difference between knowing "true facts" - like my way to work - and knowing "the truth". So to put it clearly, I know my way to work; I don&#39;t know "truth"; I know that knowing my way to work is not the same as "knowing the truth".

Luís Henrique

[redstar2000]

Originally posted by Luís Henrique
So, the rhetorical expression "wage slavery" is very useful: it may open people&#39;s eyes to the fact that the conditions in our modern, civilised, post-historical capitalist world are not those parroted by the capital apologists.

When Marx first used this phrase, was he just "being rhetorical"...in a period during which the infamy of chattel slavery in the western hemisphere was widely publicized.

Or did he really mean it?...that wage slavery was the "modern form" of slave (class) society?

What the two concepts have in common is obvious. Both the chattel slave and the wage slave must labor to enrich their master. They have no choice.

I think this is what Marx was "getting at" when he coined the phrase. A free person may labor or not as s/he wishes, may choose what s/he labors at, and may labor either for her/his benefit or that of another as s/he wishes.

A slave (chattel or wage) must labor whenever commanded, at whatever task set by the master, and solely for the benefit of the master.

In both cases, their entire lives are "at the mercy" of their master.

This is the reality that lies beneath all the banalities about "free labor" under capitalism...which Marx clearly wanted to draw attention to.


Which is to say, tactics that may work for those who need to fight chattel slavery might not be useful for those who have to fight wage slavery.

It seems to me that the main difference between chattel slavery and wage slavery is subjective...wage-slavery doesn&#39;t "feel like slavery" to the wage-slave. They "think they are free"...even though they are not.

They imagine that they are "legal persons" with "legal rights"...that they "cannot" be treated as mere property.

The truth, in my opinion, is otherwise. One could find plenty of historical evidence of the treatment of wage-slaves that hardly differs in any significant way from the treatment of chattel slaves.

From a revolutionary standpoint, I think it is necessary to overcome the "illusion of freedom" that most wage-slaves cling to. I think that it&#39;s when we realize our objective situation that we learn "in our guts" to hate the master class&#33;

Granted, that&#39;s not an "easy" message to communicate.

It sounds "unreasonable", "intolerant", "dogmatic"...even "sectarian".

Thus I invoke one of my favorite historical parallels...the very beginnings of American abolitionism in the early 1830s.

Hear the words of William Lloyd Garrison...

I will be as harsh as truth, and uncompromising as justice...I am in earnest, I will not equivocate, I will not excuse, I will not retreat a single inch, and I will be heard.

I feel the same way about wage-slavery that Garrison felt about chattel slavery.

It must be totally abolished, period&#33;

I think that is the core revolutionary message now.

And any reformist here is free to call me any "names" they like.

I will not retreat a single inch&#33; :lol:

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[Luís Henrique]

It seems to me that the main difference between chattel slavery and wage slavery is subjective...wage-slavery doesn&#39;t "feel like slavery" to the wage-slave. They "think they are free"...even though they are not.

They imagine that they are "legal persons" with "legal rights"...that they "cannot" be treated as mere property.


To an extent, this is true. Hell, this is true even of capitalists: they believe they are selling Innocent Toys Ltd. stock and buying Deadly Weapons Inc. because they can, but in fact they are just doing what capital needs them to do, in order to better reproduce.

In a different level, this is not an illusion - or, perhaps, it is an illusion that has too many very material consequences. Whatever our concepts of ultimate freedom are, a slave does not have to choose between buying a Big Mc or a dish of chinese food. Wage-slaves are required to do such all the time. Those "choices" are fake, delusional, meaningless? Well, yes. But, you know, we are what we do. Slaves do not make choices without immediately breaking the rules; wage-slaves do make choices all the time, so they learn how to make choices - and this is what may lead them to choose which choices are meaningful and which aren&#39;t.

If this wasn&#39;t true, slavery and wage-slavery would be interchangeable. Capitalists would be able to revert to slavery at will. They aren&#39;t; there is an unbridgeable chasm between the two forms of exploitation. OK, "unbridgeable" is an overstatement: there is a bridge between them, it is called "bourgeois revolution".


From a revolutionary standpoint, I think it is necessary to overcome the "illusion of freedom" that most wage-slaves cling to. I think that it&#39;s when we realize our objective situation that we learn "in our guts" to hate the master class&#33;

Certainly. Lenin believed that such "illusions" could only be overcome by the existence of a vanguard foreign to our class. The petty bourgeois were to bring to us the pure, abstract knowledge about "our objective situation". This is, in my opinion, absurd.

We, the working class, will overcome such illusions - and will do so by wearing them out. Without the practical experience of such illusions, they cannot be dispelled.

Proof?

When I read you about the difference between chattel slaves and wage-slaves, I almost sence a "the worst the better" underlying argument. The chattel slave, at least, is not deluded. He knows he is a slave&#33;

Unhappily, what is the "freedom" that the chattel slaves seeks? No other than the "illusion of freedom" in which we, wage-slaves, are drowning&#33;

Take us our union rights, and we will fight for union rights. Take us the 8 hour journey, and we will fight for... an eight hour journey. We won&#39;t "conclude" that union rights and 8 hour journeys are "mere reforms". Instead, we will conclude that "freedom" is union rights and 8 hour journeys...

Luís Henrique

[RevolutionarySocialist MadRedDog]

Looking back on the question with which this thread started..I guess redstar 2000 would have a nice time talking to himself, while the rest of us &#39;reformists&#39; on RevLeft were to flood OI *LOL* :D

[Guest1]

To be clear, I support a principled stance against reformism in the CC, as the CC should draw together only the most consistently revolutionary elements of revleft.

Where I disagree is the theoretical mischaracterization of any battle that isn&#39;t revolution in and of itself as reformism. Redstar&#39;s own analogy is best here, the experienced often feel impatience towards the new generation as they watch them learn what they themselves learned long ago, but telling your child to run before crawling will not make it so.

In the same way, redstar&#39;s "spontaneous combustion" theory of revolution has no application in real life.

[Nothing Human Is Alien]

So, are we clear that people who openly support the Democrats in the US for instance shouldn&#39;t be allowed in the CC?

[violencia.Proletariat]

Originally posted by [email protected] 29 2005, 04:04 AM
So, are we clear that people who openly support the Democrats in the US for instance shouldn&#39;t be allowed in the CC?
:o but they help the revolution come faster :lol:

[Nothing Human Is Alien]

No seriously I want to know, because there are people in the CC who openly support and the Democrats and denounce those who don&#39;t.

[The Feral Underclass]

Originally posted by Che y [email protected] 23 2005, 12:12 AM
A Marxist who can&#39;t do anything for people in the here and now, can&#39;t even bring themselves to support workers in their most basic day to day struggle for their needs, is worth nothing at all.
How? By telling them to vote or support the people who put them in that situation in the first place?

Supporting workers in their day-to-day struggles means providing the ideas and the means to create an alternative to capitalism.

Supporting reformist politics may very well be a tactic in your armoury of attempting to build confidence in the workers, but the reality is that it only builds confidence in supporting reformist politics.

The actions that revolutionaries should do and should encourage within communities or the workplace should be revoluitionary, not second best, not "all we can get right now."

Defiance brings about confidence, not stale, boring, same-old-same-old politics that to be quite honest, the majority of people don&#39;t care about.

Propogandising about revolution is not going to feed people, granted, but propogandising about revolution within the context of taking control of their lives is how people get fed.

A community who say "we don&#39;t rely on them anymore" and take action among themselves to improve their conditions or actively fight those institutions which attempt to stop it, are situations which spark confrontation, and it is, after all, confrontation which leads to revolution.

Reformism just leads you to the ballot box.


No one is saying that union work is the revolution. What I&#39;m saying is that people only come to revolutionary conclusions through increasingly intensified and radical conflicts.

No, fighting for better working conditions etc etc is not a radical conflict. It&#39;s a daily conflict which will never be resolved while capitalism exists.

Intensified and radical conflicts are when workers refuse to be workers and confront the institutions which means to force them into the system of production.

Radical conflict is a community refusing to pay there council tax, resisting police, fighting poverty by fighting those people who create it.

Confronting the state through load, angry and determined action and not stopping until they get what they want: An end to wage slavery.

That is radical


But what you&#39;re calling for is a flat out rejection of classwar in favour of nothing but a fight for ideas disconnected from material reality. Ideas need to spread from experience. It is the conflict which will lead to revolution, and to decry the conflict is to destroy any hope of change.

Asking politly for better conditions of exploitation is not classwar. It&#39;s a co-opted means of expression which capitalism most probably accounts for anyway.

This conflict you keep talking about is not a conflict. Conflict is out right confrontation. Working within the legal perametres set out by the state to ask for better exploitation is by no means a conflict.

[The Feral Underclass]

Originally posted by [email protected] 29 2005, 09:04 AM
So, are we clear that people who openly support the Democrats in the US for instance shouldn&#39;t be allowed in the CC?
I for one would support that. Equally, those who support the Labour party outside of any militant tendency.

[Conghaileach]

Apologies to all because I haven&#39;t read through all of the posts in this thread, but I have to admit that the title of this thread has scared me somewhat. The definition of reformist can be up to debate, and considering the term is used mainly in an insulting way here we have to be careful.

If I stick to US references here, would someone who advocates the repeal of anti-union laws in New York be restricted to OI? Would someone who supports the campaign against &#39;creation science&#39;/&#39;intelligent design&#39; in the Kansas education system be restricted?

This could end up being a seriously slippery slope. And if it does start to slide in that direction you may as well rename this place Utopian Left.

[redstar2000]

Defining reformism in the context of a specific issue would be a "thorny problem", Conghaileach.

In the examples you mentioned...

It would be better for revolutionaries to advocate that New York&#39;s anti-union laws be defied rather than "repealed".

It would be better for revolutionaries in Kansas to attack superstition there "head-on" rather than simply advocate a change in school board policy -- by, for example, distributing explicitly pro-evolution and anti-religious literature.

The whole point of the revolutionary perspective is to get people&#39;s discontent outside of the "official channels".

We don&#39;t want people to "use the system" -- we want people to overthrow it.

Reformism is always based on the (usually unstated) premise that we "can use the system" to "improve our lives".

I think that was always a dubious assumption...but in the present era it simply makes no sense at all.

You cannot make an increasingly reactionary system "act progressive".

As to who will someday be banished to OI, well, that&#39;s still a "long way away".

I think it will probably work out to an examination of someone&#39;s views to see if they systematically defend the reformist position on all or nearly all issues that arise.

Any of us could make a mistaken analysis of a particular struggle now and then...and, when criticized for it, return to a more revolutionary perspective.

The serious reformist won&#39;t do that. And that&#39;s how we&#39;ll "figure out where they&#39;re really at".

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[Guest1]

Originally posted by The Anarchist [email protected] 29 2005, 02:37 PM
How? By telling them to vote or support the people who put them in that situation in the first place?
I don&#39;t recall having mentioned voting, but I suppose that&#39;s a better mischaractarization of union organizing than calling it soup kitchen work.


Supporting workers in their day-to-day struggles means providing the ideas and the means to create an alternative to capitalism.
No argument here. The point is that you should be clear about your platform and ideas, but be firm in your support of striking workers. That means you go to the strikes and help organize, help generalize the conflict, help show why striking is necessary not because of this or that boss, but because of the whole damn structure. Help show that striking itself isn&#39;t enough, though it is a small act of resistance.


Supporting reformist politics may very well be a tactic in your armoury of attempting to build confidence in the workers, but the reality is that it only builds confidence in supporting reformist politics.
Supporting striking workers is now reformist politics?

Anyways, events take on a logic of their own once the ball gets rolling.

In quebec we have a very active student movement. Last february-march a general strike went through all the universities and colleges in quebec. That&#39;s hundreds of thousands of students. The demands, at first, were very modest: the return of &#036;103 million that had been cut from bursaries (basically interest free loans) for poor students. That didn&#39;t last long. Soon, several campuses weren&#39;t just on strike, they were occupied. For 5 weeks. The radical wing pushed the movement forward, pushed their platform, not by standing aside and letting the general strike fail, but by being in it and helping organize it. Focus began to shift towards free education, and calls came for a general strike amongst workers. A coalition between the student and workers&#39; unions was forming, and calls came for blowing open the gates to a "social discourse" on the entire society.

Unfortunately, the radicals were too disorganized. They got coverage and received support, but they were all over the place and couldn&#39;t focus. Opportunity passed and the reformist wing took firm control and sold the movement out.

Had the radicals been clear of what they wanted to achieve, and how to achieve it, there is a very real possibility it would have been a repeat of may 68 (even the reformists were referencing 68 to give you an idea how serious a situation it was). It may have started small, but it became very big.

Just as 68 did.


The actions that revolutionaries should do and should encourage within communities or the workplace should be revoluitionary, not second best, not "all we can get right now."
Nobody said we should encourage "all we can get right now". But if your factory is treating its female workers like shit, do you quote Marx or Bakunin? Or do you rally the workers in your union and strike? Maybe even occupy the factory?


Defiance brings about confidence, not stale, boring, same-old-same-old politics that to be quite honest, the majority of people don&#39;t care about.
Yes, we are thrill-seekers who are young and have faced down many-a-riot-squad. To us, striking is same-old. To a single immigrant mother working a shitty-ass assembly line job, striking is a huge risk.

To her, it is a major act of defiance.

Does that mean that&#39;s all that needs to be done? Hell no&#33; But she has to start somewhere.


Propogandising about revolution is not going to feed people, granted, but propogandising about revolution within the context of taking control of their lives is how people get fed.
And that&#39;s exactly what I&#39;m advocating, talk revolution, but act class war. Revolution is only one part of the war. Most people aren&#39;t experiencing an open revolution in their community. Most people are feeling the slow grind of the boot of the ruling class on a daily basis, and see no organizations that can take them out from underneath.

So organize.


A community who say "we don&#39;t rely on them anymore" and take action among themselves to improve their conditions or actively fight those institutions which attempt to stop it, are situations which spark confrontation, and it is, after all, confrontation which leads to revolution.
Great, if a community can act together like that and magically come to those conclusions all of a sudden without strikes.

Back on earth, no community acts together except when unified by a period of intensified struggles. You want your community to work together like that? Build flying picket squads, show workers from different unions/factories why they are better off helping each other. Build coalitions of workers and students. And explain why those things are important, in the context of ending capitalism.


No, fighting for better working conditions etc etc is not a radical conflict. It&#39;s a daily conflict which will never be resolved while capitalism exists.
No, but small conflicts can be intensified into radical ones. That&#39;s what we&#39;re here for, isn&#39;t it? To spread our ideas on why those tiny things interconnect under capitalism?


Intensified and radical conflicts are when workers refuse to be workers and confront the institutions which means to force them into the system of production.
When you strike, you refuse to work.

It is revolution in embryo. It is the assertion of our role as the sole producers, as the ones upon whose contribution this entire structure rests.

Seeing it all stop teaches us how important our role is.

A general strike does even better.


Radical conflict is a community refusing to pay there council tax, resisting police, fighting poverty by fighting those people who create it.
What the hell is a council tax? And how is not paying taxes - an individual act - more radical than striking?

As for resisting police, not everyone can do that right now, when the system is nowhere near tipping point and they will be personally held accountable. Me and you can, but most workers can&#39;t afford to take the risk on their own.


Confronting the state through load, angry and determined action and not stopping until they get what they want: An end to wage slavery.

That is radical
If they shout at the general strike, and then shout as they occupy the factories, will you give them your stamp of approval for radical-ness?


Asking politly for better conditions of exploitation is not classwar. It&#39;s a co-opted means of expression which capitalism most probably accounts for anyway.
What&#39;s this "politely" shit about? What the fuck happened to the syndicalists on this board, I&#39;m getting irritated here.

Striking isn&#39;t asking.

Striking is beating into submission.

The key is don&#39;t let the fucking bureaucrats control the union, or the strike ends before that submission.


This conflict you keep talking about is not a conflict. Conflict is out right confrontation. Working within the legal perametres set out by the state to ask for better exploitation is by no means a conflict.
No one said only do legal work.

In most places the picket can&#39;t physically block the door, there can&#39;t be more than 20 people at a time, etc... etc...

Fuck that.

Anyone else here think just because the government tells you that the only legal union work is zero union work, we should abandon it all?

[YKTMX]

Originally posted by [email protected] 29 2005, 08:04 AM
So, are we clear that people who openly support the Democrats in the US for instance shouldn&#39;t be allowed in the CC?
This would be fine under &#39;normal conditions&#39;.

However, an argument could be made that the Left should support any Presidential candidate who runs on a clear &#39;end the occupation&#39; (although obviously a Republican or Democrat would put it diffirently) platform.

[Led Zeppelin]

I support getting rid of reformists.

[Ownthink]

Originally posted by Marxism&#045;[email protected] 31 2005, 08:42 AM
I support getting rid of reformists.
Bingo.

[STI]

Originally posted by YouKnowTheyMurderedX+Dec 31 2005, 03:16 AM--> (YouKnowTheyMurderedX @ Dec 31 2005, 03:16 AM)
[email protected] 29 2005, 08:04 AM
So, are we clear that people who openly support the Democrats in the US for instance shouldn&#39;t be allowed in the CC?
This would be fine under &#39;normal conditions&#39;.

However, an argument could be made that the Left should support any Presidential candidate who runs on a clear &#39;end the occupation&#39; (although obviously a Republican or Democrat would put it diffirently) platform. [/b]
Let&#39;s assume that we took that position for a minute...

Kerry didn&#39;t want to end the occupation. He wanted to put more troops in Iraq and arm them better.

Therefore, Democrat-supporters should be kicked, even by your own standard.

[redstar2000]

Want to see how bad modern reformism can really get?

Left Voices Call for Building a Progressive Majority (http://nyc.indymedia.org/en/2005/12/62537.html)

Interestingly enough, most of the response is actually quite hostile to this proposal and to the people who advocate it. :)

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[Luís Henrique]

Originally posted by [email protected] 30 2005, 11:18 AM
Reformism is always based on the (usually unstated) premise that we "can use the system" to "improve our lives".
Certainly we cannot "use the system to improve our lives".

That would be reformism, but that&#39;s not what you seem to have been struggling against in this thread.

You seem to have been saying, "we cannot use the system&#39;s contradictions to build a movement to destroy it". Which is a very different thing.

I think the word "reformist" covers two different phenomena:

a) people who believe capitalism can be changed into socialism/communism by a series of gradual reforms;

b) people who believe socialism/communism are impossible/undesirable, and that we can improve capitalism through a series of reforms.

As a subset of b), there are people who believe in "reforming" capitalism explicitly to avoid a socialist/communist revolution.

Luís Henrique

[Conghaileach]

Originally posted by [email protected] 1 2006, 09:41 AM
Want to see how bad modern reformism can really get?

Left Voices Call for Building a Progressive Majority (http://nyc.indymedia.org/en/2005/12/62537.html)
I recall reading about Linda Averill, whom I believe was an FSP election candidate in Seattle, and the response she got from some on the left...

Notables such as anarchist editor of Eat the State, Geov Parrish, the Green Party of Seattle, Dorli Rainey with ANSWER, and Tom Warner of the Cuban Friendship Committee backed one of her opponents, Angel Bolanos, a Democrat. (I read about it here (http://rsmforum.proboards23.com/index.cgi?board=international&action=display&thread=1128128043).)

[YKTMX]

Originally posted by STI+Dec 31 2005, 10:37 PM--> (STI @ Dec 31 2005, 10:37 PM)
Originally posted by [email protected] 31 2005, 03:16 AM

[email protected] 29 2005, 08:04 AM
So, are we clear that people who openly support the Democrats in the US for instance shouldn&#39;t be allowed in the CC?
This would be fine under &#39;normal conditions&#39;.

However, an argument could be made that the Left should support any Presidential candidate who runs on a clear &#39;end the occupation&#39; (although obviously a Republican or Democrat would put it diffirently) platform.
Let&#39;s assume that we took that position for a minute...

Kerry didn&#39;t want to end the occupation. He wanted to put more troops in Iraq and arm them better.

Therefore, Democrat-supporters should be kicked, even by your own standard. [/b]
I wasn&#39;t referring to the spineless Kerry campaign.

I was referring to a possible campaign.

[redstar2000]

Originally posted by Conghaileach+Jan 1 2006, 02:22 PM--> (Conghaileach @ Jan 1 2006, 02:22 PM)
[email protected] 1 2006, 09:41 AM
Want to see how bad modern reformism can really get?

Left Voices Call for Building a Progressive Majority (http://nyc.indymedia.org/en/2005/12/62537.html)
I recall reading about Linda Averill, whom I believe was an FSP election candidate in Seattle, and the response she got from some on the left...

Notables such as anarchist editor of Eat the State, Geov Parrish, the Green Party of Seattle, Dorli Rainey with ANSWER, and Tom Warner of the Cuban Friendship Committee backed one of her opponents, Angel Bolanos, a Democrat. (I read about it here (http://rsmforum.proboards23.com/index.cgi?board=international&action=display&thread=1128128043).) [/b]
I read the whole story posted at the Irish Socialist Republican board...and I found it deeply disturbing.

It was nothing short of a celebration of bourgeois electoral politics&#33;

It should have been called Reformism is Alive and Well in Seattle&#33;

The entire premise was that electing a "socialist" to the Seattle City Council would be a "great leap forward" and a whole "cornucopia" of goodies would fall out of the sky into the laps of Seattle&#39;s workers.

What brazen bullshit&#33;&#33;&#33; :angry:

I note, of course, that other prominent Seattle reformists -- including a self-described "anarchist" -- supported some other lying asshole...who probably had his own list of "wonderful promises" that will never be realized.

It&#39;s been a while since I&#39;ve seen such an utterly wretched demonstration of reformism in action.

I can only hope that working people in Seattle have learned their lesson.

Don&#39;t listen to reformist liars&#33; :angry:

http://www.websmileys.com/sm/cool/123.gif

[Severian]

Originally posted by [email protected] 1 2006, 10:55 PM
I read the whole story posted at the Irish Socialist Republican board...and I found it deeply disturbing.
.....
The entire premise was that electing a "socialist" to the Seattle City Council would be a "great leap forward" and a whole "cornucopia" of goodies would fall out of the sky into the laps of Seattle&#39;s workers.
And by "read", you mean...what?

Because what it actually says is:

"Change comes from mass movements," says Averill. "So now that the primary is over and voters are again stuck with no real choices, we need to roll up our sleeves and get to work on ideas that came up during the campaign such as forming a united front to fight poverty, racism, homelessness and social service cuts." She encourages her supporters to stay active, involved and part of the movement "to birth a better world."

At no point does the article suggest that merely electing anyone would result in any "goodies" for workers.

And of course "great leap forward" and "cornucopia" do not appear anywhere in the article. Please stop fabricating quotes, Redstar.

***

As for the substance: by Redstar&#39;s standards, everyone who ever actually led a revolution was a reformist. Simon-pure ultralefts, the kind who reject all participation in elections and even any kind of mass action to demand a reform, never actually took power anywhere and don&#39;t really want to.

Which, in practice, makes them reformists, of course.

***

In contrast, the revolutionary approach to "reforms", as expressed in the first paragraph of Rosa Luxemburg&#39;s classic pamphlet Reform or Revolution (http://www.marxists.org/archive/luxemburg/1900/reform-revolution/intro.htm)

"At first view the title of this work may be found surprising. Can the ocial-Democracy be against reforms? Can we contrapose the social revolution, the transformation of the existing order, our final goal, to social reforms? Certainly not. The daily struggle for reforms, for the amelioration of the condition of the workers within the framework of the existing social order, and for democratic institutions, offers to the ocial-Democracy an indissoluble tie. The struggle for reforms is its means; the social revolution, its aim."

See, Redstar, that&#39;s what quote marks are for.

I really recommend that pamphlet to a lot of people who&#39;ve posted in this thread.

[Severian]

Originally posted by YouKnowTheyMurderedX+Dec 30 2005, 09:16 PM--> (YouKnowTheyMurderedX @ Dec 30 2005, 09:16 PM)
[email protected] 29 2005, 08:04 AM
So, are we clear that people who openly support the Democrats in the US for instance shouldn&#39;t be allowed in the CC?
This would be fine under &#39;normal conditions&#39;.

However, an argument could be made that the Left should support any Presidential candidate who runs on a clear &#39;end the occupation&#39; (although obviously a Republican or Democrat would put it diffirently) platform. [/b]
What argument could that be? I&#39;m guessing it would have to be pretty similar to

- the arguments for supporting Woodrow "He Kept Us Out of War" Wilson? Who, of course, promptly took the U.S. into WWI.

- the arguments for supporting Johnson over the warmonger Goldwater? Johnson, of course, escalated U.S. intervention in Vietnam into a full-scale war.

Campaign promises are not worth the paper they&#39;re printed on.

Progressive social change comes from mass action, not from who happens to be in office at the time.

[redstar2000]

Quoted admiringly by Severian...


"Change comes from mass movements," says Averill. "So now that the primary is over and voters are again stuck with no real choices, we need to roll up our sleeves and get to work on ideas that came up during the campaign such as forming a united front to fight poverty, racism, homelessness and social service cuts." She encourages her supporters to stay active, involved and part of the movement "to birth a better world."

As if this pathetic rhetoric "makes up" for her reformist servility to bourgeois electoral politics...or her naked ambition for a seat on the city council.

Wonder how much it pays? :lol:


Please stop fabricating quotes, Redstar.

I was summarizing all the bullshit promises...not directly quoting this ambitious reformist.

Please stop dodging the issue.


As for the substance: by Redstar&#39;s standards, everyone who ever actually led a revolution was a reformist.

Don&#39;t know who you could be speaking of here...but I guess the words sound better to you if you avoid making them specific.

True, I do have a rather low opinion of "revolutionary leaders" -- their actual performance in office has been sooooo disappointing. :lol:


Simon-pure ultralefts, the kind who reject all participation in elections and even any kind of mass action to demand a reform, never actually took power anywhere and don&#39;t really want to.

I suppose I should be grateful that you at least dimly grasp my point.

Yes, I do not want to "take power" and be a "benevolent despot" -- reformist or Leninist or both.

And though I would not wish to claim "purity", I guess I do look fairly clean compared to yourself. :lol:


Originally posted by Rosa Luxemburg+--> (Rosa Luxemburg)The daily struggle for reforms, for the amelioration of the condition of the workers within the framework of the existing social order, and for democratic institutions, offers to the Social-Democracy an indissoluble tie. The struggle for reforms is its means; the social revolution, its aim.[/b]

She wrote this before 1914, didn&#39;t she? :lol:

In fact, I just looked it up. She wrote it in 1900, didn&#39;t she?

She was wrong...but she had a damn good excuse for being wrong.

That was when it was seriously thought by everyone in the 2nd International that a social democratic majority in a bourgeois parliament could reform its way from capitalism to socialism to communism.

After 106 years of parliamentary cretinism, you want to come here and say "hey, we should keep doing that".

It&#39;s worked so well&#33; :lol:

Of course, you do like to "have it both ways", don&#39;t you?


Severian
Progressive social change comes from mass action, not from who happens to be in office at the time.

Indeed it does. So why do you still defend parliamentary cretinism?

Because Trotsky liked the idea? :lol:

http://www.websmileys.com/sm/cool/123.gif

[Severian]

Originally posted by [email protected] 2 2006, 05:58 AM
I was summarizing all the bullshit promises...not directly quoting this ambitious reformist.
Funny, I thought I saw quote marks. But if the infallible Pope Redstar says he wasn&#39;t quoting, I guess my eyes musta been lying.

[YKTMX]

Originally posted by Severian+Jan 2 2006, 06:57 AM--> (Severian @ Jan 2 2006, 06:57 AM)
Originally posted by [email protected] 30 2005, 09:16 PM

[email protected] 29 2005, 08:04 AM
So, are we clear that people who openly support the Democrats in the US for instance shouldn&#39;t be allowed in the CC?
This would be fine under &#39;normal conditions&#39;.

However, an argument could be made that the Left should support any Presidential candidate who runs on a clear &#39;end the occupation&#39; (although obviously a Republican or Democrat would put it diffirently) platform.
What argument could that be? I&#39;m guessing it would have to be pretty similar to

- the arguments for supporting Woodrow "He Kept Us Out of War" Wilson? Who, of course, promptly took the U.S. into WWI.

- the arguments for supporting Johnson over the warmonger Goldwater? Johnson, of course, escalated U.S. intervention in Vietnam into a full-scale war.

Campaign promises are not worth the paper they&#39;re printed on.

Progressive social change comes from mass action, not from who happens to be in office at the time. [/b]
Or one could point to the Spanish example, where the voters voted in a Socialist and the Spanish were out of Iraq in a month.

But then again, there is Woodrow Wilson.

[Reuben]

Originally posted by Che y Marijuana+Dec 31 2005, 03:05 AM--> (Che y Marijuana @ Dec 31 2005, 03:05 AM)
The Anarchist [email protected] 29 2005, 02:37 PM
How? By telling them to vote or support the people who put them in that situation in the first place?
I don&#39;t recall having mentioned voting, but I suppose that&#39;s a better mischaractarization of union organizing than calling it soup kitchen work.


Supporting workers in their day-to-day struggles means providing the ideas and the means to create an alternative to capitalism.
No argument here. The point is that you should be clear about your platform and ideas, but be firm in your support of striking workers. That means you go to the strikes and help organize, help generalize the conflict, help show why striking is necessary not because of this or that boss, but because of the whole damn structure. Help show that striking itself isn&#39;t enough, though it is a small act of resistance.


Supporting reformist politics may very well be a tactic in your armoury of attempting to build confidence in the workers, but the reality is that it only builds confidence in supporting reformist politics.
Supporting striking workers is now reformist politics?

Anyways, events take on a logic of their own once the ball gets rolling.

In quebec we have a very active student movement. Last february-march a general strike went through all the universities and colleges in quebec. That&#39;s hundreds of thousands of students. The demands, at first, were very modest: the return of &#036;103 million that had been cut from bursaries (basically interest free loans) for poor students. That didn&#39;t last long. Soon, several campuses weren&#39;t just on strike, they were occupied. For 5 weeks. The radical wing pushed the movement forward, pushed their platform, not by standing aside and letting the general strike fail, but by being in it and helping organize it. Focus began to shift towards free education, and calls came for a general strike amongst workers. A coalition between the student and workers&#39; unions was forming, and calls came for blowing open the gates to a "social discourse" on the entire society.

Unfortunately, the radicals were too disorganized. They got coverage and received support, but they were all over the place and couldn&#39;t focus. Opportunity passed and the reformist wing took firm control and sold the movement out.

Had the radicals been clear of what they wanted to achieve, and how to achieve it, there is a very real possibility it would have been a repeat of may 68 (even the reformists were referencing 68 to give you an idea how serious a situation it was). It may have started small, but it became very big.

Just as 68 did.


The actions that revolutionaries should do and should encourage within communities or the workplace should be revoluitionary, not second best, not "all we can get right now."
Nobody said we should encourage "all we can get right now". But if your factory is treating its female workers like shit, do you quote Marx or Bakunin? Or do you rally the workers in your union and strike? Maybe even occupy the factory?


Defiance brings about confidence, not stale, boring, same-old-same-old politics that to be quite honest, the majority of people don&#39;t care about.
Yes, we are thrill-seekers who are young and have faced down many-a-riot-squad. To us, striking is same-old. To a single immigrant mother working a shitty-ass assembly line job, striking is a huge risk.

To her, it is a major act of defiance.

Does that mean that&#39;s all that needs to be done? Hell no&#33; But she has to start somewhere.


Propogandising about revolution is not going to feed people, granted, but propogandising about revolution within the context of taking control of their lives is how people get fed.
And that&#39;s exactly what I&#39;m advocating, talk revolution, but act class war. Revolution is only one part of the war. Most people aren&#39;t experiencing an open revolution in their community. Most people are feeling the slow grind of the boot of the ruling class on a daily basis, and see no organizations that can take them out from underneath.

So organize.


A community who say "we don&#39;t rely on them anymore" and take action among themselves to improve their conditions or actively fight those institutions which attempt to stop it, are situations which spark confrontation, and it is, after all, confrontation which leads to revolution.
Great, if a community can act together like that and magically come to those conclusions all of a sudden without strikes.

Back on earth, no community acts together except when unified by a period of intensified struggles. You want your community to work together like that? Build flying picket squads, show workers from different unions/factories why they are better off helping each other. Build coalitions of workers and students. And explain why those things are important, in the context of ending capitalism.


No, fighting for better working conditions etc etc is not a radical conflict. It&#39;s a daily conflict which will never be resolved while capitalism exists.
No, but small conflicts can be intensified into radical ones. That&#39;s what we&#39;re here for, isn&#39;t it? To spread our ideas on why those tiny things interconnect under capitalism?


Intensified and radical conflicts are when workers refuse to be workers and confront the institutions which means to force them into the system of production.
When you strike, you refuse to work.

It is revolution in embryo. It is the assertion of our role as the sole producers, as the ones upon whose contribution this entire structure rests.

Seeing it all stop teaches us how important our role is.

A general strike does even better.


Radical conflict is a community refusing to pay there council tax, resisting police, fighting poverty by fighting those people who create it.
What the hell is a council tax? And how is not paying taxes - an individual act - more radical than striking?

As for resisting police, not everyone can do that right now, when the system is nowhere near tipping point and they will be personally held accountable. Me and you can, but most workers can&#39;t afford to take the risk on their own.


Confronting the state through load, angry and determined action and not stopping until they get what they want: An end to wage slavery.

That is radical
If they shout at the general strike, and then shout as they occupy the factories, will you give them your stamp of approval for radical-ness?


Asking politly for better conditions of exploitation is not classwar. It&#39;s a co-opted means of expression which capitalism most probably accounts for anyway.
What&#39;s this "politely" shit about? What the fuck happened to the syndicalists on this board, I&#39;m getting irritated here.

Striking isn&#39;t asking.

Striking is beating into submission.

The key is don&#39;t let the fucking bureaucrats control the union, or the strike ends before that submission.


This conflict you keep talking about is not a conflict. Conflict is out right confrontation. Working within the legal perametres set out by the state to ask for better exploitation is by no means a conflict.
No one said only do legal work.

In most places the picket can&#39;t physically block the door, there can&#39;t be more than 20 people at a time, etc... etc...

Fuck that.

Anyone else here think just because the government tells you that the only legal union work is zero union work, we should abandon it all? [/b]
once again che y marajuana gets iot absolutely right. I was going to post on this thread again, but their really is no need.

[Forward Union]

Originally posted by The Anarchist Tension+Dec 29 2005, 06:49 PM--> (The Anarchist Tension @ Dec 29 2005, 06:49 PM)
[email protected] 29 2005, 09:04 AM
So, are we clear that people who openly support the Democrats in the US for instance shouldn&#39;t be allowed in the CC?
I for one would support that. Equally, those who support the Labour party outside of any militant tendency. [/b]
As would I.

[Luís Henrique]

See, redstar, this is how it is so difficult to "tell the truth".

I am absolutely sure that you believe you are saying the truth here. And even more sure that you aren&#39;t.

Let me quote you again:


That was when it was seriously thought by everyone in the 2nd International that a social democratic majority in a bourgeois parliament could reform its way from capitalism to socialism to communism.

This is false. Rosa Luxeburg didn&#39;t think like that, and if you had read her work, instead of just a quote, you would know that. On the contrary, Rosa had been fighting, earnestly and strongly, against such ideas. She very well knew that capitalism couldn&#39;t be reformed into socialism - much less through a majority in a bourgeois parlament. She knew a revolution was necessary. She knew, however, that a revolution can only be made by an overwhelming demonstration of strenght by the proletariat; she knew that such strenght isn&#39;t a god&#39;s gift nor it cames through natural processes, or by the repetition of pious revolutionary "truths"; she knew that such strenght must be built, and it can only be built through struggle, struggle which, by its own nature, does not directly challenge the bourgeois State.


After 106 years of parliamentary cretinism, you want to come here and say "hey, we should keep doing that".

Well, there is a thing that should be said in favour of irresponsible revolutionism: unlike parliamentary cretinism, it never will never achieve 106 years of continual failure. It is of its nature to fail in a much more spectacular and quicker way. Perhaps this makes it easier to forget why it does fail. But it should never be an excuse to misunderstand clear demonstrations of weakness of the working class as its exact opposite. Workers aren&#39;t forteiting unions because they think they aren&#39;t radical enough, they are forfeiting unions because they wrongly believe that they can face capitalism&#39;s exploitative machine individually.

Luís Henrique

[Luís Henrique]

Originally posted by Che y [email protected] 31 2005, 03:05 AM
What&#39;s this "politely" shit about? What the fuck happened to the syndicalists on this board, I&#39;m getting irritated here.
Well, I can&#39;t speak for the others, but I am a unionist and am vehemently disagreeing with redstar&#39;s opinions in this thread. ;)

Luís Henrique

[redstar2000]

Originally posted by Luís Henrique
This is false. Rosa Luxemburg didn&#39;t think like that, and if you had read her work, instead of just a quote, you would know that. On the contrary, Rosa had been fighting, earnestly and strongly, against such ideas. She very well knew that capitalism couldn&#39;t be reformed into socialism - much less through a majority in a bourgeois parliament. She knew a revolution was necessary. She knew, however, that a revolution can only be made by an overwhelming demonstration of strength by the proletariat; she knew that such strength isn&#39;t a god&#39;s gift nor [does] it come through natural processes, nor by the repetition of pious revolutionary "truths"; she knew that such strength must be built, and it can only be built through struggle, struggle which, by its own nature, does not directly challenge the bourgeois State. -- emphasis added.

It seems to me that you are here "reading back" the views of Luxemburg in 1918 into what she thought in 1900.

She was not "always" a revolutionary -- that doesn&#39;t apply to any human. She learned from what happened in 1914...unlike most of her contemporaries.

And more than 90 years later, unlike some of the people on this board...who remain "in love" with parliamentary cretinism.

You are always free to disagree with me (and Marx) in your suggestion that the "natural processes" of capitalism "will not" generate revolutionary consciousness.

And neither I nor Marx ever suggested that revolutionary consciousness "comes from" the "gods" or as a consequence of the repetition of "pious revolutionary truths".

Indeed, had you limited your formula to something like "revolutionary consciousness comes from struggle that is not immediately and necessarily revolutionary in itself" -- well, I could "live with that"...maybe.

But you want more than that, don&#39;t you? You want a formula that says that struggle within the limits imposed by bourgeois legality "can" or even "must" lead to revolutionary consciousness...provided only that some "revolutionaries" are around to "point this out" at the "appropriate time".

This is, of course, exactly what never happens&#33; The trade union "revolutionary" never gets around to that revolution stuff at all&#33;

It&#39;s always "too soon" or "ultra-left" or "divisive" or whatever&#33;

The working class "must learn to crawl" before it can be permitted "to learn to walk".

This is, I guess, regarded as a "law of nature".


Workers aren&#39;t forfeiting unions because they think they aren&#39;t radical enough, they are forfeiting unions because they wrongly believe that they can face capitalism&#39;s exploitative machine individually.

They are giving up on unions because unions have failed them. The popular perception in the U.S., as far as I can tell, is that the union leaders are all in bed with the bosses.

Is that true?

Looks that way to me. :)

It is an error, to be sure, to think they can "do better as individuals on their own".

But what is necessary, in my opinion, is that the class itself must create new forms of struggle in the workplace...and no, I don&#39;t know what those "new forms" might be.

I know they will have one characteristic for sure...they will be outside the channels of bourgeois legality.

They have to be that to do the working class any damn good at all.


I am absolutely sure that you believe you are saying the truth here. And even more sure that you aren&#39;t.

The possibility of error can never be entirely ruled out.

But yes, I do try to tell people the truth as best I am capable of perceiving it.

If this be "irresponsible revolutionism", then that&#39;s a risk I&#39;m willing to take.

http://www.websmileys.com/sm/cool/123.gif

[Severian]

Originally posted by [email protected] 2 2006, 11:15 AM
Or one could point to the Spanish example, where the voters voted in a Socialist and the Spanish were out of Iraq in a month.

But then again, there is Woodrow Wilson.
Some might argue there is a certain difference between the capitalist Democratic Party and some European social-democratic parties. Traditionally, it hasn&#39;t been regarded as a violation of principle to give critical support to social-democratic parties. But then again, that difference - the former working-class base of the social democracy - ain&#39;t what it used to be, so anyway....

Spanish imperialism was never that far in Iraq. That just can&#39;t be compared to the kind of battle it would take to force a U.S. withdrawal.

The "Socialist" electoral victory there wasn&#39;t so much a victory for workers over the Spanish capitalist class, as a shift in policy within the Spanish ruling class. Especially its policy towards the rivalries among imperialist powers. The withdrawal from Iraq was largely just a realignment away from being quite so close to U.S. imperialism.

May I remind you the Zapatero government, at the same time, also launched an escalation of the war against Basque nationalism, and anti-immigrant repression....

[The Feral Underclass]

Originally posted by Che y [email protected] 31 2005, 04:05 AM

Supporting reformist politics may very well be a tactic in your armoury of attempting to build confidence in the workers, but the reality is that it only builds confidence in supporting reformist politics.
Supporting striking workers is now reformist politics?
Not all, it&#39;s the demands in which you support striking workers that will determine whether or not it has anything to do with reformist politics.


Unfortunately, the radicals were too disorganized. They got coverage and received support, but they were all over the place and couldn&#39;t focus. Opportunity passed and the reformist wing took firm control and sold the movement out.

Had the radicals been clear of what they wanted to achieve, and how to achieve it, there is a very real possibility it would have been a repeat of may 68 (even the reformists were referencing 68 to give you an idea how serious a situation it was). It may have started small, but it became very big.

I wasn&#39;t there, so I can only pass judgement on the situation from what you have said in this thread, although I did read some stuff about it at libcom.

The fact is, that these radicals have had centuries of experience to draw from. The fact is that there is absolutely no reason to be "disorganised" and they certainly should have been "clear" about what they wanted.

Surely that&#39;s the point I&#39;m making. Had they been clear and decisive, had they grasped what was necessary, how on earth could a mistake like that have happened, again.

How many goes will it take before "radicals" start "getting it right"?

Maintaining radical rhetoric, propagandising for confrontation and organising small or even large forms of direct action was what was necessary.

Forming affinity groups, discussing tactics with these unions and arguing a line which moved the occupations "into the factories" or "out onto the streets" to end wage slavery would have been a clear message.



The actions that revolutionaries should do and should encourage within communities or the workplace should be revoluitionary, not second best, not "all we can get right now."
Nobody said we should encourage "all we can get right now". But if your factory is treating its female workers like shit, do you quote Marx or Bakunin? Or do you rally the workers in your union and strike? Maybe even occupy the factory?

Yeah, why not? Marx or Bakunin got it right, largely. Why not quote them? Are we afraid that the workers are too dumb, too scared to hear what people like Karl Marx has to say?



Defiance brings about confidence, not stale, boring, same-old-same-old politics that to be quite honest, the majority of people don&#39;t care about.
Yes, we are thrill-seekers who are young and have faced down many-a-riot-squad. To us, striking is same-old. To a single immigrant mother working a shitty-ass assembly line job, striking is a huge risk.

The line is confused here. I&#39;m not at all asserting that striking is stale or same-old; what I&#39;m asserting is that the demands in which workers strike should reflect an overall objective: Not better conditions for exploitation.


Does that mean that&#39;s all that needs to be done? Hell no&#33; But she has to start somewhere.

Fine.

But the place that you have to start is with the truth not with some bog-standard demand for better working conditions.



Propogandising about revolution is not going to feed people, granted, but propagandising about revolution within the context of taking control of their lives is how people get fed.
And that&#39;s exactly what I&#39;m advocating, talk revolution, but act class war. Revolution is only one part of the war. Most people aren&#39;t experiencing an open revolution in their community. Most people are feeling the slow grind of the boot of the ruling class on a daily basis, and see no organizations that can take them out from underneath.

They don&#39;t necessarily need an organisation to start taking control of their lives. They need to understand co-operation, direct action and the effects of capitalism.

Fighting a "class war" is co-opted by capitalism. Fighting for wage increases or better health and safety is no longer a viable means to struggle against exploitation.

We have minimum wages and strict health and safety investigation departments. The state has cottoned on to these problems and is rectifying them without the overt class demands of the workers.

I&#39;ve noticed that the RESPECT demand for higher wages compared to the Socialist Worker Party demand for higher wages five years ago is now £8.50. Increased from £5.20 and £6.50.

Does the demand just keep getting higher as they raise minimum wage? Are we supposed to keep asking for more? How long do we do that for?

The slow grind of the boot will keep slow grinding, no matter how high the minimum wage is. Because we all know that when the wage increases, so does the cost of living.

The demand should not be higher minimum wage, it should be an end to wages. Radical? Yes, of course it&#39;s radical, but we are, after all,supposed to be radicals...?



A community who say "we don&#39;t rely on them anymore" and take action among themselves to improve their conditions or actively fight those institutions which attempt to stop it, are situations which spark confrontation, and it is, after all, confrontation which leads to revolution.
Great, if a community can act together like that and magically come to those conclusions all of a sudden without strikes.

Working within communities on community issues is equally as effective in being able to speak to people and organise actions, and to ultimately create radical situations.


Back on earth, no community acts together except when unified by a period of intensified struggles

And as you&#39;ve already identified there are many struggles in the day-to-day lives of working class and oppressed people. Not just in the work place


Build flying picket squads, show workers from different unions/factories why they are better off helping each other. Build coalitions of workers and students. And explain why those things are important, in the context of ending capitalism.

Most workers live in different communities, so in the context of building community action, organising or propagandising about community co-operation is not going to be very effective in the work place.



No, fighting for better working conditions etc etc is not a radical conflict. It&#39;s a daily conflict which will never be resolved while capitalism exists.
No, but small conflicts can be intensified into radical ones

Very rarely, as you&#39;ve already shown us.

The most radical societal transformations have occurred when the demands for change have been almost absurdly radical, otherwise the reformists always get what they want...Reform.



Intensified and radical conflicts are when workers refuse to be workers and confront the institutions which means to force them into the system of production.
When you strike, you refuse to work.

Refusing to work and refusing to be a worker are two fundamentally different things. Refusing to work usually means that you&#39;ll go back to work when the conditions are improved.

Refusing to be a worker is refusing to generate profit for those people that control the means of production.

Saying "I refuse to work" is the line of the reformist. Saying "I refuse to be a worker" is the line of the radical. Neither of them can ever be reconciled.


Seeing it all stop teaches us how important our role is.

But it rarely does though because most workers end up going back to work.



Radical conflict is a community refusing to pay their council tax, resisting police, fighting poverty by fighting those people who create it.
What the hell is a council tax? And how is not paying taxes - an individual act - more radical than striking?

Just to clarify again. I&#39;m not asserting that striking is not a radical act in and of itself. It&#39;s the demands in which the strike exists which determine whether or not it&#39;s radical.

As for council tax; it&#39;s a local government tax which is determined based on what kind of house you live in. It is a separate tax to Income tax and VAT and which, supposedly, goes to fund local government necessities i.e. Police force and cleaning the streets.

It always seems however that our streets are never that clean.


As for resisting police, not everyone can do that right now, when the system is nowhere near tipping point and they will be personally held accountable. Me and you can, but most workers can&#39;t afford to take the risk on their own.

That&#39;s because they don&#39;t believe the risk is worth it.



Confronting the state through load, angry and determined action and not stopping until they get what they want: An end to wage slavery.

That is radical
If they shout at the general strike, and then shout as they occupy the factories, will you give them your stamp of approval for radical-ness?

Not necessarily. It depends on why they&#39;re striking or why they&#39;re occupying a factory.


What the fuck happened to the syndicalists on this board

I&#39;ve never been a syndicalist.

The workplace is one arena for struggle, but it&#39;s not the only one. In fact, the community incorporates many diverse areas of struggle, which the workplace cannot.


The key is don&#39;t let the fucking bureaucrats control the union, or the strike ends before that submission.

Which is an impossible thing to achieve.

[YKTMX]

Some might argue there is a certain difference between the capitalist Democratic Party and some European social-democratic parties.

Don&#39;t preclude the possibility that a Republican will run on an anti-occupation ticket, on the grounds that it &#39;hasn&#39;t been worth it&#39;.


The "Socialist" electoral victory there wasn&#39;t so much a victory for workers over the Spanish capitalist class, as a shift in policy within the Spanish ruling class.

I don&#39;t think so. Aznar was, as I&#39;m sure you&#39;re aware, looking odds on to win before the Madrid bombings. He was quite committed to continuing Spanish involvement in the slaughter. Instead, he lost and Spanish troops left.

I think it&#39;s quite probable that the gulf in the American ruling class will come to light similarly in 2008.


May I remind you the Zapatero government, at the same time, also launched an escalation of the war against Basque nationalism, and anti-immigrant repression....


You may - though I don&#39;t see what it has to do with the issue.

[Luís Henrique]

It seems to me that you are here "reading back" the views of Luxemburg in 1918 into what she thought in 1900.

Maybe. I haven&#39;t my copy of Reform or Revolution here, so I can&#39;t give you a well researched answer. But I read the book, and it didn&#39;t strike me as reformist in any sense.


She was not "always" a revolutionary -- that doesn&#39;t apply to any human.

Of course. The question, however, is whether she was a revolutionary at 22 years old - not exactly in her craddle.


You are always free to disagree with me (and Marx) in your suggestion that the "natural processes" of capitalism "will not" generate revolutionary consciousness.

And neither I nor Marx ever suggested that revolutionary consciousness "comes from" the "gods" or as a consequence of the repetition of "pious revolutionary truths".

I am discussing with you, not with "you and Marx". And you certainly give me the impression of believing that revolutionary conscience comes as a consequence of the repetition, pious or not, of "revolutionary truths".


But you want more than that, don&#39;t you? You want a formula that says that struggle within the limits imposed by bourgeois legality "can" or even "must" lead to revolutionary consciousness...

I never said "within the limits imposed by bourgeois legality". That&#39;s your interpretation, and it is completely false. I said, and I quote,


struggle which, by its own nature, does not directly challenge the bourgeois State

which is a completely different thing. Merely doing illegal things - which can be useful, necessary, or both, depending on the situation - does not directly challenge the bourgeois State. In fact, doing illegal things can be completely reformist, if its purpose is to demoralise a particular law and by result achieve a "better capitalism".

What I mean is that when workers first unite to fight against their bosses, we do not necessarily understand that we cannot completely defeat them without defeating the bourgeois State. And even if we do understand that, this shouldn&#39;t be a reason to not struggle, or to only struggle if we have the idea (be it true or false) that our struggle will transform itself immediately into a revolution.

If the first struggles of workers directly challenged bourgeois State, we would never win a struggle; we would be always dispersed and defeated, and would have to resort to individual ways to deal with it. In this, your equivocated comparison of wage slavery and chattel slavery might shed some light on the question: what is the primary form of workers&#39; class struggle? Strike. What is the primary form of slaves&#39; class struggle? Flight.


provided only that some "revolutionaries" are around to "point this out" at the "appropriate time".

You are seeing leninists under your bed.

And the leninists you see under your bed seem to do something peculiarly resembling of what you propose yourself: "pointing" things to us stupid workers.

Workers aren&#39;t brainless creatures. We fight, we win, we lose, we sit together and we discuss what went right and wrong in our struggles. We don&#39;t need any apparatchniks to teach us how to do it, or to "point" things to us.

But then, there is this problem - like leninists, you think of workers in the third person.

That&#39;s perhaps the reason these guys don&#39;t quit the space under your bed.

Luís Henrique

[Luís Henrique]

The working class "must learn to crawl" before it can be permitted "to learn to walk".

This is, I guess, regarded as a "law of nature".

I don&#39;t like the analogy.

I like this other best: Muhammad Ali is going to fight George Frazier. What does he do, while the Great Day of The Mother of All Boxing Fights doesn&#39;t came?

He trains. He fights sparrings. He studies Frazier&#39;s style. He punches sandbags. (Does hitting sandbags hurt Frazier? Does Frazier bleed when Ali punches a sandbag? And so, is Ali stupid because he is hitting sandbags? Is he a reformist? Is he a sell-out? A bureaucrat?)

I bet if he just sat there telling himself the truth he would have a whole lot less chances of beating Frazier&#33;


They are giving up on unions because unions have failed them. The popular perception in the U.S., as far as I can tell, is that the union leaders are all in bed with the bosses.

Is that true?

Looks that way to me. :)

They are giving up unions because they think, perhaps rightly, that the union leaders are all in bed with the bosses - and because they think, certainly wrongly, that they cannot do anything to change this.


But what is necessary, in my opinion, is that the class itself must create new forms of struggle in the workplace...and no, I don&#39;t know what those "new forms" might be.

"in the workplace"... how reformist...

Listen, how much time workers took to figure unions out? How much time do you deem we should have figured new forms of struggle? What is wrong with "your and Marx&#39;s" idea that revolutionary conscience naturally streams out of capitalist exploitation?


I know they will have one characteristic for sure...they will be outside the channels of bourgeois legality.

They have to be that to do the working class any damn good at all.

They will - like unions when they were created - ignore the lines that divide legality from illegality.

Luís Henrique

[Luís Henrique]

Originally posted by Luís [email protected] 3 2006, 06:27 PM
I haven&#39;t my copy of Reform or Revolution here,
But I found one on the Internet. So, let&#39;s hear Rosa Luxemburg:


That is why the idea of the conquest of a parliamentary reformist majority is a calculation which, entirely in the spirit of bourgeois liberalism, pre-occupies itself only with one side–the formal side–of democracy, but does not take into account the other side, its real content. All in all, parliamentarism is not a directly socialist element impregnating gradually the whole capitalist society. It is, on the contrary, a specific form of the bourgeois class State, helping to ripen and develop the existing antagonisms of capitalism.

See, I think my appreciation of Rosa&#39;s thought in 1900 is more compatible with her own words.

Luís Henrique

[Severian]

Originally posted by Luís [email protected] 3 2006, 01:58 PM
See, I think my appreciation of Rosa&#39;s thought in 1900 is more compatible with her own words.
Yeah, exactly. Once again, when Redstar reads something he doesn&#39;t actually read it. He doesn&#39;t perceive what it actually says, but what he expects it to say.

He misrepresents what the FSP candidate said, he misrepresents what the article about her candidacy said, and now he even slanders the dead by misrepresenting Rosa Luxemburg as a reformist up until the war.

He even makes up phrases and puts &#39;em between quote marks, the most blatant kind of misrepresentation. And honestly doesn&#39;t realize that this is fabricating quotes.

I&#39;m sure it&#39;s true that he does all this honestly, really believing in the truth of these misrepresentations, but that just means he lies to himself as well as others.

And anything anyone posts here, he "reads" in the same way. It gets frustrating real fast.

[redstar2000]

Originally posted by Luís Henrique
And you certainly give me the impression of believing that revolutionary conscience comes as a consequence of the repetition, pious or not, of "revolutionary truths".

Well, it is my opinion that the repetition of "revolutionary truths" is infinitely preferable to the repetition of reformist lies.


I never said "within the limits imposed by bourgeois legality". That&#39;s your interpretation, and it is completely false.

If I have done you an injustice, then I am certainly willing to apologize.

But what is one to make of...


struggle which, by its own nature, does not directly challenge the bourgeois State

What "special meaning" can your phrase have other than "remaining within the limits imposed by bourgeois legality"?


Merely doing illegal things - which can be useful, necessary, or both, depending on the situation - does not directly challenge the bourgeois State.

I think you know as well as I that we&#39;re not talking about pilfering in the warehouse.

When trade unions were initially organized, they did indeed "challenge the bourgeois State". They were completely illegal and often met with violent state repression. As a consequence, some of them developed an overtly revolutionary perspective.

Do you wish to suggest that such is the case now? Or "will be" in the foreseeable future?

Trade unions are now totally integrated into the structure of bourgeois law...and can no longer seriously fight for the working class.

For the most part, strikes are now "rituals" and "well within the law". Gains are minimal at best...and "give back" contracts are more and more common.

Do you imagine that this "inspires" the growth of revolutionary consciousness?

I think it just spreads demoralization...and indeed, that&#39;s its purpose&#33;

Publications like The Economist complain bitterly about "Bolshie unions" in Europe -- yes, that&#39;s the phrase they use...and they mean by it unions that still try to carry out militant struggles regardless of the law.

But they rarely have anything critical to say about unions in the United States...where they have been properly domesticated.

Is it really so surprising that young workers here mostly see unions as "dues sucking machines"?


You are seeing Leninists under your bed.

They were a "major part" of 20th century trade unionism in many countries...in fact, you could fairly say that they organized the major trade unions in the U.S. and probably elsewhere as well.

And they put forward the same argument that you do.

1. First, workers organize unions and win concessions from the bosses.

2. Then, perceiving their growing strength, the workers go on to become revolutionary.

Of course, it didn&#39;t work out for them. Why should it work out for you?


Workers aren&#39;t brainless creatures. We fight, we win, we lose, we sit together and we discuss what went right and wrong in our struggles.

I&#39;m sure you do.

But discussions take place inside a "framework"...a series of shared assumptions about social reality.

That framework constrains what can be discussed and what options can be considered.

Anything outside that framework "sounds crazy".

In my opinion, revolutionaries must attack that framework across the board.

Why? Because it is, at best, a bourgeois reformist framework that was designed to keep the working class in chains.

No, that&#39;s not how unions began...but it&#39;s what they&#39;ve become&#33;


Ali trains.

Indeed he did. What he trained to do was fight more effectively.

Your implication is that existing unions "train" the working class to "fight the bosses more effectively".

I don&#39;t think the last half century of historical experience justifies your analogy.


I bet if he just sat there telling himself the truth he would have a whole lot less chances of beating Frazier&#33;

No doubt. :lol:

However, the struggle to overthrow capitalism is not simply a matter of superior physical strength...that&#39;s not a good analogy at all.

If people don&#39;t understand "how things really work", then their chances of changing that drop so close to zero as makes no difference.

In particular, if workers don&#39;t grasp that bourgeois "legality" is both a fraud and an obstacle to their justified demands, their chances of getting anywhere are meager indeed.

"Revolutionary truths" are needed&#33;


They are giving up unions because they think, perhaps rightly, that the union leaders are all in bed with the bosses - and because they think, certainly wrongly, that they cannot do anything to change this.

Are union elections these days "more honest" than regular bourgeois "elections"?

Think so?

Really???

I trust you&#39;ll forgive my "cynicism" and "dogmatism" if I suggest that you are probably mistaken. :(

Indeed, even if you "won" a union "election", it&#39;s most likely that between the bureaucrats and the courts, you would never be permitted to "take office".

Unless, of course, you had already "gotten on board" with the professional reformists.

A "fresh face" is always useful to them.


How much time do you deem we should have figured new forms of struggle?

Beats me&#33; "Time frames" are a realm in which historical materialism is still "intuitive" rather than scientific.

It wouldn&#39;t hurt if those few workers who today have (or think they have) a "revolutionary perspective" would "put their thinking caps on" and begin trying to figure out how workers might break out of all the reformist traps that presently bind them.

You don&#39;t expect me to do it for you, do you? :lol:


They will - like unions when they were created - ignore the lines that divide legality from illegality.

You can phrase it like that if it makes you feel better. The reality remains: until workers break out of the "official channels" of "conflict resolution", they&#39;ll stay in the shit.


But then, there is this problem - like Leninists, you think of workers in the third person.

Well, I&#39;m retired...so things look differently to me than they did while I was still working.

But if you wish to invoke grammatical justification for your position, that&#39;s ok with me.

On the other hand, if you want to suggest that "real workers" don&#39;t agree with me at this time, I already know that.

It doesn&#39;t bother me greatly. If Marx was right, then they will agree with me in the future.

Meanwhile, I&#39;ll just keep telling people the truth as best I perceive it. :)

http://www.websmileys.com/sm/cool/123.gif

[Luís Henrique]

OK, I am tired of discussing this in an abstract way.

Let&#39;s suppose we are workers in a factory. Let&#39;s suppose that one of the bosses, say, the man in charge of the Packaging Section, is particularly rude to workers - calls us names, humiliates us publicly, compares our respective abilities and strenght to ridicule those who are weaker, clumsier, or dummier.

Other bosses may be "fine", or more or less abusive. But this particular individual is off the marks.

Do we make a petition that the company fires him? Would you sign such petition? Why?

Luís Henrique

[redstar2000]

Fuck up his car.

Vandalize his house.

Figure out other ways to make his life hell&#33;

DON&#39;T GET CAUGHT&#33;&#33;&#33;

And don&#39;t discuss this kind of thing except with people you consider completely trustworthy.

As to petitions, all that will do is identify the "trouble-makers" who the bosses will be sure to put at the top of their "to-be-fired" list.


One thing we did once (and I think others have done it also) was put out a little mimeographed sheet that covered news in a particular workplace. The big boss was known to refer to his subordinates as "you little clerk". So we called it The Little Clerk and we told some "revolutionary truths".

This so upset the "powers that be" that they actually held a special evening meeting away from the workplace to warn all the employees about "the communist threat". :lol:


One idea that I&#39;ve heard that&#39;s beginning to "take hold" is setting up a website for workers in a particular workplace...where people can talk about "what&#39;s happening" there safely and what might be done about it. A useful place to tell some "revolutionary truths". :)

http://www.websmileys.com/sm/cool/123.gif

[Luís Henrique]

Fuck up his car.
Vandalize his house.
Figure out other ways to make his life hell&#33;

Sure, because that challenges the bourgeois State, is it? <_<


And don&#39;t discuss this kind of thing except with people you consider completely trustworthy.

Well, do you consider the young worker who would be bringing this petition up to your consideration "completely trustworthy"? If not, what do you tell him?

But I think "people you consider completely trustworthy" is a nice new name for a Blanquist vainguard... or what is the difference?


As to petitions, all that will do is identify the "trouble-makers" who the bosses will be sure to put at the top of their "to-be-fired" list.

And? Should we fear that? Why?


One thing we did once (and I think others have done it also) was put out a little mimeographed sheet that covered news in a particular workplace. The big boss was known to refer to his subordinates as "you little clerk". So we called it The Little Clerk and we told some "revolutionary truths".

That sounds really nice. Did such "revolutionary truths" include news about abusive bosses? Did they challenge the bourgeois State?


This so upset the "powers that be" that they actually held a special evening meeting away from the workplace to warn all the employees about "the communist threat". :lol:

Why do you laugh?


One idea that I&#39;ve heard that&#39;s beginning to "take hold" is setting up a website for workers in a particular workplace...where people can talk about "what&#39;s happening" there safely and what might be done about it. A useful place to tell some "revolutionary truths". :)

Yes, this looks a great idea, though very definitely it doesn&#39;t challenge the bourgeois State. If you don&#39;t mind, I am thinking of actually stealing it. ;)

Luís Henrique

[redstar2000]

You are not even trying to be serious now, are you?

Feel free to borrow the idea...it&#39;s not mine anyway.

At least try to tell people the truth.

http://www.websmileys.com/sm/cool/123.gif

[Luís Henrique]

Originally posted by [email protected] 4 2006, 08:44 PM
You are not even trying to be serious now, are you?

Feel free to borrow the idea...it&#39;s not mine anyway.

At least try to tell people the truth.

http://www.websmileys.com/sm/cool/123.gif
Eh? What&#39;s up now? :blink:

Luís Henrique

[Luís Henrique]

Can you at least explain why you think I am not being serious?

Or can someone else tell me what can I have said that prompted such reaction?

:huh:

Luís Henrique

[Dr. Rosenpenis]

I find that political action within bourgeois legality can certainly mobilize workers for revolution, build support for our cause, effectively condemn the status-quo, and threaten the ruling class.

Although I think it&#39;s important that while we go about our legal political action, we refrain from advocating the bourgeois state by participating in their elections, trials, legislations, etc.

As for the petition to fire an ass-hole boss, I would sign it.
It would accomplish a lot more in upholding workers&#39; rights against the bourgeoisie than vandalizing the guy&#39;s shit.

redstar, would you condemn those of us who take part in legal demonstrations against the bourgeois state?

Luís, I have no idea what crawled up his ass. Red tends to at least pull some cookie-cutter reply from his archives when he has nothing else.

[redstar2000]

Originally posted by RedZeppelin+--> (RedZeppelin)I find that political action within bourgeois legality can certainly mobilize workers for revolution, build support for our cause, effectively condemn the status-quo, and threaten the ruling class.[/b]

You must live on a different planet than I do...with a different history.

I see no historical evidence for your assertion whatsoever...on this planet.


As for the petition to fire an ass-hole boss, I would sign it.

And you&#39;d just get fired.

Good luck with finding a new job.


Redstar, would you condemn those of us who take part in legal demonstrations against the bourgeois state?

No...presuming you had no control over who organized the demo or on what basis it was organized, etc.

But I&#39;m not greatly enamored with "demonstrations" as "legally permitted rituals"...you know, those big ceremonies that happen in Washington, D.C. with permits, "celebrity leftists", etc.

I don&#39;t think they impress anyone anymore...though they might be useful for some newbie "losing their political virginity".

If you go to one, make your own sign&#33; Try to re-focus people&#39;s attentions towards a revolutionary perspective...rather than the usual liberal reformist crap that prevails at those events.

Your "job" there is to shake people up...not just make them feel all "warm and fuzzy" about their "moral virtue".


Luís Henrique
Can you at least explain why you think I am not being serious?

Your responses in this post...

http://www.revolutionaryleft.com/index.php...st&p=1291999627 (http://www.revolutionaryleft.com/index.php?showtopic=43998&view=findpost&p=1291999627)

cannot be considered as anything but foolery.

I don&#39;t have time for that&#33; :angry:

If you want to resume the discussion on a serious plane, I&#39;m happy to oblige.

http://www.websmileys.com/sm/cool/123.gif

[The Feral Underclass]

Originally posted by [email protected] 5 2006, 10:35 PM
I find that political action within bourgeois legality can certainly mobilize workers for revolution, build support for our cause, effectively condemn the status-quo, and threaten the ruling class.
So why has so little been achieved?

Redstar is right, there is absolutely nothing to substationate your assertion.


As for the petition to fire an ass-hole boss, I would sign it.
It would accomplish a lot more in upholding workers&#39; rights against the bourgeoisie than vandalizing the guy&#39;s shit.

I would kindly decline, and explain that signing petitions has never achieved anything and it certainly won&#39;t get your boss sacked.

Hopefully they&#39;d ask me: "Then what would you do?"...And thus begins the debate...

[Luís Henrique]

Originally posted by [email protected] 6 2006, 04:40 AM
Your responses in this post...

http://www.revolutionaryleft.com/index.php...st&p=1291999627 (http://www.revolutionaryleft.com/index.php?showtopic=43998&view=findpost&p=1291999627)

cannot be considered as anything but foolery.

I don&#39;t have time for that&#33; :angry:

If you want to resume the discussion on a serious plane, I&#39;m happy to oblige.

http://www.websmileys.com/sm/cool/123.gif
About bosses:

Bosses are a special group of workers whose function is essencially to maintain labour intensity as high as possible. This function is inherently repressive. Also, there is no "scientifical" way to achieve higher labour intensity. So bosses have to act on "instinct", "intuition", "common sense" to perform their duties.

Some bosses do not press the workers enough. Some others press too much. Both groups end up with an underaverage labour intensity. Management keeps track of this, and tries to avoid both those kinds of bosses.

When a boss is an asshole, as in my example, s/he hampers labour intensity, and, consequently, the reproduction of capital. Unless workers respond the harassment by actually increasing labour intensity.

First point: if the boss is abusive, don&#39;t work more to avoid the harassment; it will only make them more abusive (this particular boss and, through competition and emulation, also the others).

Taking out a boss won&#39;t end the capitalist system and won&#39;t challenge the bourgeois State. In the particular case of an abusive boss, it may even be helpful for the capitalists: it restores "normal" labour intensity that had been disrupted by the boss&#39; harassment and workers&#39; resistance against it.

Not resisting a harassing boss, however, will increase the average level of harassment, and will make the point that such increased level of harassment is not incompatible with a "normal", or even increased labour intensity.

So fighting back abusive bosses is a necessity for workers, even if it does not challenge the system, the State, the company, etc.

Luís Henrique

[Luís Henrique]

About violence:

Violence only achieves things if it is meaningful. There is no point vandalising the harassing boss&#39; car if you can&#39;t make into his/her brains that this is what one gets for harassing workers.

And you cannot make a message without signing it.

Luís Henrique

More to come... after lunch.

[Luís Henrique]

On doing things illegal:

The bourgeois State defends itself. Therefore, trying to destroy it is illegal. This causes some comrades to have an idealist take on bourgeois law, and on breaking such law.

There is a hard core of bourgeois legality that one cannot break, or even challenge, without dire consequences. Essentially, this has to do with the legal provisions in defence of private property and the bourgeois State itself. But bourgeois law usually covers much more than that, and disciplines thousands of different aspects of life that are not that important. Therefore, bourgeois law may vary wildly. Abortion may be forbidden or paid for by Social Insurance. Gays may be allowed to marry, or be subjected to anti-sodomy laws. Calling someone a whore in a newspaper may be libel or protected speech. And so on.

Breaking these laws and rules does not challenge the bourgeois State or the capitalist system. It may be fun, relatively safe to do, morally mandatory, etc. But the capitalist system and the bourgeois State won&#39;t tremble at the tought. In fact, in many occasions, they may even profit from it. Immigration laws and its profitable breaking come to mind.

Now, the bourgeois State does not give a rat&#39;s ass about bosses personal property. Unless this kind of arson becomes epidemic - and it can only become epidemic in the wake of some much more acute problem than more-than-usual harassment by bosses - policemen will help them filing a complaint, yawn, and go back to real issues like finding the current serial killer, or eating donuts.

The only productive thing vandalising their things may, per se, achieve is that they may have a mental click and realise that there is a difference between being a capitalist and owning a SUV.

Luís Henrique

[Luís Henrique]

On secrecy:

Class struggle cannot be secret. If we are going to fight capitalists back, we should be prepared to the idea that they will know who we are, and act accordingly. We may be fired, jailed, or even killed. We should not incurr in unnecessary and frivolous risk, but we cannot completely avoid all risk.

Class struggle is an issue for the whole of the class - and the class includes a lot of stupid, selfish, and dubious people. Trying to restrain it to completely trustworthy people is wrong in both its ends: first because it means fighting the enemy with a very small, and therefore weak, group of people; second because the smallest the group, the easier it is to spot it and beat it. Such conspirative approach, btw, has been quite enough disproven, starting with Blanqui&#39;s Society of the Seasons.

Luís Henrique

[Luís Henrique]

On being fired:

I currently am a civil servant, and, as such, I can only be fired through due process. As a consequence, in a quarter century as a worker, I have been fired only twice. But I will bring such anecdotal evidence here anyway.

I was fired, once, for reasons the employers never disclosed. It seems logical to me, however, that it has to do with religious bigotry.

The Tupi-Guarani, which inhabited what now is Brazil before its conquest by the Portuguese, had this disgusting habit of eating people. It is fairly well documented, though, that their anthropophagia wasn&#39;t related to nutritional issues, but to religious aspects of their society. High school History teachers - and that was my job at the time - have to explain this to their students. Once, one of my pupils argued vehemently that anthropophagia cannot be in any sence related to religion. I made the mistake of telling her "the truth": namely, that her own religion involves the weekly practice of sublimated anthropophagia most commonly known as "communion". I believe she fingered me to the management, and that I was sacked as a result.

The second time I was fired, I was teaching at College. I was an Assistant, and, as most assistants, had been invited into my job by the Professor in charge of my discipline. Unhappily, Professor had a political quibbling with the powers that be (one of those internal strifes among the right wingers) and was fired. And so was I, because they would not have there someone who could possibly be linked to the fallen Professor.

That&#39;s to say, if they can fire you, they will. If not for other reasons, they will fire you once your progress inside the company has made your wage that much bigger than the wage of a newbye. You really don&#39;t need to sign a petition to get fired.

But here is an interesting question. Chattel slaves never get fired, do they? To them, breaking their relationship with their oppression is always, and only, an act of liberation. To us, wage slaves, things are different. We fear losing our jobs. Being fired is not felt as becoming free. On the contrary, it is an obvious capitis diminutio&#33; Is this a mere subjective phenomenon? Or does it have to do with the fact that wage slavery is a very different thing from chattel slavery?

In my opinion, it is a very objective thing. It has to do with the monopoly of means of production in the hands of capitalists being infinitely more tight than that on the hands of slaveholders. In fact, chattel slavery requires the existence of an external supply of slaves, outside the boundaries of the slaveholdering society: a free wasteland, which any chattel slave may always dream, and try, to regain, to live there in primitive socialism or petty-bourgeois simple exchange production, in a life standard not inferior to his former own as a slave.

But&#33; If it is "merely" subjective, it is however strong enough that the same person who argues our situation as wage slaves is objectively comparable to that of chattel slaves, that same person, a few posts ahead, counsels us not to sign petitions, lest we be fired&#33; What a contradiction&#33;

Luís Henrique

[Luís Henrique]

On signing petitions:

Petitions are a real backward weapon in class struggle. Only recommended if the level of organisation among workers is very weak, if they have no struggle tradition, or their tradition has been broken by a decisive defeat.

It is suprising to hear an argument that it is too much dangerous, instead of too little daring. I wonder if it has to do with the present state of the left and of class struggle in the United States.

If the climate is so suffocating that you have real reasons to fear retaliation for signing a petition that quite probably isn&#39;t even in direct contradiction with the interests of High Management, then it would be probably necessary avoid signing it in neat rows which would show who signed first. Sign it randomly like it was a Christmas or birthday card, and deliver it anonimously. Threat disclosing the working conditions to the press.

In a more favourable situation, I would argue for a different approach. An operação tartaruga (how do you call these in English? working as slowly and lightly as possible, until the boss has to ask for help from Management?) or a standard-operation (I mean, following the book of procedures as minutiously as possible, double checking each darned piece). This would lower labour intensity to a point in which it would prompt a conflict between the boss and Management.

If the situation is even better, probably an outright strike, demanding the sacking of the boss, would be better.

Luís Henrique

[Dr. Rosenpenis]

Originally posted by redstar2000+Jan 5 2006, 11:40 PM--> (redstar2000 &#064; Jan 5 2006, 11:40 PM)
RedZeppelin
I find that political action within bourgeois legality can certainly mobilize workers for revolution, build support for our cause, effectively condemn the status-quo, and threaten the ruling class.

You must live on a different planet than I do...with a different history.

I see no historical evidence for your assertion whatsoever...on this planet. [/b]
Of course illegal strikes, illegal demonstrations, illegal publications, etc. tend to accomplish a lot more, but I&#39;m sure that legal action can accomplish a lot more than vandalizing. Furthermore, I think that your chances of getting fired are greater if you opt for vandalism rather than petitions. Not that we should sarifice our means in order to keep our jobs. You were the one who made that claim, actually.
Yeah, petitions may not do too much, but they can potentially assert workers&#39; rights and the fact that we are willing and able to do something about harrassment in the workplace.

I definitely wouldn&#39;t choose to make a petition, but them again I didn&#39;t come up with the scenario.

I realize that bourgeois law isn&#39;t made to protect workers&#39; rights. Just the opposite, actually. But often we can use methods that are legal to recruit comrades, voice our hardships and demands, and most importantly organize for revolt.

It may not be directly threatening to the capitalists, but it certainly shows them that we are prepared and willing to take action aainst them.

"Fucking up his car" will only show him that someone doesn&#39;t like him.
The "spectre of communism" will not haunt your boss because you pop his tires.
And in addition, it certainly won&#39;t help in consolidating the masses for revolution.

[redstar2000]

Originally posted by RedZeppelin
I definitely wouldn&#39;t choose to make a petition, but then again I didn&#39;t come up with the scenario.

Me neither. Indeed, I don&#39;t think petitions make any sense to speak of from a revolutionary standpoint at all.

When you get right down to it, it&#39;s just a kind of "organized groveling".

Maybe better than nothing...but by a very small margin.

Note that Luís says he&#39;s a civil servant in Brazil. In this context, a petition for relief from an abusive supervisor might "carry some weight"...particularly if it were written on an attorney&#39;s stationery and sent to the higher boss directly from the attorney&#39;s office.

I doubt if it would have any measurable influence on the politics of the workers themselves...but it might cause some problems for the abusive boss.

In more typical workplaces, I think the people who signed it would end up just getting fired...for no good reason at all.

Another tactic that might work: everyone in the department agrees ahead of time that when the asshole supervisor comes to work and starts abusing someone, then right at that moment everyone in the whole department will stand up and start abusing him back...and not politely&#33; One minute he&#39;s yelling at someone and the very next minute 10 or 20 people are all yelling at him&#33;

He should be freely compared to the most infamous public figures in Brazil&#39;s history.

If he tries to "exert his authority", everyone goes in a group to his boss&#39;s office and demands relief from this shithead.

Given Brazilian culture, the slogan might be He dishonors us&#33;

What does this have to do with revolution? Nothing...that&#39;s why it was brought up.

But whoever the two or three most enthusiastic participants in this exercise might be ...it could be worth a revolutionary&#39;s time to go have a few drinks with them and explore their political outlooks. There&#39;s a chance that they might be open to communist ideas. :)

When we&#39;re "at a loss" for "something revolutionary" to do, then it may be necessary to "poke around" a bit and "see what turns up".

The main point I was concentrating on in this thread is that it&#39;s a gross blunder for revolutionaries to get "all caught up" in reformist campaigns in the specious belief that such things "will lead to revolution".

They won&#39;t&#33;

http://www.websmileys.com/sm/cool/123.gif

[Luís Henrique]

Originally posted by [email protected] 7 2006, 11:27 AM
Given Brazilian culture, the slogan might be He dishonors us&#33;
Really... :rolleyes: :angry: :unsure: :blink: :ph34r: :(

You must know what you are saying when you talk about "foolery".

Luís Henrique

[redstar2000]

Originally posted by Luís Henrique
Bosses are a special group of workers whose function is essentially to maintain labour intensity as high as possible.

This is "technically disputable" but functionally misleading.

Bosses sell their "labor time" in order to survive...but they don&#39;t, as a rule, engage in productive labor, and thus fail to generate surplus value that&#39;s appropriated by capital.

So, in a technical Marxist sense, their "worker-hood" is pretty dubious.

But what&#39;s really crucial is their social function and the consciousness that arises from that.

As the British ditty has it...

The working class
can kiss my ass;
I&#39;ve got the foreman&#39;s
job at last&#33;

Thus to speak of them as "a special group of workers" is just wrong.

It&#39;s like saying cops are "a special group of workers"...it&#39;s a really bad choice of words.


Taking out a boss won&#39;t end the capitalist system and won&#39;t challenge the bourgeois State.

No one ever said it would. But if that&#39;s the limit of your present desires, then you ought to at least do it effectively.


So fighting back abusive bosses is a necessity for workers, even if it does not challenge the system, the State, the company, etc.

Get rid of one abusive boss and chances are another one will show up later on.

Being perceived as "tough" is an asset for those who aspire to move upwards in management.


Violence only achieves things if it is meaningful. There is no point vandalising the harassing boss&#39; car if you can&#39;t make into his/her brains that this is what one gets for harassing workers.

And you cannot make a message without signing it.

Well, consider the satisfaction that the workers who do this will feel at striking back against the enemy.

When we strike a blow against the enemy, that is an "empowering" experience...even if the enemy does not "know" where the blow came from or why.

Do you imagine that they do not "know" that they are assholes?

At least in the eyes of those they shit on.


There is a hard core of bourgeois legality that one cannot break, or even challenge, without dire consequences.

Yes...and yet that is what must be done "on the road to revolution".

And that&#39;s a tough message to get across...people are much more likely to think you&#39;re "crazy" or even "dangerous".

And it&#39;s why great care must be taken even when discussing a revolutionary perspective...you don&#39;t want to identify yourself as someone with this outlook to some dickhead who&#39;s going to run to the boss or to the cops or both&#33;

What&#39;s needed at this point is to "plant the idea" without getting caught&#33; People cannot begin to even think about revolution if no one ever mentions the possibility.

And reformists will not do that...or if they do, will bring it up only to dismiss the idea as "unrealistic", "ultra-left", "sectarian", "dogmatic", blah, blah, blah.


Breaking these laws and rules does not challenge the bourgeois State or the capitalist system.

Most of the time that&#39;s true. But sometimes it isn&#39;t true. A "good revolutionary" looks for ways to "break the law" that do challenge the bourgeois state.

When a bourgeois court orders striking workers to return to work, a revolutionary tells them "don&#39;t go back&#33;" Chances are, in the present situation, that advice will be ignored.

But it "plants the seed".

Suppose we didn&#39;t go back?


Class struggle cannot be secret. If we are going to fight capitalists back, we should be prepared to the idea that they will know who we are, and act accordingly. We may be fired, jailed, or even killed. We should not incur in unnecessary and frivolous risk, but we cannot completely avoid all risk.

Class struggle isn&#39;t secret...in times of great upheavals. In the present period of reaction, it is prudent to avoid being publicly identified as a revolutionary.

We are not "part of society" and we do not have "democratic rights" or "civil liberties".

And we must not have any silly reformist illusions about that.

The time to "go public" is when there are tens of thousands and even hundreds of thousands of angry workers ready to "go public" with us.


Trying to restrain it to completely trustworthy people is wrong in both its ends: first because it means fighting the enemy with a very small, and therefore weak, group of people; second because the smaller the group, the easier it is to spot it and beat it.

Tell it to the Iraqis. Their small autonomous groups carry on the resistance no matter who the imperialists arrest, imprison, torture, or murder.

I think "trustworthiness" is very important in revolutionary struggles.

Of course, that&#39;s unnecessary if you limit yourself to reformist campaigns. Everyone knows that everyone else in those campaigns cannot be trusted.

It&#39;s all just a big con.


That&#39;s to say, if they can fire you, they will.

No question about it. It helps a lot if you have a network of comrades to support you through such "hard times". I&#39;ve actually done that in the past; and I was quite touched by the number of comrades on this board who privately offered to help me after the two hurricanes I went through.

But there&#39;s not much excuse for stupidity. If the job sucks, just quit and move on. You don&#39;t gain anything by a "courageous stand" over trivia...like an unusually abusive boss.


Chattel slaves never get fired, do they?

No, they got sold. Slaves that were thought to be "troublesome" or "unproductive" were sold to roving slave merchants and marched (in chains) to major slave markets.

In the northern-most slave states, this was one of the threats held over the heads of slaves; that if they didn&#39;t work harder, they would be "sold down the river"...the Mississippi River and the large slave markets in New Orleans. It was thought, not without justification, that the further south a slave was sold, the worse s/he would be treated.


Is this a mere subjective phenomenon? Or does it have to do with the fact that wage slavery is a very different thing from chattel slavery?

To lose your job in a capitalist society directly threatens your survival.

I&#39;ve read that in London and Paris during the 19th century, the unemployed died in large numbers during the winter months...from malnutrition and exposure.

I don&#39;t know that "every" worker has this possibility "in the back of his/her mind"...but it is something that still happens even today in the U.S. People who&#39;ve become "unemployable" for any reason are found dead in the alleys of every American city during the winter months.

They are routinely dismissed as "drug addicts" or "winos" or "crazies"...and some of them may well fit into those categories.

But that&#39;s not what kills them. It&#39;s the hunger and the cold.

Perhaps it&#39;s different in Brazil with a warmer climate...?


If the climate is so suffocating that you have real reasons to fear retaliation for signing a petition that quite probably isn&#39;t even in direct contradiction with the interests of High Management, then it would be probably necessary avoid signing it in neat rows which would show who signed first. Sign it randomly like it was a Christmas or birthday card, and deliver it anonymously. Threaten disclosing the working conditions to the press.

Yes, advanced capitalist workplaces are very suffocating...you would probably not believe the things that people can be fired for here...and are.

That phrase I frequently use -- "the despotism of capital" -- is not just something I thought "sounded impressive". I mean it literally&#33;


You must know what you are saying when you talk about "foolery".

Perhaps I was guilty of an unwarranted assumption...always a risk when speaking about another country&#39;s culture.

"Honor" was a historically important concept in Iberian culture...and I assumed that it might still resonate with people in Brazil.

But if it has fallen into abeyance, then I withdraw the suggestion and apologize for making it.

http://www.websmileys.com/sm/cool/123.gif

[Dr. Rosenpenis]

Originally posted by [email protected] 7 2006, 06:27 AM
The main point I was concentrating on in this thread is that it&#39;s a gross blunder for revolutionaries to get "all caught up" in reformist campaigns in the specious belief that such things "will lead to revolution".

They won&#39;t&#33;
that&#39;s vague enough that I guess I can agree with you

I also have no idea what you&#39;re getting at with the comment on Brazilian culture.
Not to challenge you, but what is the extent of your familiarity with Brazilian culture?

I don&#39;t know if you realize this, but both Luis Henrique and myself are Brazilians.
You should probably be careful before making up stuff like that, comrade.
:lol:

edit: I see you&#39;ve already explained yourself.
nevermind

[Luís Henrique]

This is "technically disputable" but functionally misleading.

(...)

Thus to speak of them as "a special group of workers" is just wrong.[/b]
If you read what I write, instead of making assumptions, you will see that I called them "a special group of workers" whose task is "to maintain labour intensity as high as possible", and stated that their "function is inherently repressive".

So don&#39;t try to pass along the idea that I am misleading people about what bosses&#39; functions are.


Get rid of one abusive boss and chances are another one will show up later on.

Being perceived as "tough" is an asset for those who aspire to move upwards in management.
You really didn&#39;t take the trouble to read what I write, do you?

I have explicitly denied the truth of such assumption. Yes, I am possibly wrong. Show us that I am, then.


Well, consider the satisfaction that the workers who do this will feel at striking back against the enemy.
I don&#39;t consider that. It&#39;s just plain bullshit.


Class struggle isn&#39;t secret...in times of great upheavals. In the present period of reaction, it is prudent to avoid being publicly identified as a revolutionary.
Maybe it is prudent. It is also almost impossible - unless you actually act like a non-revolutionary.


Tell it to the Iraqis. Their small autonomous groups carry on the resistance no matter who the imperialists arrest, imprison, torture, or murder.
Yes. The methods that are valid for bourgeois revolution (or, as in the case pointed, for bourgeois counter-revolution) are not valid for proletarian revolutionary struggle, tough.


You don&#39;t gain anything by a "courageous stand" over trivia...like an unusually abusive boss.
Of course you do. It&#39;s "empowering". Especially if you actually manage to get the guy fired or demoted.


No, they got sold.
So they still could delude themselves that things could get worse? No doubt.


To lose your job in a capitalist society directly threatens your survival.
Yes. And to maintain it also directly or indirectly threatens your survival, your health (especially your mental health), your self-steem, etc.


Perhaps it&#39;s different in Brazil with a warmer climate...?
Of course not&#33; While freezing to death might not be that much common here, starving is still a possibility. And there are a whole lot of tropical diseases to haunt the poor.


Yes, advanced capitalist workplaces are very suffocating...you would probably not believe the things that people can be fired for here...and are.
Well, I do live and work in something that can reasonably only be called "advanced capitalism". So I fear I believe, and have actually seen, those unbelievabl things. In fact, I gave you two examples from my personal curriculum. Also unread, I fear? Or not unbelievable enough? There are others - being late for work, having the need to pee while at work, getting pregnant, having details of your private sex life disclosed, talking, humming, singing during work, refusing to obey ridiculous orders, not working "hard enough", being too old for the job, being too young for the job, working "too much", being personally disliked by the boss, being the neighbour of the ex-fiancée of the son-in-law of a guy who was a member of the Communist Party thirty years ago...

Those things change for worse or not-so-bad in the tide of class struggle. The more we take abuse without reacting, the more abuse we will have to suffer.


That phrase I frequently use -- "the despotism of capital" -- is not just something I thought "sounded impressive". I mean it literally&#33;

What makes you think that I believe differently?


Perhaps I was guilty of an unwarranted assumption...always a risk when speaking about another country&#39;s culture.

"Honor" was a historically important concept in Iberian culture...and I assumed that it might still resonate with people in Brazil.

"Honour" was a historically important concept within any feudal society. And this includes England and Germany as well. There is a long time Brazil (and Latin America in general) is a capitalist country, where relations between people are mediated by capital and the fetishism of commodities. So the importance we give to the concept of "honour" is as small as the importance it has in North America, arguably smaller than in Europe, and certainly smaller than in Japan - countries whose feudal past is much more recent than ours.


But if it has fallen into abeyance, then I withdraw the suggestion and apologize for making it.

The "suggestion" was felt as a mockery about the supposed backwardness of Brazilian society - something that smacks of national chauvinism. If it wasn&#39;t the intention, apologies accepted.

Luís Henrique

[Luís Henrique]

Originally posted by [email protected] 6 2006, 09:44 PM
Of course illegal strikes, illegal demonstrations, illegal publications, etc. tend to accomplish a lot more,
Formally, you are right... but materially, it is the other way round: the State tries to forbid whatever it deems could be more effective for our class struggle. And while it is not omnipotent or omniscient, it is quite competent at doing that. So it is not that illegal action achieves more, but that actions that achieve more are made illegal.

Luís Henrique

[Dr. Rosenpenis]

Originally posted by Luís [email protected] 8 2006, 10:53 AM
Formally, you are right... but materially, it is the other way round: the State tries to forbid whatever it deems could be more effective for our class struggle. And while it is not omnipotent or omniscient, it is quite competent at doing that. So it is not that illegal action achieves more, but that actions that achieve more are made illegal.

Luís Henrique
Of course.

[Luís Henrique]

From a pamphlet I was writing some months ago:


Without a theorical knowledge about how the conflicts in the workplaces represent a local refles of the great contradictions of capitalist system, the working class activist will be doomed, either to be driven by the fact, taking the daily events in class struggle as random casualities, incomprehensible under a wider standpoint, or to adopt a professoral posture, "preaching in the desert" over the destiny of mankind and the "storming of power", unable to tie thes ample visions to the realities of those who effectively may bring those transformations into being.

For, if class struggle presents a climbing movement, from the quibbles about how many times workers may go to the bathroom during working hours to open political revolution, it is necessary to say also that class struggle also makes a "descending" movement, in which the wider political experience needs to enlight the apparently minuscule and even petty disputes between workers and capital. To pee during working hours, in a capitalist system, is a political act; if we forget this, we will have more difficulties to fight and win.

Now, this descending movement should concern us a lot, as activists. It is one of those moments during which workers, in their own fight against oppression, risk to reproduce, in their relationships, the hierarchical logic of the system against which the struggle. Workers do always compete with each others, in a capitalist society: for wages, for jobs, for positions in the corporative bureaucracy. As they opt to fight against capital, they also opt to resist against such competition. But it also happens to workers compete with each others inside the movement, striving for affirmation as individuals in the collective struggle. Each worker activist strives for leadership, for respect and the recognition of the others. Such process is not noxious as long it does not put an obstacle to collective growth.

But this remains always a possibility. When leaders adopt an hierarchical posture towards those they lead, beggining to use their greater accumulated knowledge to get rid of comrades, or to subject them to a direction that has pretentions to become indisputable, we are in presence of a degenerative proccess that we need to fight back. And it is often in the moment of the "descending movement" we mentioned above that this proccess occurs: the time when we recognise the activists - and each fighter in working class movement knows a lot of them - that refer to the great happenings of the widest class struggle, not to enlight the dillemas that we face each day, no to help in struggle, but to parade their own knowledge, their own intelligence and capability as a leader, many times stepping over and humilliating less endowed comrades: the ones who use "great class struggle" as a break against daily class struggle, and personify such degeneration.

Wow, it is difficult to translate myself into English...&#33;

Luís Henrique

[Dr. Rosenpenis]

Under what affiliation do you distribute your own pamphlets? PT?

[Luís Henrique]

Originally posted by [email protected] 8 2006, 08:25 PM
Under what affiliation do you distribute your own pamphlets? PT?
Well, this one was not distributed, as I didn&#39;t actually finish it. When - and if - I do, I will try to print it under MRS&#39; chancel.

Luís Henrique

[Dr. Rosenpenis]

MRS?

[redstar2000]

Here&#39;s a hypothesis...

We&#39;re all aware of "the rise of the left" in countries like Venezuela, Bolivia, Brazil, Argentina...a list that seems likely to grow.

Historical materialism suggests that Latin American capitalism is entering an "age of reform" like that of western Europe and North America c.1930-70.

These periods are characterized by the modernization of the bourgeois state apparatus...including the construction of "social safety nets" to replace the old pre-capitalist family ties that capitalism has eroded.

For people living in an "age of reform", reformism makes sense...it actually "delivers the goods". On the other hand, revolution looks "absurd" and, for that matter, "unnecessary".

Even those who "like" the idea of a "revolutionary change for the better" think in terms of a further extension of what&#39;s already happening.

This is a "north-south" divide that I&#39;m not sure that anyone has really noticed...the difference between places were capitalism is capable of reform and places like the U.S. where reform has become impossible.

And one would expect that perfectly sincere lefties from those different places would have differences in perspectives that would reflect the different "stages" of their respective material environments.

Luís and RZ look around at what they observe and conclude that the best thing that revolutionaries can do is be "the left wing" of reformism.

It&#39;s a reasonable conclusion...from where they stand.

If someone like me tells them that even the word "reform" has increasingly reactionary associations in the U.S., that sounds to them like a "wacko" statement. It&#39;s "out of sync" from where they stand.

So I am going to have to "step back" and re-phrase my position.

No reformists in the CC from North America or western Europe&#33; :P

Lefties in Latin America who want to "do electoral politics", "take over trade unions", pass "progressive legislation" -- you know, all that stuff that the old American Communist Party did back in the 30s and 40s -- are just doing what seems to them to make sense in their political-economic environment.

An environment that&#39;s different from ours.

That doesn&#39;t mean that we should be "uncritical" of reformist illusions among Latin Americans. But it&#39;s the reformist illusions of North Americans that demand our most vigorous criticisms.

The same North American who publicly celebrates Venezuelan "socialism" will turn right around and stick his nose up the butt of some bourgeois liberal hack in the U.S. or Canada.

A reactionary choice&#33;

http://www.websmileys.com/sm/cool/123.gif

[Amusing Scrotum]

Originally posted by redstar2000
Historical materialism suggests that Latin American capitalism is entering an "age of reform" like that of western Europe and North America c.1930-70.

The comparison with Western Europe (1930-70) is probably an accurate one, but America? ....bar the New Deal in the thirties, America doesn&#39;t really seem to have had its "age of reform".

No mass Social-Democratic Party (Labour Party etc.), no free healthcare, no nationalisations (well not to the same level as Western Europe), poorer "safety nets", less Union rights, the list could go on.

Has America really had its "age of reform"? ....because of all the advanced Capitalist countries, America (and the American working class) seems to be near the bottom in terms of battles fought and won. At the top would be France and a few of the Scandinavian countries along with South Korea (perhaps).

[redstar2000]

Granted that the American "age of reform" doesn&#39;t look like much compared to Europe...I think we&#39;ve seen all that we&#39;re going to see. The last reform of any significance that I&#39;m aware of here was indexing social security benefits to the cost of living...around 1970 or so.

There was some talk about national health insurance in the first year of the Clinton administration...but it went nowhere.

The new "prescription drug benefit" in the Medicare program is just another rip-off...as is Medicare itself.

In fact, the future of health care here is even worse than people think it is now.

Doctor is in -- for a price (http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2006/01/08/BUG7IGJHEC1.DTL)

Programs like public housing, food stamps, welfare, etc. are (or have been) gutted or are approaching complete abolition.

The modern definition of "reform" in the U.S. is privatization...pay more for worse&#33;

A similar process is underway in all the western European countries...though it remains somewhat better there than here.

In my opinion, the future of "advanced" -- or "senile" -- capitalism clearly rules out social reforms of any significance...or even the continuation of the ones that were established decades ago.

What&#39;s next? The abolition of public schools and the social security program. By 2050, you&#39;ll have to pay to send your kids to school and buy "retirement insurance" and "disability insurance"...or you&#39;ll be shit out of luck&#33;

Life is really going to get hellish in "the greatest country in the world"...and reformism is just going to provoke disgust&#33;

http://www.websmileys.com/sm/cool/123.gif

[Reuben]

Granted that the American "age of reform" doesn&#39;t look like much compared to Europe...I think we&#39;ve seen all that we&#39;re going to see. The last reform of any significance that I&#39;m aware of here was indexing social security benefits to the cost of living...around 1970 or so.

lol your right it doesnt look like much compared to europe - indexing benefit to the cost of living was actually a right wing move by thatcher here in britain since here it had been previously indexed to average real income. Ah well all of this will seem minor once we have achieved liberation&#33;

[Luís Henrique]

Historical materialism suggests that Latin American capitalism is entering an "age of reform" like that of western Europe and North America c.1930-70.

I don&#39;t think so.

Latin American capitalism will never become what Europe/North American capitalism is. Our "age of reforms" came in the 30s of the past century, and very clearly came to its end in the 80s.

Latin America capitalism is not belated, it is dwarfed. Capital concentration is as high here as in Europe; industrial capital and banking capital have already been fused in a financial capital. The companies and their plants aren&#39;t smaller than in US. They are owned by foreign capitalists, in association with the local bourgeoisie. And the local bourgeoisie is fine with that; they have absolutely no wish to push any kind of bourgeois national revolution.

Other countries&#39; number may vary, but 85% of the Brazilian population, and 80% of Brazilian GNP are urban. And with the exception of a few personal services (restaurants, bars, barber shops), the production is overwhelmingly capitalist, based in outright wage-slavery. Independent peasantry is dwindling quickly; urban petty bourgeoisie as well; and landlords are either renting their lands to capitalist tenants or becoming themselves increasingly bourgeois.

Venezuela - and this might be the case for Bolivia, too - seems to be a country suffering from "Dutch disease" - deindustrialisation caused by the enormous prevalence of just one primary product (oil). As such, its local bourgeoisie seems to have became too weak to effectively function as a ruling class; if this is going to end in a socialist/semi-socialist revolution or in a Khadafy-like autocracy, I don&#39;t know. There are signs pointing both those ways, and I absolutely hate to be an optimist. After all, pessimists are the one who have agreeable surprises...

Luís Henrique

[Severian]

Originally posted by [email protected] 8 2006, 10:39 PM
Here&#39;s a hypothesis...

We&#39;re all aware of "the rise of the left" in countries like Venezuela, Bolivia, Brazil, Argentina...a list that seems likely to grow.

Historical materialism suggests that Latin American capitalism is entering an "age of reform" like that of western Europe and North America c.1930-70.
No, it doesn&#39;t. Your method is not historial materialism; it is dogmatic assumption. Specifically, you assume that Latin America and other parts of the world will retrace the same path followed by the advanced capitalist countries; your simplistic ideological schema says it must, and no data is allowed to contaminate your hermetically sealed ex-Maoist mind.

But as LH points out, the situation in Latin America today is not the situation of "c.1930-1970" European or North American capitalism.

And the world situation facing Latin American capitalism is not a situation ever faced by European or North American capitalism. Specifically, a world market dominated by a number of far more developed capitalist economies.

See, that&#39;s historical materialism. A society&#39;s development is driven by its material circumstances; socieities facing different circumstances are not going to follow the same path.

The club of advanced capitalist countries was defined roughly around the beginning of the 20th century - when the period of finance capital began, as Lenin explained in his pamphlet on Imperialism.

Despite a certain degree of industrial development in countries like Brazil and south Korea, none of them have joined that club, and it doesn&#39;t seem that any country can. It&#39;ll take more than bourgeois nationalism to achieve real, rounded development for the countries of the Third World; it&#39;ll take breaking capitalism as a world system.

***

What&#39;s more, there is little reform to this period of reform in most of Latin America. Little progressive reform, anyway. "Reform" is also used nowadays to refer to neoliberal market-opening policies.

It&#39;s long been observed that no matter who gets elected, they typically follow the IMF&#39;s economic policies anyway. The current wave of social democratic governments is pretty much following that. Venezuela is an exception; Lula in Brazil is more typical.

It does reflect a rise in the class struggle; under pressure the bourgeoisie is putting its left foot forward. To deflect and contain working-class dissatisfaction. A few crumbs are being thrown; with the exception of Venezuela not much more than that.


This is a "north-south" divide that I&#39;m not sure that anyone has really noticed...the difference between places were capitalism is capable of reform and places like the U.S. where reform has become impossible.
....
No reformists in the CC from North America or western Europe&#33; tongue.gif

Lefties in Latin America who want to "do electoral politics", "take over trade unions", pass "progressive legislation" -- you know, all that stuff that the old American Communist Party did back in the 30s and 40s -- are just doing what seems to them to make sense in their political-economic environment.

See, this is part of why I say ultraleftists like Redstar are really reformists at heart. Whenever it comes down to cases, whenever it&#39;s really possible to win reforms...suddenly reformism makes sense.

Of course, the capitalist class gives ground, makes concessions, precisely when it&#39;s under pressue, precisely when the class struggle is on the rise...and it&#39;s precisely then that it&#39;s most important to act in a revolutionary manner, when you&#39;re closer to an opportunity for revolution.

This is a pattern with Redstar - anyplace anything is actually happening, he looks to the bourgeoisie to still be capable of some progressive change. He&#39;ll act the same way when stuff starts really popping in the advanced capitalist countries, too.

He really doesn&#39;t think the objective conditions are ready for proletarian revolution anywhere in the world.

****

This is really only useful as a general political discussion, not a discussion on CC membership policy. Seeing as how Redstar&#39;s got so much basic confusion on what reformism is.

But IMO open reformists - people like Enigma, who are openly opposed to revolution - are counterproductive in the CC. Enigma&#39;s a good example of why.

[redstar2000]

Originally posted by Luís Henrique+--> (Luís Henrique)Latin American capitalism will never become what Europe/North American capitalism is.[/b]

I see no reason why it shouldn&#39;t.

Indeed, I see no reason why a country like Brazil cannot become an imperialist country...perhaps even within a few decades or so.

Are Brazilian corporations investing in other Latin American countries? Or even outside of Latin America altogether?

Then the process has already begun.


And the local bourgeoisie is fine with that; they have absolutely no wish to push any kind of bourgeois national revolution.

Don&#39;t be so sure of that. Those that directly profit from their associations with foreign capital are, I&#39;m sure, quite happy with the present arrangements.

But don&#39;t imagine for a moment that there are not some Brazilian capitalists who see a "bigger future" than just being a handmaid to Europe or North America.

During the first half of the 19th century, almost all of America&#39;s "high-tech" goodies were imported from England. It was American capitalists who said "hey, we should start making this stuff ourselves."

Why should not the most "entrepreneurial" elements of the Latin American bourgeoisie draw the same conclusions?

They are obvious.


Severian
Specifically, you assume that Latin America and other parts of the world will retrace the same path followed by the advanced capitalist countries; your simplistic ideological schema says it must...

Yep. If Marx was right, that&#39;s how things have to happen.


And the world situation facing Latin American capitalism is not a situation ever faced by European or North American capitalism. Specifically, a world market dominated by a number of far more developed capitalist economies.

On the contrary, every country that started down the capitalist road after England faced that problem.

Japan faced it after the end of World War II. China started facing it around 1980 or so. Some of the larger countries in Latin America face it now.

At best you may argue that the situation is "tougher" for the "late-comers"...they face greater and wealthier competition than the "pioneers".

But capitalism is not something that "stops at the borders". There is no reason that a Brazilian corporation cannot be just as ruthless, just as clever, and just as successful as an American, German, or Chinese capitalist.

Indeed, you seem to imagine that the "third world" is "trapped in a time-warp" and simply "cannot develop" unless a Leninist despotism is imposed.

Leninism-Maoism is one road to modern capitalism. But as we both agreed some time ago, it wasn&#39;t "required" in South Korea or Taiwan or Singapore. Today, some countries like Malaysia and Thailand are beginning to develop significant capitalist economies...without a Leninist in sight.

Leninism seems most suitable for countries which are really "face down in the dirt"...the Philippines, for example.

The "window of opportunity" for Leninism in Latin America seems to be closing...except as a "left wing" of reformism, of course. I don&#39;t imagine that anyone in places like Brazil takes Leninism as a "revolutionary" option at all seriously.

Their time has passed.


A society&#39;s development is driven by its material circumstances; societies facing different circumstances are not going to follow the same path.

A truism. What is in dispute are the similarities and the differences.

You obviously cling with remarkable tenacity to Lenin&#39;s moldy thesis about "imperialism as the highest stage of capitalism"...a proposition that was falsified less than a decade after it was written.

You will recall that Lenin posited that capitalism had reached "the end of the line"...that the world had been "divided up" and there was "no more room" for the expansion of national capitalisms except through inter-imperialist war -- which, he thought, would lead more or less immediately to either proletarian revolutions in Europe or massive anti-colonial uprisings.

Alas, his "dialectics" let him down. His prediction "looked good" as late as 1919 or so...but then started to collapse.

There certainly have been massive anti-colonial uprisings...but they have not, with only a few exceptions, led to a Leninist "socialist" despotism.

And inspite of two bloody inter-imperialist "world wars", the outcome has not been proletarian revolution...anywhere.

It would be extraordinarily foolish to "rule out" yet another "world war" between today&#39;s rival imperialist powers or those that emerge later in this century or the next. But meanwhile, capitalism is not yet "exhausted" or "finished" with developing the whole planet.

Lenin was just wrong...again.


It&#39;ll take more than bourgeois nationalism to achieve real, rounded development for the countries of the Third World; it&#39;ll take breaking capitalism as a world system.

The evidence points clearly to the opposite conclusion.

Indeed, "breaking capitalism as a world system" is essentially a meaningless phrase at this point in history. If the working class can get a viable communist society in western Europe by the end of this century, we&#39;ll be doing really great&#33;


What&#39;s more, there is little reform to this period of reform in most of Latin America.

I said they appeared to be entering an "age of reform". We&#39;ll see what they can accomplish.


See, this is part of why I say ultraleftists like Redstar are really reformists at heart. Whenever it comes down to cases, whenever it&#39;s really possible to win reforms...suddenly reformism makes sense. -- emphasis added.

It doesn&#39;t make sense to me -- it makes sense to the people living in such a period.

So it&#39;s what they will do...no matter how many "ultra-leftists" tell them that they really won&#39;t change things all that much.

The Leninists of all varieties will mostly jump in and tell them that reform is "the road to revolution".

We&#39;ve seen where that leads.


Of course, the capitalist class gives ground, makes concessions, precisely when it&#39;s under pressure, precisely when the class struggle is on the rise...and it&#39;s precisely then that it&#39;s most important to act in a revolutionary manner, when you&#39;re closer to an opportunity for revolution.

And that&#39;s "precisely" what Leninists don&#39;t do. They&#39;re running for office, organizing unions, making "transitional demands", blah, blah, blah.

They&#39;re the most consistently active reformists.

Because, of course, they have to "teach the workers" to "follow them".

Doesn&#39;t work, of course.


He really doesn&#39;t think the objective conditions are ready for proletarian revolution anywhere in the world.

Agreed.

Otherwise it would be happening right before our eyes.

It ain&#39;t.

Only those who are "drunk on dialectics" see proletarian revolution lurking behind every reformist kerfuffle.

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[Severian]

Originally posted by redstar2000+Jan 9 2006, 11:09 PM--> (redstar2000 &#064; Jan 9 2006, 11:09 PM)
Luís Henrique
Latin American capitalism will never become what Europe/North American capitalism is.

I see no reason why it shouldn&#39;t.

Indeed, I see no reason why a country like Brazil cannot become an imperialist country...perhaps even within a few decades or so. [/b]
People have been saying this for some time...and yet the "developing" countries never seem to become "developed."

I&#39;d say this theory has been tested and disproved.



Specifically, you assume that Latin America and other parts of the world will retrace the same path followed by the advanced capitalist countries; your simplistic ideological schema says it must...

Yep. If Marx was right, that&#39;s how things have to happen.

and then later in the same post:



A society&#39;s development is driven by its material circumstances; societies facing different circumstances are not going to follow the same path.
A truism. What is in dispute are the similarities and the differences.

Which one is it, Redstar? Do they have to follow the same path, or is it a "truism" they don&#39;t?

In reality, you got that schema from Stalinism, not Marxism. Stalinism preached that a bourgeois revolution was on the agenda throughout the Third World; to be led by people like Chiang Kai-Shek, Sukarno, and assorted other bourgeois nationalists and reformers. The task of the Communist Parties, according to Moscow and often Beijing, was to aid them...working people could only begin aiming to take power themselves after a prolonged period of capitalist development.

And despite leaving Mao and Stalin themselves behind, their doctrines are still firmly lodged in your head.



And the world situation facing Latin American capitalism is not a situation ever faced by European or North American capitalism. Specifically, a world market dominated by a number of far more developed capitalist economies.

On the contrary, every country that started down the capitalist road after England faced that problem.

Not to nearly the same degree. England is not "a number of far more developed capitalist economies." The U.S. alone is the third most populous country in the world, after China and India. It&#39;s a lot more competition than 19th-century England.


Japan faced it after the end of World War II.

Capitalism emerged early in Japan, with the Meiji Restoration, and Japan was an imperialist country already by the beginning of the 20th century. A world power, even, recognized as one since the 1905 Russo-Japanese War.

To be sure, it went from a smaller imperialist power to the world&#39;s second largest economy after WWII...thanks to politically motivated preferential access to the U.S. market, among other things. The "Asian Tigers" partial economic development was also driven by that situation, which has now ended.


China started facing it around 1980 or so. Some of the larger countries in Latin America face it now.

And none of those countries have become advanced capitalist countries, so you can&#39;t use them to prove your theory.


Indeed, you seem to imagine that the "third world" is "trapped in a time-warp" and simply "cannot develop" unless a Leninist despotism is imposed.

Learn to read. I said, unless capitalism is broken as a world system.


Leninism-Maoism is one road to modern capitalism. But as we both agreed some time ago, it wasn&#39;t "required" in South Korea or Taiwan or Singapore.

When did I agree with you about those countries, or anything else in that paragraph?


You obviously cling with remarkable tenacity to Lenin&#39;s moldy thesis about "imperialism as the highest stage of capitalism"...a proposition that was falsified less than a decade after it was written.

You will recall that Lenin posited that capitalism had reached "the end of the line"...that the world had been "divided up" and there was "no more room" for the expansion of national capitalisms except through inter-imperialist war -- which, he thought, would lead more or less immediately to either proletarian revolutions in Europe or massive anti-colonial uprisings.

Alas, his "dialectics" let him down. His prediction "looked good" as late as 1919 or so...but then started to collapse.

Yeah, right...there certainly weren&#39;t any more inter-imperialist wars, or following revolutionary upsurges, after 1919.

Leaving aside the oversimplifications of what Lenin "posited"....and the made-up quotes. Can somebody go over to Redstar&#39;s place and remove the quote key from his keyboard, please?


There certainly have been massive anti-colonial uprisings...but they have not, with only a few exceptions, led to a Leninist "socialist" despotism.

Victory is not guaranteed by any theory, and certainly not promised in Lenin&#39;s pamphlet, Imperialism.


And inspite of two bloody inter-imperialist "world wars", the outcome has not been proletarian revolution...anywhere.

Says you. Proving your theory by means of your theory.


Indeed, "breaking capitalism as a world system" is essentially a meaningless phrase at this point in history. If the working class can get a viable communist society in western Europe by the end of this century, we&#39;ll be doing really great&#33;

"By the end of this century". But today, and for a long time to come, you&#39;re merely a cheerleader of of capitalist development. No wonder one of your disciples chose the World Bank&#39;s Jeffrey Sachs as his new guru instead. It really wasn&#39;t all that much of a change.



What&#39;s more, there is little reform to this period of reform in most of Latin America.

I said they appeared to be entering an "age of reform". We&#39;ll see what they can accomplish.

Gee, Lula&#39;s been in office for two years, Kirschner for almost that long, etc....yet somehow it&#39;s too early to draw any conclusions? As always, Redstar proclaims the facts to be unknowable. He&#39;s like a broken record.

Heck, Chavez has been in office for six years, and yet Venezuela&#39;s only a partial exception. The economic changes are still fairly limited, the land redistribution - which is a bourgeois-democratic change - just barely begun.

[redstar2000]

Originally posted by Severian
In reality, you got that schema from Stalinism...

Yes, I signed a pact with the devil back in &#39;64 and, as you know, there&#39;s no "escape clause". :lol:

Ok, have it your way.

Your dreary Leninist-Trotskyist bromides are long past their sell-by date.

Are we even? :lol:


And none of those countries have become advanced capitalist countries, so you can&#39;t use them to prove your theory.

They&#39;re obviously in the process of "getting there".


But today, and for a long time to come, you&#39;re merely a cheerleader of capitalist development.

So was Marx&#33;

But it&#39;s not "cheerleading" on his part or mine; it&#39;s empirical observation.

Something that always drives the "dialecticians" right up the wall. :lol:


No wonder one of your disciples chose the World Bank&#39;s Jeffery Sachs as his new guru instead.

Sachs offered him more money. :lol:


Can somebody go over to Redstar&#39;s place and remove the quote key from his keyboard, please?

Right after they delete the WordWhine program from your computer. :)

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[Severian]

Well, that was content-free.

[redstar2000]

I&#39;m just repaying you in the currency of your choice.

Have a nice day. :)

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[Luís Henrique]

Indeed, I see no reason why a country like Brazil cannot become an imperialist country...perhaps even within a few decades or so.

Here are your reasons:

1. The United States;
2. Japan;
3. Germany and France;
4. The United Kingdom and Italy;
5. Perhaps Canada, Sweden, Norway, Australia, New Zealand, Russia, South Korea, and Spain.

The club is complete, even with its own hierarchy of first-and-second class members. They do not want newbies, and will fight those pretentions very firmly.

Yes, they may fail. It would require a gigantic international turmoil, though - of the kind and size that would prompt proletarian revolution worldwide.


Are Brazilian corporations investing in other Latin American countries? Or even outside of Latin America altogether?

Usually, no. They are instead trying to find American, Japanese, or European partners for their operations inside Brazil. Those few who already haven&#39;t, that&#39;s to say.

The main exceptions are Petrobrás - which is a state owned corporation - and a few civil engineering conglomerates - Mendes Júnior, Odebrecht - which maintain a parasitical relationship with the State.


Don&#39;t be so sure of that. Those that directly profit from their associations with foreign capital are, I&#39;m sure, quite happy with the present arrangements.

But don&#39;t imagine for a moment that there are not some Brazilian capitalists who see a "bigger future" than just being a handmaid to Europe or North America.

The problem is, those are the underdogs.

One of them, the owner of automobilistic plant "Gurgel" has recently gone bankrupt, under Fernando Henrique&#39;s government. The reaction of Brazilian government officials was one of relief and joy. Gurgel was boring, troublesome, always demanding things from the State. With him out of market, things went nice again, the profits duely divided among VW-Ford, GM, and Fiat, as it should be.

They don&#39;t remain capitalists for a long time, that&#39;s the point. Unless they accept their subordinate place in imperialist chains.


Why should not the most "entrepreneurial" elements of the Latin American bourgeoisie draw the same conclusions?

They are obvious.

Yes, they are. And such "entrepreneurial" guys know that. They also know how to do cost-benefit analysis. They know the enormous economic cost of trying to face imperialist competition; moreso they do know the enormous political cost of doing that with State help. They are bourgeois, first. Idealist bourgeois only after the material conditions of their rule have been satisfied.


But capitalism is not something that "stops at the borders". There is no reason that a Brazilian corporation cannot be just as ruthless, just as clever, and just as successful as an American, German, or Chinese capitalist.

No, there is no reason that they can&#39;t be just as ruthless and just as clever.

They can be, and I am a witness for that, more ruthless than their American and European counterparts.

But they cannot be as succesful. They playground is already full, and the usual bullies rule. So their option is to gang together with such bullies, and become their lieutenants. Yes, if the big bullies were removed, they would apply for their place. But who would remove the bullies? Not our cowardly bourgeoisie, be sure.


Leninism-Maoism is one road to modern capitalism. But as we both agreed some time ago, it wasn&#39;t "required" in South Korea or Taiwan or Singapore. Today, some countries like Malaysia and Thailand are beginning to develop significant capitalist economies...without a Leninist in sight.

Well, Brazil is a significant capitalist economy, and has been so for the last three decades. But its capitalism is associated, not autonomous (and so are, I believe, Thai and Malay capitalism). The opposition is not between full developed capitalism in the first world and semi-capitalism combined with feudal, petty-bourgeois or despotic remnants in the third world. The opposition is between full developed autonomous, imperialist capitalism in the first world, and full developed associated, dependent capitalism in the third world.

Underdevelopment is not synonim with backward production relationships.


The "window of opportunity" for Leninism in Latin America seems to be closing...except as a "left wing" of reformism, of course. I don&#39;t imagine that anyone in places like Brazil takes Leninism as a "revolutionary" option at all seriously.

In fact, I fear that very few people in Brazil take revolution seriously at all. Would this mean that the "window of opportunity" for revolution in Brazil has passed?


I said they appeared to be entering an "age of reform". We&#39;ll see what they can accomplish.

By means of reformist action, nothing.


And that&#39;s "precisely" what Leninists don&#39;t do. They&#39;re running for office, organizing unions, making "transitional demands", blah, blah, blah.

They&#39;re the most consistently active reformists.

Because, of course, they have to "teach the workers" to "follow them".

Far from me to defend Leninism and Leninists.

The only difference I spot between them and you, though, is that while they advocate what you call "reformist actions" while revolution doesn&#39;t came, you advocate doing nothing, or at least nothing that you can tell the masses about.

Two different flavours of vanguardism, yours being peculiarly blended with a not too much original brand of spontaneism.

To quote you back, it "Doesn&#39;t work, of course."

Luís Henrique

[redstar2000]

Originally posted by Luís Henrique
The club is complete, even with its own hierarchy of first-and-second class members. They do not want newbies, and will fight those pretensions very firmly.

Lenin said the same thing back in 1914. But he was wrong.

With all due respect, I think you are also wrong. No matter what existing imperialist countries do, there will be continuous additions to the "club".

It&#39;s what capitalism does.


It would require a gigantic international turmoil, though - of the kind and size that would prompt proletarian revolution worldwide.

Lenin&#39;s other prediction from Imperialism -- the Highest Stage of Capitalism.

Also wrong.

The concept of "world-wide" proletarian revolution is probably imaginary. It would necessitate a global proletariat "all on the same page". Not technically "impossible" but wildly unlikely.


But they cannot be as successful. The playground is already full, and the usual bullies rule.

This is just a restatement of Lenin&#39;s thesis. You may not "be" a Leninist politically, but it&#39;s evident that you accept some of his crucial ideas.


The opposition is between fully developed autonomous, imperialist capitalism in the first world, and fully developed associated, dependent capitalism in the third world.

I don&#39;t think "associated" or "dependent" capitalism can be described as "fully developed".

It may be technologically "just as modern"...but in the absence of an autonomous native bourgeoisie, the "culture" characteristic of a modern capitalist country is slow to emerge.

And that "delay" applies to the proletariat in such a country as well.

They can conceive of the benefits of kicking the imperialists out. But going past that does not seem to be "on their agenda".

Reforms? Sure. Proletarian revolution? What&#39;s that?


In fact, I fear that very few people in Brazil take [i]revolution seriously at all. Would this mean that the "window of opportunity" for revolution in Brazil has passed?

The opportunity for revolution on the Leninist model has passed.

The opportunity for proletarian revolution on the Marxist model is still a long way in the future...but it will eventually arrive if Marx was right.

The success or failure of currently proposed reforms will have no effect one way or the other, of course.


The only difference I spot between [the Leninists] and you, though, is that while they advocate what you call "reformist actions" while revolution doesn&#39;t came, you advocate doing nothing, or at least nothing that you can tell the masses about.

I don&#39;t advocate "doing nothing"...simply that you don&#39;t do reformism.

Not that you&#39;ll listen...you&#39;ll end up doing some kind of reformism because it will seem to you to "make sense" in your country at this time.

And you&#39;ll comfort yourself with the illusion that your efforts will "lead to revolution"...just as North American lefties did back in the 1930s.

So go do it&#33; Bring some "left pressure" on Lula or run for office or get a job with a trade union bureaucracy or whatever you please.

I&#39;m not stopping you.

I just won&#39;t let you get away with describing any of that stuff as "revolutionary".

Because it ain&#39;t.

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[Led Zeppelin]

Lenin&#39;s other prediction from Imperialism -- the Highest Stage of Capitalism.

Also wrong.

The concept of "world-wide" proletarian revolution is probably imaginary. It would necessitate a global proletariat "all on the same page". Not technically "impossible" but wildly unlikely.


Stop making up nonsense, Lenin never said such a thing, his views were clear:


Originally posted by Lenin
A United States of the World (not of Europe alone) is the state form of the unification and freedom of nations which we associate with socialism—about the total disappearance of the state, including the democratic. As a separate slogan, however, the slogan of a United States of the World would hardly be a correct one, first, because it merges with socialism; second, because it may be wrongly interpreted to mean that the victory of socialism in a single country is impossible, and it may also create misconceptions as to the relations of such a country to the others.

Uneven economic and political development is an absolute law of capitalism. Hence, the victory of socialism is possible first in several or even in one capitalist country alone. After expropriating the capitalists and organising their own socialist production, the victorious proletariat of that country will arise against the rest of the world—the capitalist world—attracting to its cause the oppressed classes of other countries, stirring uprisings in those countries against the capitalists, and in case of need using even armed force against the exploiting classes and their states.

[redstar2000]

Originally posted by Marxism&#045;Leninism+--> (Marxism&#045;Leninism)Stop making up nonsense, Lenin never said such a thing...[/b]

I think, as usual, you misunderstand.

It really was Lenin&#39;s thesis in Imperialism that "because" the imperialist "club" was "full" and the world "already parceled out" that the consequence would be massive inter-imperialist war and that this war would result in wide-spread proletarian revolution and massive anti-colonial uprisings.


Lenin
...because it may be wrongly interpreted to mean that the victory of socialism in a single country is impossible...

A thorn in the side for all our remaining Trotskyists. Here&#39;s Lenin himself saying that the "victory of socialism in a single country" is not "impossible".

Hey, Joe&#33; :lol:

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[Luís Henrique]

Originally posted by [email protected] 9 2006, 04:21 AM
MRS?
Hm, sorry, I forgot to answer this.

MRS = Movimento pela Reafirmação do Socialismo - a tendency inside the PT, of whose board I am a member.

Luís Henrique

[Luís Henrique]

Life is really going to get hellish in "the greatest country in the world"...and reformism is just going to provoke disgust&#33;

So it is your opinion that the further development of capitalism will make it more similar to what it already is in the third world?


I don&#39;t think "associated" or "dependent" capitalism can be described as "fully developed".

It may be technologically "just as modern"...but in the absence of an autonomous native bourgeoisie, the "culture" characteristic of a modern capitalist country is slow to emerge.

The "culture" characteristic of a modern capitalist country is present here, of course. What do you believe is missing?


They can conceive of the benefits of kicking the imperialists out. But going past that does not seem to be "on their agenda".

What makes you think that third world workers believe being exploited by native capitalists is somehow different from being exploited by foreign ones?


Lenin said the same thing back in 1914. But he was wrong.

With all due respect, I think you are also wrong. No matter what existing imperialist countries do, there will be continuous additions to the "club".

It&#39;s what capitalism does.

Which countries joined the "club" after 1914?

Luís Henrique

[redstar2000]

Originally posted by Luís Henrique
So it is your opinion that the further development of capitalism will make it more similar to what it already is in the third world?

No, I think it will be a different kind of "hellishness". There is obviously an emerging proletariat in the "third world"...but it is still burdened with much of the ideological hangover from the pre-capitalist epoch -- superstition, patriarchy, racism, etc.

In the late or "senile" capitalist countries, what will exist is a highly sophisticated proletariat subjected to 19th century living conditions...which will be perceived as an outrage of intolerable proportions.

Leading to proletarian revolution. :)


What do you believe is missing?

Oh, I don&#39;t know. I don&#39;t pretend to know the "cultural details" of Brazilian society...or any other besides the one I actually live in.

You might get one hint by asking yourself the question: what kinds of attitudes do you see expressed on this board that you could not imagine a Brazilian saying?

Could you imagine a Brazilian being in favor of women&#39;s reproductive freedom (legal abortion)? Would a Brazilian ever come out against the biological family? Are there open atheists in Brazilian public life? What position do gay people occupy in Brazil?

Or, to take a different view, in a young capitalist society "civil liberties" tend to be expanded; in a senile capitalist society, they tend to be squeezed. Where is Brazil on this continuum?

It&#39;s my contention that Brazil is emerging into a modern capitalist society that is going to become a "player" in the imperialist "club". If it&#39;s "too soon" for openly imperial ambitions to be publicly expressed, then wait ten or twenty years.

Come to think of it, those attitudes will tell you "when you&#39;ve arrived". When Brazilians start talking about their "destiny" to "lead Latin America", you&#39;ll know that your country has "joined the imperialist club".


What makes you think that third world workers believe being exploited by native capitalists is somehow different from being exploited by foreign ones?

Pretty much everything that&#39;s happened in those countries after World War II.

In fact, prior to the arrival of the imperialists, it&#39;s unlikely that people in those countries even had the concept of "exploitation" in their vocabulary.

It was (and still is) the calculated ruthlessness of the imperialists that caused people in the third world to grasp the idea of exploitation...and naturally they identify that concept with the presence of the imperialists.

The emergence of a native bourgeoisie that&#39;s just as ruthless must come initially as a great shock to them. At first, I imagine they have a hard time believing it.

Then they learn.

But, historically speaking, it&#39;s a slow process.


Which countries joined the "club" after 1914?

Canada, Russia, Australia, Israel, Japan and China. On the waiting list: India, the Union of South Africa, Iran, and...Brazil.

Other countries to "keep an eye on": South Korea, Mexico, Chile, and Egypt.

The American dreams of "global empire" are doomed to fail not least because of the fact that the new members of the club have their own imperial ambitions.

It&#39;s going to be an interesting century. :o

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[Luís Henrique]

In the late or "senile" capitalist countries, what will exist is a highly sophisticated proletariat subjected to 19th century living conditions...which will be perceived as an outrage of intolerable proportions.

Leading to proletarian revolution. :)

My impression is that that will lead to many talks about "rights", "fairness", "justice" and such.

But I may be wrong.


You might get one hint by asking yourself the question: what kinds of attitudes do you see expressed on this board that you could not imagine a Brazilian saying?

Mainly the idea that certain words are inherently offensive, regardless of context.

Also, worrying about Christian fundamentalists political influence.

Having to discuss if "evolution" should be taught altogether with "creationism".

"Multiculturalist" racism suggesting people from different ethnicities should have separate ghettos.


Could you imagine a Brazilian being in favor of women&#39;s reproductive freedom (legal abortion)?

Well, of course. There is a movement in such direction.


Would a Brazilian ever come out against the biological family?

What does this exactly mean? If Brazilians are likely to believe "families" should be abolished? Very few ones, of course. Is there an American social movement to that end? Because what I have the impression is happening is quite the opposite. Not only Americans do still strongly believe in marriage, but they are now extending such horror to those who were exempt from it: gay marriages.


Are there open atheists in Brazilian public life?

Not many. Though I think Brazil&#39;s last president, Fernando Henrique Cardoso, is an atheist - that makes the count Brazil 1 x 0 USA, or am I wrong?

There are some in Congress, many more within state-level parliaments. Usually politicians do not discuss religion, they discuss politics (and bullshit, but I fear this is hardly a Brazilian peculiarity).


What position do gay people occupy in Brazil?

All of them, from under-proletariat to monopolist financial bourgeoisie. Not many in politics, though there certainly are some. Prejudice against them is intense, of course.


Or, to take a different view, in a young capitalist society "civil liberties" tend to be expanded; in a senile capitalist society, they tend to be squeezed. Where is Brazil on this continuum?

They were expanded with the end of monarchy, squeezed by Vargas&#39; semi-fascist dictatorship, again expanded with his overthrown, again restricted by the milicos, again expanded with the toppling of the dictatorship, and have been slowly but systematically restrained for the last years.

Seems to go and come back according to class struggle movements, not to be related with a linear development of capitalism.


It&#39;s my contention that Brazil is emerging into a modern capitalist society that is going to become a "player" in the imperialist "club". If it&#39;s "too soon" for openly imperial ambitions to be publicly expressed, then wait ten or twenty years.

The last time they tried - in the first half of the 70&#39;s - they were rebuffed, and have been keeping their tails firmly between their legs since then.


Come to think of it, those attitudes will tell you "when you&#39;ve arrived". When Brazilians start talking about their "destiny" to "lead Latin America", you&#39;ll know that your country has "joined the imperialist club".

They have been talking about it from at least 1930. In fact, it is a distinct sign of pro-Americanism here; it is clear that our "leading of Latin America" is that of leading them into the American hegemony.


In fact, prior to the arrival of the imperialists, it&#39;s unlikely that people in those countries even had the concept of "exploitation" in their vocabulary.

:rolleyes: Listen, the anarchist uprisings in the 10&#39;s were serious enough that some state capitals fell under local reproductions of the Paris commune.


It was (and still is) the calculated ruthlessness of the imperialists that caused people in the third world to grasp the idea of exploitation...and naturally they identify that concept with the presence of the imperialists.

No less than we identify such presence with the political role played by Brazilian bourgeoisie.


The emergence of a native bourgeoisie that&#39;s just as ruthless must come initially as a great shock to them. At first, I imagine they have a hard time believing it.

:angry: This is ridiculous.

There is no lack of a native bourgeoisie here. They are politically, and, in many cases, economically subjected to imperialism, but their use of the whip against workers and peasants is, if any different, quite harsher than that of foreign
capital.


Canada, Russia, Australia, Israel, Japan and China. On the waiting list: India, the Union of South Africa, Iran, and...Brazil.

It is my impression that Canada, Australia, and Japan, were already members of the "club" when Lenin wrote about it. In fact, I have absolutely no doubt about Japan, though I could be mistaken about Australia and Canada.

Israel is definitely not an imperialist country of itself; it is just an outfit of American (and, to a lesser extent, European) imperialism. China is obviously not imperialist at all.

Russia maybe, but Russia was a great power even when it was pre-capitalist, so I am not sure about how to classify it. Anyway, it passed through a proletarian revolution during the process, so it wouldn&#39;t really invalidate Lenin&#39;s thesis.


Other countries to "keep an eye on": South Korea, Mexico, Chile, and Egypt.

In fact, if there is a country who joined the club, it would be South Korea. The role played by cold war here should be not minimised (it was a popular joke among right-wing Brazilians that we should favour a communist revolution in Argentina, so the Americans would treat us like South Korea).

In any case, it is much more well positioned in the process than Brazil. At least its State fosters national capital, instead of undermining it. There are Hyundais and KIAs in Brazil; there aren&#39;t "Brazilian" cars in Korea... and not even in Brazil.

Luís Henrique

[STI]

It is my impression that Canada, Australia, and Japan, were already members of the "club" when Lenin wrote about it. In fact, I have absolutely no doubt about Japan, though I could be mistaken about Australia and Canada.

Canada certainly wasn&#39;t, and I doubt Australia was. I can only speak with any certainty of Canada, though.

Being a "dominion" at the time, Canada was not in control of its own external affairs - it waged war or peace based on the will of the British Parliament, and was often required to despite public opposition (ie: the Boer War). It wasn&#39;t until the Westminister Act, long after WWI, that Canada gained external sovereignty. It was essentially, in 1914, a British imperialist possession with some degrees of autonomy for the local state.

[Luís Henrique]

Originally posted by [email protected] 15 2006, 01:31 AM
Canada certainly wasn&#39;t, and I doubt Australia was. I can only speak with any certainty of Canada, though.

Being a "dominion" at the time, Canada was not in control of its own external affairs - it waged war or peace based on the will of the British Parliament, and was often required to despite public opposition (ie: the Boer War). It wasn&#39;t until the Westminister Act, long after WWI, that Canada gained external sovereignty. It was essentially, in 1914, a British imperialist possession with some degrees of autonomy for the local state.
But was it exporting capital? Was its ruling class a partner of British imperialism? Or was it an oppressed nation, exploited by its British masters? Or something in between?

Luís Henrique

[redstar2000]

From your last post, I have the distinct impression that on the one hand, you see Brazil as a modern capitalist country in every way; yet on the other hand, you see it as permanently subordinate to the "old imperialists" -- unless there is a proletarian revolution...which you also think is "impossible" in the foreseeable future.

Given those constraints, I can see why reformism makes sense to you.

Can you see why reformism doesn&#39;t make sense in the "old" imperialist countries?

Can you understand that we&#39;ve "been through all that."

Can you grasp that however unlikely it may seem, proletarian revolution is the only path left for us?

If you can&#39;t, then I don&#39;t know what else to tell you.

http://www.websmileys.com/sm/cool/123.gif

[Luís Henrique]

From your last post, I have the distinct impression that on the one hand, you see Brazil as a modern capitalist country in every way;

Well, if it is not, what else can it be?


yet on the other hand, you see it as permanently subordinate to the "old imperialists"

There is nothing "permanent". But there are conditions that must be fulfilled for a change. It is impossible to Brazilian borgeoisie to sever its ties to imperialism - unless imperialism itself undergoes a brutal crisis that makes it "abandon" its local allies.


-- unless there is a proletarian revolution...which you also think is "impossible" in the foreseeable future.

If you call "revolution" a violent upheaval, no, it isn&#39;t going to happen in the foreseeable future. This doesn&#39;t mean that there is nothing that revolutionaries can do for this moment. "Trivial" class struggle is still ongoing; at this moment, the bourgeoisie is in the offensive, taking back from us many of our half-century old conquests. It is necessary to face this offensive, fight it back, retain as many conquests we can, organise, and prepare for the time when such offensive will be exhausted, so that we may make a good counterpunch.


Given those constraints, I can see why reformism makes sense to you.

:angry: Let me state this clearly:


REFORMISM DOES NOT MAKE SENSE TO ME&#33;&#33;

The problem is that what you - and I mean you, redstar, not you, first world proletarians - call "reformism" is not reformism at all.


Can you see why reformism doesn&#39;t make sense in the "old" imperialist countries?

Can you understand that we&#39;ve "been through all that."

Can you grasp that however unlikely it may seem, proletarian revolution is the only path left for us?

Yes, I know reformism doesn&#39;t make sense in first world countries. I understand that proletarian revolution is the only path left for you - no less than for us.

What I do not understand is how you simply call "reformism" any activity that isn&#39;t directly related to the immediate military confrontation against the bourgeois State. That&#39;s false, your concept of "reformism" is wrong, and it leads you to an attitude that isn&#39;t reformist, but comformist.

Luís Henrique

[redstar2000]

Originally posted by Luís Henrique
The problem is that what you - and I mean you, redstar, not you, first world proletarians - call "reformism" is not reformism at all.

I call your attention to this post...

http://www.revolutionaryleft.com/index.php...st&p=1291994113 (http://www.revolutionaryleft.com/index.php?showtopic=43998&view=findpost&p=1291994113)


If I do not struggle for higher wages, my life standards fall, whether I am saying the truth or not.

So, let&#39;s put the vanguardist sectarianism aside. The "truth" is, wages are always "unfair", but &#036;2.00 is more than &#036;1.00, and workers that do not organise for a wage raise will never organise for putting an end to "wage slavery". -- emphasis added.

That is a succinct statement of the reformist perspective in your own words.

I&#39;ve already conceded that I grasp why you think that this "makes sense".

But I repeat: it does not make sense in the "senile" capitalist countries&#33;

A North American version of Lula or Chavez or Allende is no longer possible&#33;


What I do not understand is how you simply call "reformism" any activity that isn&#39;t directly related to the immediate military confrontation against the bourgeois State.

You make it sound as if I&#39;m calling for "urban guerrilla warfare" or some such silliness...which, of course, I&#39;m not.

What I am saying is that any serious struggle in North America must, of necessity, take place outside of the legal channels of "conflict resolution".

At this late date in North America and western Europe, anything that stinks of "respect for bourgeois law" is reformist&#33;

Now go and do whatever you please. I don&#39;t think that in your country at this time it can be anything other than reformist.

If you think I&#39;m wrong, then prove it...in practice&#33;

http://www.websmileys.com/sm/cool/123.gif

[Luís Henrique]

I call your attention to this post...

http://www.revolutionaryleft.com/index.php...st&p=1291994113 (http://www.revolutionaryleft.com/index.php?showtopic=43998&view=findpost&p=1291994113)


If I do not struggle for higher wages, my life standards fall, whether I am saying the truth or not.

So, let&#39;s put the vanguardist sectarianism aside. The "truth" is, wages are always "unfair", but &#036;2.00 is more than &#036;1.00, and workers that do not organise for a wage raise will never organise for putting an end to "wage slavery". -- emphasis added.

That is a succinct statement of the reformist perspective in your own words.

I stand by what I stated, and do not think it is reformism at all. Reformists do not believe that wages are always "unfair": by the very core notion of reformism, capitalism can be "reformed" to make it "fair" - including "fair wages". This - fighting for "fair wages" - is reformism. Fighting for increased salaries, fighting against reductions of wages, while having it always clear that any wages the capitalists can possibly pay must allow them a surplus value is not reformism. Reformism is class treason, and to put it clearly, class treason is not to struggle for higher wages, class treason is to refuse to fight for them under the excuse that "anyway, we will still be exploited".

I think you do not know what reformism is.


But I repeat: it does not make sense in the "senile" capitalist countries&#33;

But you believe that


In the late or "senile" capitalist countries, what will exist is a highly sophisticated proletariat subjected to 19th century living conditions...which will be perceived as an outrage of intolerable proportions.

What do you think workers will fight for in such a situation?


You make it sound as if I&#39;m calling for "urban guerrilla warfare" or some such silliness...which, of course, I&#39;m not.

In fact, no - it is worse. You are advocating renouncing class struggle, under the idea that class struggle is reformist.


What I am saying is that any serious struggle in North America must, of necessity, take place outside of the legal channels of "conflict resolution".

At this late date in North America and western Europe, anything that stinks of "respect for bourgeois law" is reformist&#33;

Frankly, this sounds like bourgeois statolatry taken reversely. If our criterium is the bourgeois law - even if it is to systematically desobey it - then our criterium is the bourgeois law.

What we need is to do what is needed, regardless of it being legal or illegal. And, of course, we need to know to understand strenght correlations, because if we are going to do something illegal, we have to do it and make the bourgeoisie swallow it to the last drop.


Now go and do whatever you please. I don&#39;t think that in your country at this time it can be anything other than reformist.

So the situation in Brazil is such that no revolution, either proletarian or bourgeois, is possible?

What would your partner, that guy Karl Marx, say about that? :rolleyes:

Luís Henrique

[Dr. Rosenpenis]

Originally posted by Luís [email protected] 15 2006, 02:42 PM
bourgeois statolatry
huh?

[Luís Henrique]

Originally posted by RedZeppelin+Jan 15 2006, 07:58 PM--> (RedZeppelin @ Jan 15 2006, 07:58 PM)
Luís [email protected] 15 2006, 02:42 PM
bourgeois statolatry
huh? [/b]
State worship.

Luís Henrique

[redstar2000]

Originally posted by Luís Henrique+--> (Luís Henrique)You are advocating renouncing class struggle, under the idea that class struggle is reformist.[/b]

Some is, some ain&#39;t.

The class struggle that takes place outside the channels of bourgeois legality is at least potentially revolutionary.

The "class struggle" that takes place inside those norms is almost always reformist and frequently not even "struggle" at all...just ritual.

Like a bourgeois "election".


I think you do not know what reformism is.

We certainly have a very divergent understanding of the term.

But we live in different countries...and you will, quite properly, do whatever you think is appropriate in Brazil without regard for the opinions of North Americans.

So I wish you good luck...even if I think that luck will not help you a bit.

http://www.websmileys.com/sm/cool/123.gif

PS: Some real class struggle...


BBC
EU dockers&#39; protest turns violent

Police in Strasbourg have used tear gas and water cannon to disperse dock workers who marched to the European Parliament in a mass protest.

Protesters threw firecrackers, stones and metal missiles, smashing windows and causing "considerable damage".

The dockers, from across the EU, had converged on Strasbourg to protest at controversial proposals to open up port services to greater competition.

Elsewhere, strike action disrupted work at major ports from Greece to Sweden.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/low/europe/4617262.stm

[Led Zeppelin]

Redstar, please stop making up this nonsense, what do you think you can get out of it? Seriously, everyone who has read Imperialism knows that Lenin never said that the "imperialist club was full" and that "no other nation could become imperialist in the future", in fact he said that it was inevitable that the current imperialist powers of the time would lose their power/influence and other Capitalist states would take it over.

[redstar2000]

Originally posted by Marxism&#045;Leninism
Redstar, please stop making up this nonsense, what do you think you can get out of it?

Well, there is the small pleasure of embarrassing neophyte Leninists who are almost totally unfamiliar with what their guru actually said.

Rather like shaming the Christians with quotes from their own "holy book" and watching them squirm. :lol:


Seriously, everyone who has read Imperialism knows that Lenin never said that the "imperialist club was full" and that "no other nation could become imperialist in the future", in fact he said that it was inevitable that the current imperialist powers of the time would lose their power/influence and other Capitalist states would take it over.

True, what he actually said was that the "whole world" was already "divided up" and that future imperialist growth could only come through wars and "re-division of the spoils".

But I think you&#39;ll discover that Lenin&#39;s followers generally agree that the "old" imperialist powers are "all that&#39;s ever going to be"...and that the number of such powers can only shrink -- as the more powerful ones conquer the less powerful ones.

The idea of altogether new imperialist powers emerging is alien to them...because they don&#39;t believe that capitalism retains any possibilities for growth anywhere.

The truth is, one could be a perfectly good Leninist and still discard Imperialism altogether as a failed analysis.

It&#39;s not really "central" to the Leninist paradigm in the same way as "the leading role of the Party" is.

Its only real use is as a "justification" for Leninist revolutions in the "third world" and as an excuse for Leninist failures in the "first world".

And it really doesn&#39;t work very well for that purpose; Leninists, if they had any imagination remaining, would almost certainly be better off completely updating Imperialism.

But that won&#39;t happen...because, intellectually speaking, Leninism is a "dead paradigm".

They don&#39;t have any "new ideas" and are probably incapable of developing any. As far as I can tell, the Trotskyists are totally infatuated with reformism and the Maoists with making bourgeois revolutions in the "third world" and calling them "socialist". :lol:

In the decades to come, someone in the "west" who calls themself a Leninist will sound as anachronistic as someone who calls themself a "Fabian socialist" now.

http://www.websmileys.com/sm/cool/123.gif

[Severian]

Originally posted by [email protected] 16 2006, 11:33 PM
The class struggle that takes place outside the channels of bourgeois legality is at least potentially revolutionary.

The "class struggle" that takes place inside those norms is almost always reformist and frequently not even "struggle" at all...just ritual.

Like a bourgeois "election".
From that infamous reformist document, the Communist Manifesto:


[Communists] do not set up any sectarian principles of their own, by which to shape and mold the proletarian movement.

The Communists are distinguished from the other working-class parties by this only:

(1) In the national struggles of the proletarians of the different countries, they point out and bring to the front the common interests of the entire proletariat, independently of all nationality.

(2) In the various stages of development which the struggle of the working class against the bourgeoisie has to pass through, they always and everywhere represent the interests of the movement as a whole.

Redstar&#39;s heading in the opposite direction, clearly: he&#39;s got nothing left but the sectarian principles and utopian blueprints. The living class struggle&#39;s been dismissed as irrelevant.

[redstar2000]

Redstar2000 "dismisses" the "living class struggle"...

http://www.revolutionaryleft.com/index.php...st&p=1292005674 (http://www.revolutionaryleft.com/index.php?showtopic=43998&view=findpost&p=1292005674)

http://www.websmileys.com/sm/cool/123.gif

[redstar2000]

Originally posted by redstar2000+--> (redstar2000)Are Brazilian corporations investing in other Latin American countries? Or even outside of Latin America altogether?

Then the process [of becoming an imperialist country] has already begun.[/b]

http://www.revolutionaryleft.com/index.php...st&p=1292002298 (http://www.revolutionaryleft.com/index.php?showtopic=43998&view=findpost&p=1292002298)


AngolaPress
Kwanza-Norte: Brazilian Farmers Invest In Cattle-Breeding

Ndalatando, 01/23 - Brazilian agricultural firms will invest as from 2006 in cattle-raising in the plateau region of Camabatela, Ambaca district, northern Kwanza-Norte Province.

The information was given on Saturday by the Angolan Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development, Gilberto Lutukuta, during a visit to Luinga commune, around 150 kilometres to the north-east of Ndalatando city (the province`s chief town).

The minister travelled to the region with the envoy of Brazilian firms interested in exploring the country`s cattle-breeding sector, Setimio Salas.

Gilberto Lutukuta said that there are several foreign companies interested in taking part in the Angolan government`s "Great Farming Project" in Kwanza-Norte.

He stated that the institution aims at surpassing 50,000 heads of cattle, reached in 1975.

On his turn, Setimio Salas, cattle-breeder since 1964, said that he would return to the country within 30 days to start materialising his participation in the cattle-breeding activity, considering the region`s excellent conditions.

http://www.angolapress-angop.ao/noticia-e.asp?ID=410218


Historical materialism rules&#33; :D

http://www.websmileys.com/sm/cool/123.gif

[Luís Henrique]

Originally posted by redstar2000+--> (redstar2000)Are Brazilian corporations investing in other Latin American countries? Or even outside of Latin America altogether?[/b]


AngolaPress
Kwanza-Norte: Brazilian Farmers Invest In Cattle-Breeding

Ah, interesting. Do these "corporations" even have a name?

Because I cannot remember a Brazilian corporation operating in Brazil in the cattle-breeding trade&#33; :lol:

Or are them ironheads for some real capitalists, like Swift-Armour, Sadia or Perdigão?

Dude, we are in the era of monopolist capital. It doesn&#39;t operate like that.

Let me ask you a different question. Do you believe that every capitalist country will eventually become an imperialist country? For instance, you say that now is Brazil&#39;s turn - will there be a Costa Rica&#39;s turn? A Paraguay&#39;s turn? A Somalia&#39;s turn? Will eventually all capitalist countries be imperialist, simultaneously?

Luís Henrique

[redstar2000]

Originally posted by Luís Henrique
Let me ask you a different question. Do you believe that every capitalist country will eventually become an imperialist country? For instance, you say that now is Brazil&#39;s turn - will there be a Costa Rica&#39;s turn? A Paraguay&#39;s turn? A Somalia&#39;s turn? Will eventually all capitalist countries be imperialist, simultaneously?

That&#39;s two questions.

On its face, the idea of small countries eventually evolving into imperialist countries seems improbable.

But what happens when all the "big countries" have already become communist? Is it not possible that some small countries could turn a predatory eye on one another?

Recall that Holland and Portugal were small countries that built empires.

Historical materialism necessarily rules out the possibility that "all capitalist countries [could] be imperialist, simultaneously". The "oldest" capitalist countries will experience proletarian revolutions first, followed by the newer capitalist countries as their systems age, followed by the still newer capitalist countries...and so on.

The whole process might take three to five centuries to complete...but most of it should be over by 2300 or so. By then capitalism will be a marginal system confined to areas that we now (and will then) consider "especially backward".

In that distant era, Costa Rica will probably be communist, Paraguay might be approaching proletarian revolution, and Somalia would be doing really well just to manage modern capitalism.

Assuming that any of those entities still exist. I imagine that there will be a lot of "border changes" over the next three centuries...especially as so many "third world" borders were drawn by the "old" imperialist countries that will no longer exist.

For example, I rather doubt that there will even be a "United States" after proletarian revolution in North America.

Or a "Canada".

There might be a "North American Communist Union" of some kind...but it won&#39;t be a nation-state in the contemporary sense. It will be a set of functional groups set up for specific purposes that require co-operation on a continental scale.

The whole idea of patriotism will be as dead as all the other superstitions of our age.

http://www.websmileys.com/sm/cool/123.gif

[Dr. Rosenpenis]

Originally posted by [email protected] 24 2006, 07:48 PM
But what happens when all the "big countries" have already become communist? Is it not possible that some small countries could turn a predatory eye on one another?
redstar, I think you completely missunderstand world politics.
You seem to be entirely ignoring the phenomenon of imperialism, something that didn&#39;t really exist when Marx predicted that proletarian revolution would occur first in the most advanced capitalist societies. Imperialism has allowed for a global economy where the industrial and miserable working class are completely set off from the "advanced capitalist" countries, something that was absolutely unforeseeable in 19th century England. The only thing remotely close to revolution in the advanced capitalist world has been in the 60s, and it doesn&#39;t look like anything revolutionay has happened or will happen in the developed world, unless there is a radical alteration in the material conditions. This, I predict, will occur as a result of proletarian revolution in the third world.

[redstar2000]

Originally posted by RedZeppelin
You seem to be entirely ignoring the phenomenon of imperialism...

Yep. The whole idea of "imperialism" as a "new epoch" or "highest stage" or "final stage" of capitalism "on a global scale" is just bullshit&#33;

It looked plausible in the opening decades of the 20th century...but has since been reduced to meaningless blather.

Most often it&#39;s invoked to "support" the even more dubious thesis that backward countries can have "socialism" or even "communism" without ever passing through the capitalist epoch...a concept disproved by the fate of all the 20th century Leninist despotisms.

Marx was right and Lenin was wrong&#33;

End of story.

http://www.websmileys.com/sm/cool/123.gif

[Dr. Rosenpenis]

Most often it&#39;s invoked to "support" the even more dubious thesis that backward countries can have "socialism" or even "communism" without ever passing through the capitalist epoch...a concept disproved by the fate of all the 20th century Leninist despotisms.

That would be assuming that the third world is not capitalist, which it is. In most cases I would even say that they are advanced capitalist societies.

I want a better rebuttal, redstar. I know you can do better.

[Luís Henrique]

Originally posted by [email protected] 25 2006, 12:48 AM
Historical materialism necessarily rules out the possibility that "all capitalist countries [could] be imperialist, simultaneously".
Well, with that I agree... but why exactly do you believe that all capitalist countries cannot be imperialist simultaneously?

Luís Henrique

[coda]

I don&#39;t even know where this is going. and admittedly haven&#39;t read all the posts here. And don&#39;t know what this has to do with reformism.. but,

I myself don&#39;t think that Imperialism, alone and by itself, is the highest stage of Capitalism at the present time, maybe in the distant past, but now has been replaced by "SuperPowerdom" with which Imperialism is definitely a major criteria. It would seem to me, that as long as we have dictatorial Superpowers all other developed and developing countries are at the behest of that and are forced to play on the Capitalist World Market, World Trade for survival. There could be be primitivest communism in the non-industrial worlds, but it would only be a matter of time before a Superpower militarily marched in, grabbed up the land and natural resources and enslaved the people for economic purposes. i.e. colonial-imperialism. I always held that it is the Superpowers that need to collapse first. so, probably though it&#39;s probably true that Socialist can happen in one country, a stablized communism could not.

anyway, don&#39;t know if this has anything to do with what&#39;s being discussed&#33;&#33;&#33;&#33; :)

[Led Zeppelin]

Marx was right and Lenin was wrong&#33;

End of story.


You do not even understand Marxist economics (you said so yourself), so how can you conclude that finance capital (imperialism) doesn&#39;t exist?

Can you prove that capital has not transformed into finance capital?

[redstar2000]

Originally posted by RedZeppelin+--> (RedZeppelin)That would be assuming that the third world is not capitalist, which it is. In most cases I would even say that they are advanced capitalist societies.[/b]

No, most of it isn&#39;t...though there may be a thin veneer of modern capitalism present -- often in the area of resource extraction.

You don&#39;t have modern capitalism when a foreign corporation develops an oil field, opens a copper mine, or even builds a modern factory. It takes a long time to bring a whole people "into the modern world". You have a whole panoply of pre-capitalist cultural artifacts that must be drastically modified or completely discarded before the idea of proletarian revolution can even "make sense".

Consider, for example, the whole idea of "deference to one&#39;s elders"...universal in all pre-capitalist societies and very wide-spread in "new" capitalist countries. How can you innovate in such an atmosphere? Only by rejecting the idea that "we should do things the way our fathers did them". What capitalism says, crudely, is "do something a new way and get rich&#33;"

Pre-capitalist gods "upheld" the "old ways" as "the path to paradise". Capitalism invents "new gods" who "bless the rich" right here on Earth. And in so doing, by the way, undermines the whole edifice of superstition altogether.


Originally posted by Luís [email protected]
...but why exactly do you believe that all capitalist countries cannot be imperialist simultaneously?

Because time does not "stand still" for the "old" imperialist countries while the "newer" capitalist countries "catch up".

The "old" ones keep getting older...and weaker. The young ones continuously become stronger.

Where are the empires of Spain, Portugal, Holland today? There are still some traces of the French empire left...but you&#39;d have to look hard to find them.
The British Empire stretches from Belfast to Basra...with nothing in between. :lol:

Some German imperialists still dream of an empire in eastern Europe...but I don&#39;t think their chances of making a come-back are very good. The brief Italian empire died permanently in 1945.

The American Empire (which essentially dates from 1945) still looks imposing...but how strong is it really?

Here&#39;s a curiosity I came across the other day. As you know, the Americans dismantled all the protective tariffs that Saddam Hussein had imposed on foreign imports...with the predictable result that small Iraqi capitalists are being wiped out by cheaper foreign goods.

But who is really benefiting? Not American capitalists, Chinese capitalists&#33; It&#39;s imports from China that are dominating the Iraqi market (such as it is). :lol:

I have no idea what Angola buys from Portugal these days compared to what it buys from Brazil. But historical materialism strongly suggests that Brazil is "the horse to bet on" in that race.


Marxism&#045;Leninism
Can you prove that capital has not transformed into finance capital?

I don&#39;t need to. Capital is capital and must always be invested to return a profit. Historically speaking, finance capital has tended to be "conservative" and industrial capital to be more "risk-taking" and even "reckless"...but it all seems to "even out" in the end.

And not make any difference in real world phenomena at all.

http://www.websmileys.com/sm/cool/123.gif

[Severian]

Originally posted by [email protected] 23 2006, 11:39 AM

http://www.angolapress-angop.ao/noticia-e.asp?ID=410218


Historical materialism rules&#33; :D
I think you mean, "Google Rules&#33;" It&#39;s possible to google up some half-assed point of support for literally any claim.

Judgement is required to evaluate the quality of that support.

For example, in this case: some Brazilian capitalists promise to invest funds in Angola...and that&#39;s the basis for an evaluation of the whole Brazilian economy? Heh.

Some coporations based in Third World countries have made major investments overseas....especially the South Korean chaebol. Daewoo built auto plants all over, including inside the former Soviet bloc...which turned out to be a lousy investment.

Now, thanks to the Asian financial crisis, Daewoo is owned by GM. Turns out even south Korea remains firmly under the thumb of the real imperialists.

***

As for your other recent points: capitalism is not a set of cultural values. It is a set of economic relations among people.

Major elements of capitalist relations have penetrated every country in the world. It is not just a matter of direct imperialist investment, Ford and Coke factories, etc. There are also local capitalists. Most of the population of the world is producing commodities for sale on the market.

In all societies prior to the rise of capitalism, most production aimed at creating use-values for local consumption, by the producers or their immediate exploiters. Even taxes were often in kind.

There do remain elements of pre-capitalist economic relations in many countries - often subordinated to capitalist relations. E.g. unfree labor producing for the world market.

The different elements of the economy need to be concretely analyzed in each particular country - and the conclusions are important for political strategy. The relative weight of democratic and socialist tasks in the revolution varies from country to country.

Your superficial, impressionistic approach is the opposite of such a concrete materialist analysis.

***

You claim to be rejecting Lenin&#39;s approach to imperialism in favor of Marx&#39;s.

But you retain a tremendous unacknowledged debt to Lenin. It was Lenin who first emphasized the distinction between the imperialist countries and the countries oppressed by imperialism. And said that commmunists should side with the countries oppressed by imperialism.

Marx, of course, held no such position. He even sided with the U.S. in the Mexican-American War.

It&#39;s Lenin&#39;s position - not labelled as Lenin&#39;s of course - which you constantly use to justify your support to any bourgeois nationalist movement in the Third World. But you divorce it from the Marxist reasons Lenin had for opposing imperialism.

[Severian]

Originally posted by Luís [email protected] 24 2006, 02:05 PM
Because I cannot remember a Brazilian corporation operating in Brazil in the cattle-breeding trade&#33; :lol:
That&#39;s not surprising. Agriculture, including stock-raising, is one of the less profitable, and by far one of the riskiest, arenas for a corporation to invest its capital.

If tomorrow McDonalds announced it was going to buy some ranch land and start raising its own beef, whether in the U.S., Brazil or Angola....it&#39;s stock price would plummet.

Better to let smaller-time capitalists and working farmers absorb the risks of weather and fluctuating agricultural markets.

[redstar2000]

Originally posted by Severian+--> (Severian)Marx, of course, held no such position. He even sided with the U.S. in the Mexican-American War.[/b]

A new "gambit" from Severian: Marx was "pro-imperialist" while Lenin was the first "real anti-imperialist".

Well, let&#39;s try this one...


Originally posted by Marx+--> (Marx)The contemplated intervention in Mexico by England, France, and Spain, is, in my opinion, one of the most monstrous enterprises ever chronicled in the annals of international history. It is a contrivance of the true Palmerston make, astounding the uninitiated by an insanity of purpose and an imbecility of the means employed which appear quite incompatible with the known capacity of the old schemer.[/b]

The Intervention in Mexico (http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1861/11/23.htm) by Karl Marx, New York Daily Tribune, November 23, 1861.

This is a most interesting piece, by the way. Go through it and substitute a few names and it could be written about Bush, Iraq, etc. I think it shows quite well that Marx was very conscious of imperialism as a mode of behavior of the bourgeoisie...and "nothing special" in and of itself.

Well, how about Engels?


[email protected]
In America we have witnessed the conquest of Mexico and have rejoiced at it... It is to the interest of its own development that Mexico will in [the] future be placed under the tutelage of the United States.

The Movements of 1847 (http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1848/01/23.htm) by Frederick Engels, Deutsche-Brüsseler-Zeitung, January 23, 1848.

Oh, Fred, say it ain&#39;t so. :o

Well, it is so. This early article is a tribute to the rising bourgeoisie and celebrates its triumphs of 1847. Why?


Engels
So just fight bravely on, most gracious masters of capital&#33; We need you for the present; here and there we even need you as rulers. You have to clear the vestiges of the Middle Ages and of absolute monarchy out of our path; you have to annihilate patriarchalism; you have to carry out centralisation; you have to convert the more or less propertyless classes into genuine proletarians, into recruits for us; by your factories and your commercial relationships you must create for us the basis of the material means which the proletariat needs for the attainment of freedom. In recompense whereof you shall be allowed to rule for a short time. You shall be allowed to dictate your laws, to bask in the rays of the majesty you have created, to spread your banquets in the halls of kings, and to take the beautiful princess to wife — but do not forget that

“The hangman stands at the door&#33;" (a line from Heine).

Marx and Engels would be regarded, in modern terms, as "Euro-centric"...they saw the spread of European imperialisms as a means of development for the "uncivilized" countries of the world.

They didn&#39;t know that imperialism distorts the development of capitalism in the countries it conquers; it hyper-develops a small sector of the conquered country&#39;s economy and leaves the rest to rot.

That&#39;s something that had to be learned from observed experience...which was not yet available to them in 1848 or even 1861.

In fact, I would argue that it&#39;s only been really clear since 1945 that this is the normal outcome of imperialism.

Lenin&#39;s Russia (1895-1917) was an early example of this...and it&#39;s certainly to his credit that he noticed it when so many of his contemporaries didn&#39;t. That is, he observed the enormous contrast between a few highly developed industrial cities and the abysmal backwardness of Russia as a whole.

In modern terminology, we might almost describe Lenin&#39;s Russia as a neo-colony of British and French capital. Nominally independent...but with an economy strangled by foreign capitalists and unable to develop "normally".

Which is why the first task of a colonial or neo-colonial country is to expel the imperialists&#33;

There are a small number of examples where an imperialist country may permit the "normal" development of a domestic bourgeoisie for political reasons...South Korea is probably the outstanding example of this.

But if you look around the world at the panoply of countries that remain "undeveloped", you see economies that are wildly twisted and stunted along with ruling classes that are weak, dependent, and hopelessly corrupted.

Today, Marx and Engels would have been ferocious anti-imperialists precisely because imperialism blocks the road to the development of a revolutionary proletariat in the countries it dominates.

http://www.websmileys.com/sm/cool/123.gif

[STI]

imperialism blocks the road to the development of a revolutionary proletariat in the countries it dominates.

Heh, try telling that to the folks over at libcom <_<

[Luís Henrique]

Originally posted by redstar2000
No, most of it isn&#39;t...though there may be a thin veneer of modern capitalism present -- often in the area of resource extraction.

I think we are coming to see that your appreciation of the social processes in the third world is, to be charitable, uninformed.


You don&#39;t have modern capitalism when a foreign corporation develops an oil field, opens a copper mine, or even builds a modern factory. It takes a long time to bring a whole people "into the modern world".

So it doesn&#39;t matter if the social relationships are overwhelming capitalist, if the State is a bourgeois State, if the economy is, to quote Sraffa, "production of commodities by the mean of commodities". The difference between capitalism and pre-capitalism resides elsewhere...

Maybe, but, then, "historical materialism" doesn&#39;t "rule" at all.


You have a whole panoply of pre-capitalist cultural artifacts that must be drastically modified or completely discarded before the idea of proletarian revolution can even "make sense".

So pre-capitalism is able to survive the complete and thorough destruction of its material basis through its "cultural artifacts". As if, according to "historical materialism" and its "rule", "cultural artifacts" weren&#39;t determined by productive forces and productive relationships&#33;


Consider, for example, the whole idea of "deference to one&#39;s elders"...universal in all pre-capitalist societies and very wide-spread in "new" capitalist countries.

:blink:

Where do you take your information from?

I live in the third world, redstar. You cannot make up those things about something I know from personal experience, and expect to be taken in serious. :angry:

I am becoming more and more convinced that you have given in to chauvinist theories of "cultural superiority" of US/Western Europe.


What capitalism says, crudely, is "do something a new way and get rich&#33;"

Er... no, that&#39;s not what it "crudely" says. It is what it melifluously suggests. What it "crudely" says is, "do things like the foreman tells you, lest you get fired".

Luís Henrique

[Luís Henrique]

Originally posted by redstar2000+--> (redstar2000)
Luís Henrique
...but why exactly do you believe that all capitalist countries cannot be imperialist simultaneously?

Because time does not "stand still" for the "old" imperialist countries while the "newer" capitalist countries "catch up".

The "old" ones keep getting older...and weaker. The young ones continuously become stronger.

Where are the empires of Spain, Portugal, Holland today?[/b]

Hold on.

Spain and Portugal held feudal empires. They were feudal superpowers. And they had the most advanced feudal societies in the world.

They failed their transition to capitalism. They became backward, poor, societies in the brink of the third world, weak countries with no say in world affairs, before going into capitalism. Though, of course, Portugal retained half of its "empire" until 1974.

As such, Spain and Portugal were never "imperialist" powers. If they were, of course - according to your mechanistical, linear, "theory" of capitalism, they should have gone "socialist" in the XVIII century&#33;

The Netherlands are a completely different thing - and they remain an imperialist power, even if they lost their "empire".

Are you confusing Marx with Spengler, or Toynbee?


There are still some traces of the French empire left...but you&#39;d have to look hard to find them.
The British Empire stretches from Belfast to Basra...with nothing in between.* :lol:

Some German imperialists still dream of an empire in eastern Europe...but I don&#39;t think their chances of making a come-back are very good.* The brief Italian empire died permanently in 1945.

The same goes for these four imperialist countries. France, UK, Germany, and Italy may have no "empires" - but this has nothing to do with imperialism&#33;


The American Empire (which essentially dates from 1945) still looks imposing...but how strong is it really?

The American Empire never looked imposing. At its best moments, it was comparable to the Italian mock of an empire... and, again, this does not have anything to do with imperialism&#33;


Here&#39;s a curiosity I came across the other day. As you know, the Americans dismantled all the protective tariffs that Saddam Hussein had imposed on foreign imports...with the predictable result that small Iraqi capitalists are being wiped out by cheaper foreign goods.

But who is really benefiting?* Not American capitalists, Chinese capitalists&#33;* It&#39;s imports from China that are dominating the Iraqi market (such as it is).* :lol:

Remarkable, especially in a context in which we are clearly seeing that Iran is the one set to dominate Iraqi politics&#33; :lol:

But "imperialism" hasn&#39;t to do with exports of gadgets, it has to do with exports of capital. As long as the US/British companies have the grasp on Iraqi "reconstruction", ie, investments, the Chinese may well sell their toys, and the Iranians dictate the "feminine fashion".


I have no idea what Angola buys from Portugal these days compared to what it buys from Brazil. But historical materialism strongly suggests that Brazil is "the horse to bet on" in that race.

You cannot correctly evaluate that without understanding the ties between Brazil and the US, Portugal and EU - and, of course, China and Japan. Without understanding those countries maintain ties of material subordination, any theory about that is misleading. More to say about this below.

Luís Henrique

[Luís Henrique]

Originally posted by Severian
Some coporations based in Third World countries have made major investments overseas....especially the South Korean chaebol. Daewoo built auto plants all over, including inside the former Soviet bloc...which turned out to be a lousy investment.

Now, thanks to the Asian financial crisis, Daewoo is owned by GM. Turns out even south Korea remains firmly under the thumb of the real imperialists.

I didn&#39;t know that (about Daewoo). It certainly puts South Korea&#39;s "leap" into the first world under a different light.


Major elements of capitalist relations have penetrated every country in the world. It is not just a matter of direct imperialist investment, Ford and Coke factories, etc. There are also local capitalists. Most of the population of the world is producing commodities for sale on the market.

Exactly. And, besides, there often is a direct relationship of subordination that ties small, often local capitalists, to huge transnationals.

Some examples:

McDonalds does not own shops in Brazil. All of those shops are property of Brazilian small capitalists, producing under direct supervision of McDonald&#39;s cadres. "McDonalds" is just the amount of propaganda that warrants them and their underlings an enormous share of the Brazilian fast-food market.

Volkswagen just assembles its cars. The individual parts are, all of them, produced by smaller capitalist companies - most of them, in Brazil, local companies. But VW dictates quality, price, quantities, dates, everything - to the point that they have been known to impose "reeginering" plans to those companies, under the express threat that, if those plans were not followed, VW would stop buying from the "rebellious" companies&#33;

Sousa Cruz (which, in spite of the name, is a British transnational, British-American Tobacco) imposes the peasants that "sell" them raw material even the brands of fertilisers and pesticides they should buy - and does that in direct agreement not only with the chemical industries that produce such crap - Pfizer, Manah - but also with its "competitors", Lygett-Myers, JR Reynolds (both American transnationals), and Sudan (up to my knowledge, Brazilian, and the smallest of the four).

Coca-Cola, Pepsi-Cola, and Imbev (Belgian), monopolise the soft drinks market. Their monopolistic surplus profits are so high that dozens of "independent" local companies - Guaraná Jesus, Pitchula, Minerinho - are able to "compete" in the market. They could be destroyed in a moment by those huge companies reducing their prices to fit the "normal" profit rate - but instead, the are used as a lever to determine prices according to the less efficient productive methods.

These are not exceptional examples - franchises, outsourcings, trusts, "mushroomisation", are widely adopted by transnationals in Brazil and other third-world countries (and copied, when possible, by wealthier local companies). Imperialism operates like that.


The different elements of the economy need to be concretely analyzed in each particular country - and the conclusions are important for political strategy. The relative weight of democratic and socialist tasks in the revolution varies from country to country.

Your superficial, impressionistic approach is the opposite of such a concrete materialist analysis.

Exactly.


For example, in this case: some Brazilian capitalists promise to invest funds in Angola...and that&#39;s the basis for an evaluation of the whole Brazilian economy? Heh.

Well... I did some research about Setimio Sala.

Turns out that he may well be a cattle raiser... but the main business of his company (AgroSala) is to organise a rural exposition in São Paulo. Three different kind of producers participate in that event: cattle raisers, who expose their cows and bulls, small companies that sell food, drinks and the like to the public, and... huge, mostly transnational companies that show their products for cattle breeders - animal alimentation, soil modifiers, rural machines, inseminating procedures, inseticides...

It is quite obvious that the main business there is to sell things to landlords, not from them. And I may well be wrong, but it is my definite impression that Mr. Sala in Angola will essentially operate on behalf of his transnational associates. At least, of course, if he is really representative of Brazilian entrepreneurs...

Luís Henrique

[redstar2000]

Originally posted by Luís Henrique+--> (Luís Henrique)So it doesn&#39;t matter if the social relationships are overwhelming capitalist, if the State is a bourgeois State, if the economy is, to quote Sraffa, "production of commodities by the mean of commodities". The difference between capitalism and pre-capitalism resides elsewhere...[/b]

It is a process that takes time.

The share-cropper system in the American South, a quasi-feudal arrangement imposed on freed slaves after the civil war, didn&#39;t really come to an end until 1970-80&#33; Hell, there may even be a few left&#33;


So pre-capitalism is able to survive the complete and thorough destruction of its material basis through its "cultural artifacts".

In a way that weakens over time. Or is modified to "fit" the new objective conditions.

Religious fundamentalism in the U.S. today has its roots in the Protestant Reformation...something that emerged in response to early mercantile capitalism in 16th century Germany.

Today&#39;s version has been modified in an attempt to combine "moral virtue" with "professional success" in the modern corporation.

But with all the publicity they generate for themselves, most people in the U.S. live as though there are no gods.

It took time to reach that point.


I live in the third world, redstar.

In earlier posts, you said otherwise...maintaining that Brazil was a modern capitalist country.


I am becoming more and more convinced that you have given in to chauvinist theories of "cultural superiority" of US/Western Europe.

Funny that. I&#39;m starting to become convinced that you&#39;re "modern" when it&#39;s convenient for you and "third world" when that suits your purpose.

I&#39;ve been running into that sort of duplicity lately.

I&#39;m just as progressive as you are, dammit, but you can&#39;t criticize my politics because I&#39;m a real "third world" oppressed person.

What do you want? Am I supposed to pity the "poor backward Brazilians" or treat Brazil as an emerging modern capitalist country that will inevitably become imperialist?


France, UK, Germany, and Italy may have no "empires" - but this has nothing to do with imperialism&#33;

Here you refer to the business empires of corporations located in the "old" capitalist countries. If a reformist government in Brazil decides to nationalize a French or British or German corporation, the gunboats will arrive in Rio&#39;s harbor in a few weeks, right? :lol:

Well, not unless they can convince the U.S. to "back their play" -- by providing the gunboats and the troops.

We don&#39;t live in 1914 any more.

Whatever areas of Brazil&#39;s economy that appear to be "dominated" by "old" capitalist corporations are areas that Brazilians can take over anytime they wish to do so. And I suspect that will probably be pretty soon. It&#39;s what reformist governments in emerging capitalist countries do.


But "imperialism" hasn&#39;t to do with exports of gadgets, it has to do with exports of capital.

Where does capital come from if not from the "export of gadgets"? It doesn&#39;t just fall out of the sky.

Technically speaking, this has to do with a Marxist concept called "the realization of surplus value". The source of profit is surplus value -- but until the good/service is actually sold in the market, the surplus value is "unrealized" or "potential".

Capitalist countries that export lots of "gadgets" get rich...countries that can only export natural resources usually stay poor.

I note that you liked this quote from Severian...


Originally posted by [email protected]
Now, thanks to the Asian financial crisis, Daewoo is owned by GM. Turns out even South Korea remains firmly under the thumb of the real imperialists.

Since General Motors (and Ford&#33;) are on the edge of collapse themselves, I wouldn&#39;t place a whole lot of confidence in Severian&#39;s verdict.

And you also liked this...


Severian
The different elements of the economy need to be concretely analyzed in each particular country - and the conclusions are important for political strategy. The relative weight of democratic and socialist tasks in the revolution varies from country to country.

Your superficial, impressionistic approach is the opposite of such a concrete materialist analysis.

Severian&#39;s reformism hides behind "concrete analysis of each particular country".

Whereas I am interested in "the big picture"...and perforce must often rely on "impressions".

But if his perspective appeals to you, be my guest. Make the most "concrete analysis" of Brazil that you can and act accordingly.

If my "impression" is correct, then you&#39;ll end up doing trade union stuff or electoral politics...just what the "Doctor of Reform" ordered for your country in this period.

Just don&#39;t kid yourself that what you&#39;ll be doing has any connection with proletarian revolution.

It doesn&#39;t.

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[Luís Henrique]

I live in the third world, redstar.

In earlier posts, you said otherwise...maintaining that Brazil was a modern capitalist country.

It may sound "otherwise" to you, because you maintain that third world countries, are, by definition, not modern capitalist countries (what are they? semi-feudal countries? "unmodern" capitalist countries?)

I believe Brazil is a third world country - and a modern, though dependent, capitalist society. And I see no contradiction here.

Whenever asked about how third world countries are not capitalist, you develop an argument that does not pertain to "historical materialism" and is objectively false: you point to backward ideologies that are supposedly prevalent here. It isn&#39;t really helping you to make your point.


I&#39;m just as progressive as you are, dammit, but you can&#39;t criticize my politics because I&#39;m a real "third world" oppressed person.

You can criticise my politics as harshly as you wish, redstar. What you cannot do is to pretend to have a knowledge of the objective situation here, because you haven&#39;t. The grotesque idea about Brazilian workers protesting their supposed "dishonourment" by their bosses points to that: you have no idea about Brazilian culture - as you haven&#39;t about Brazilian economy.

That, not your criticism of my politics, is the point.


What do you want? Am I supposed to pity the "poor backward Brazilians" or treat Brazil as an emerging modern capitalist country that will inevitably become imperialist?

Neither, of course. I don&#39;t need your pity, and Brazil isn&#39;t "emerging" into an "imperialist" country.

What you are "supposed" to do:

1. understand what the word "imperialism" means. Considering your complete confusion about Spain and Portugal "empires" and "imperialism" above, you don&#39;t.

2. understand what "underdevelopment" is. You believe it is a backward stage in a linear model of development. I suppose you would believe England in the first half of the XIX century was "underdeveloped"? That&#39;s not how it works. "Underdevelopment" is a state of political and economical subjection towards the first world.

3. stop pretending to have a superb acurate understanding of situations about which you factually know near to nothing, and theorically do not have the instruments to deal with.


Here you refer to the business empires of corporations located in the "old" capitalist countries. If a reformist government in Brazil decides to nationalize a French or British or German corporation, the gunboats will arrive in Rio&#39;s harbor in a few weeks, right? :lol:

What exactly are you being sarcastic at?

Perhaps Britain, France, and Germany do not have the means to send gunboats here (they have, and they do send "gunboats" to Iraq, Ivory Coast, Slovenia or Albania, though). Are you acquainted to the happenings in Chile, September 11th, 1973? What do you exactly think happened there?


We don&#39;t live in 1914 any more.

Capitalism has been abolished?


Whatever areas of Brazil&#39;s economy that appear to be "dominated" by "old" capitalist corporations are areas that Brazilians can take over anytime they wish to do so. And I suspect that will probably be pretty soon. It&#39;s what reformist governments in emerging capitalist countries do.

I won&#39;t held my breath, redstar. It is not going to happen.


Where does capital come from if not from the "export of gadgets"? It doesn&#39;t just fall out of the sky.

Darn it.

If country A&#39;s capitalists export toys to country B, this is not imperialism.

If country A&#39;s capitalists build toy factories in country B, or buy country B&#39;s toy factories, then you have imperialism. Yes, the former usually precedes the latter, but they are different things.


Since General Motors (and Ford&#33;) are on the edge of collapse themselves, I wouldn&#39;t place a whole lot of confidence in Severian&#39;s verdict.

Are they? What data do you have to support such assumption?

Supposing they actually collapse, what do you believe happens to Daewoo? What has actually happened to third world subsidiaries of first world companies that went bankrupt?


Severian&#39;s reformism hides behind "concrete analysis of each particular country".

Whereas I am interested in "the big picture"...and perforce must often rely on "impressions".

"Impressions" that are quite often ridiculously wrong&#33;

Luís Henrique

[Dr. Rosenpenis]

GM and Ford are doing terribly economically. Their sales in the US are really down and their operations costs are very expensive, largely because of "too many" workers&#39; benefits. Obviously, they won&#39;t collapse. Just like the government helped out Chrysler so they wouldn&#39;t go out of business in the 80s, they won&#39;t let GM and Ford go out of business.

[redstar2000]

Originally posted by Luís Henrique+--> (Luís Henrique)I believe Brazil is a third world country - and a modern, though dependent, capitalist society. And I see no contradiction here.[/b]

The customary use of the phrase "third world" country refers to countries that are economically backward...pre-capitalist or semi-capitalist, colonial or neo-colonial, dominated by a huge peasantry, etc.

I have no idea what the definition you are using might be...but it&#39;s certainly a convenient one for you.

You can accuse your critics of being Euro-supremacist if they say anything that hints that Brazil is "not modern"...but if they do treat Brazil as modern, then you can fall back on "dependency" and "imperialist oppression".

Neat trick.


...and Brazil isn&#39;t "emerging" into an "imperialist" country.

I&#39;m starting to think that this is the "meat" of the issue in your posts. You find it slightly "uncomfortable" to contemplate your own country becoming a "Colossus of the South"...even if that&#39;s still some decades away.

Hence your model of "dependent capitalism". :lol:


"Underdevelopment" is a state of political and economical subjection towards the first world.

So that makes the U.K. -- America&#39;s junior partner in Iraq and Afghanistan -- "under-developed" and even "third world"? :lol:


stop pretending to have a superb accurate understanding of situations about which you factually know near to nothing, and theoretically do not have the instruments to deal with.

No.

I intend to go on "pretending" that I know at least enough about some situations to deal with them theoretically with the instruments I have at hand.

You probably won&#39;t like the outcome...but then I&#39;ve never been able to "please everyone".


Are you acquainted to the happenings in Chile, September 11th, 1973? What do you exactly think happened there?

Three decades ago the Nixon administration, primarily at the urging of ITT (a then-large American corporation with interests in Chile), sponsored a military coup that overthrew the reformist Allende regime.

Interestingly enough, an attempt to repeat this strategy against Venezuela&#39;s Chavez was a total pratfall.

A Brazilian "Allende" is quite safe, I think. :)


RedZeppelin
Just like the government helped out Chrysler so they wouldn&#39;t go out of business in the 80s, they won&#39;t let GM and Ford go out of business.

You&#39;d think not...but who can really say? The American ruling class seems to be increasingly incompetent...and they might well decide that it&#39;s preferable to have German and Japanese corporations building car factories and cars in the U.S. than to pour a fortune into saving two moribund corporations.

We&#39;ll see.

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[PRC-UTE]

Originally posted by [email protected] 26 2006, 05:05 PM

imperialism blocks the road to the development of a revolutionary proletariat in the countries it dominates.

Heh, try telling that to the folks over at libcom <_<
Haha, so true. Did you see how they went off on the WSM for suggesting that the occupation of Ireland should be opposed?

[Luís Henrique]

The customary use of the phrase "third world" country refers to countries that are economically backward...pre-capitalist or semi-capitalist, colonial or neo-colonial, dominated by a huge peasantry, etc.

In which case, obviously, Latin America no longer belongs to the third world.

The problem is, it doesn&#39;t belong to the first world as well. Where do they belong?


I have no idea what the definition you are using might be...but it&#39;s certainly a convenient one for you.

"Convenient" is a word of many sences.

Of course, I use a definition that fits my theoretical schemes (do you have a problem with that?). Or, also of course, you could be accusing me of theorical opportunism. Which would be quite daring as long as you "have no idea what the definition" I am using "might be"...


You can accuse your critics of being Euro-supremacist if they say anything that hints that Brazil is "not modern"...

I would only make such accusation if they systematically refuse to engage meaningful discussion about the real, material conditions of Brazilian economy and politics. Or if they substitute mystical pseudo-cultural concepts (which also happen, moreover, to be completely unrelated to reality&#33;) for such material analysis (yes, I do believe this last is your case: when told that productive relationships in Brazil are overwhelmingly capitalist, you resort to telling us that capitalism is a cultural phenomenon, and that, as long as people reverentiate their elders, capitalism is not a possibility...)


but if they do treat Brazil as modern, then you can fall back on "dependency" and "imperialist oppression".

The problem is, being a marxist, I would use the word "Brazil" with much caution. Is the Brazilian bourgeoisie "modern"? Yes, certainly. Does it oppress brutally and systematically Brazilian proletariat? Only you denied that (and in a quite comical way, as you suggested that Brazil was a country with no direct experience of oppression before the "arrival" of imperialism&#33;) Is Brazilian bourgeoisie open to the idea of confronting first world bourgeoisies? No, it isn&#39;t. And if forced into such confrontation, would it even consider mobilising subordinate classes - the proletariat, the peasantry, the lumpen, the petty-bourgeoisie - to help them in such struggle? I bet not&#33;

Is the Brazilian bourgeoisie "oppressed" by imperialism? Yes, in many sences it is. However, it wholeheartedly accepts such "oppression" as the necessary price they must pay for being allowed to exploit Brazilian popular classes.

Is the Brazilian proletariat "modern"? Yes, I would say so. It is acquainted with modern machinery, huge furnaces, automation of processes, technological unemployment, wage slavery, impossibility of surviving without hiring themselves to a capitalist - what else is needed to make it a modern proletariat?

Is the Brazilian peasantry modern? To the extent that peasants can be modern, they are. I have worked directly with them - not yesterday, but as early as 1985 - and they were, at such early date, well acquainted with the exploitative methods of tobacco transnationals. Both technically - the modern use of pesticides and fertilisers, proper breeding, etc - and socially.

Are there backward remnants in rural stillwatery regions? Sure - just like rural Louisianna or Montana aren&#39;t exactly the cutting edge of modern capitalism.


I&#39;m starting to think that this is the "meat" of the issue in your posts. You find it slightly "uncomfortable" to contemplate your own country becoming a "Colossus of the South"...even if that&#39;s still some decades away.

Hence your model of "dependent capitalism". :lol:


Maybe. Perhaps I am a conscious, or unconscious, advocate for a Brazilian budding bourgeoisie. Go ahead, make some more arguments for your case. The ones you have already made are already dealt with above.

Just keep in mind that the exact opposite may be true: that you are the imperialist apologist here, using marxist terminology to justify its "historical necessity". Up to now, you haven&#39;t been able to explain in what do you base your absurd assumptions about third world ideological structures, nor to make clear how is your idea that capitalism is a cultural phenomenon materialist, much less Marxist.


So that makes the U.K. -- America&#39;s junior partner in Iraq and Afghanistan -- "under-developed" and even "third world"? :lol:

If you had taken the trouble to read my earlier post on how imperialism actually works, and give two consecutive thoughts about that, you would be able to verify by yourself if such practices are relevant in the relations between American and British bourgeosie...

For my part, I would say that Britain is not underdeveloped of third world. While it has evidently sunk into an unprecedented level of political subordination to the US, it remains nevertheless an independent centre of financial capital.

But I would rather challenge your position: what is exactly British capital&#39;s role in modern world? Is Britain still an imperialist country, or has its time passed? How do we decide about that? If Britain effectively succumbs, and looses its imperialist autonomy, does its population go back into believing religious superstition?


I intend to go on "pretending" that I know at least enough about some situations to deal with them theoretically with the instruments I have at hand.

Fine. Do yourself a favour, then.

Actually read things about such situations.

Before you come here stating absurd prejudices about the importance of the concept of "honour" in Brazilian society, read some Brazilian literature. Suggestions: Machado de Assis, Érico Veríssimo, Moacyr Scliar, Luís Fernando Veríssimo, Carlos Drummond de Andrade. They shouldn&#39;t be difficult to find in the US. Read some Brazilian cultural anthropologists as well. Roberto da Matta comes to mind.


Three decades ago the Nixon administration, primarily at the urging of ITT (a then-large American corporation with interests in Chile), sponsored a military coup that overthrew the reformist Allende regime.

Interestingly enough, an attempt to repeat this strategy against Venezuela&#39;s Chavez was a total pratfall.

Do you really believe the novel has come to its end? Don&#39;t you think a new attempt is possible?


A Brazilian "Allende" is quite safe, I think. :)

I don&#39;t think so. The US cannot afford the risk, and will effectively intervene against it (and this is one of the main reasons Lula strictly refuses to be such character, by the way). A Brazilian "Allende" would in fact put American domination over the whole of Latin America at risk; a safe pro-imperialist Brazil is also a decisive pawn to play against Venezuela and Bolivia. But this, of course, is just the opinion of a social-patriot Brazilian... <_<

Luís Henrique

PS. Could you explain your position about Portuguese/Spanish "imperialism"? Is imperialism, to you, unrelated to capitalism, or were Portugal, and Spain, back in the XVI century, capitalist societies?

[Amusing Scrotum]

Originally posted by RedZeppelin+Jan 27 2006, 09:28 PM--> (RedZeppelin @ Jan 27 2006, 09:28 PM) Obviously, they won&#39;t collapse. Just like the government helped out Chrysler so they wouldn&#39;t go out of business in the 80s, they won&#39;t let GM and Ford go out of business. [/b]

Well that is plausible, but you&#39;d have to remember what happened to Rover a few months ago.

The Government didn&#39;t really step in and intervene (in a meaningful way). The Economists considered this a great advance, the Labour Party was no longer a "sucker" to the workers etc. etc.

In my opinion, they didn&#39;t step in because they couldn&#39;t afford too. Thirty years ago they would have Nationalised the company, or given it a huge loan. However they didn&#39;t do either of these things.

A sign perhaps???


Luís Henrique
In which case, obviously, Latin America no longer belongs to the third world.

The problem is, it doesn&#39;t belong to the first world as well. Where do they belong?

Isn&#39;t there a number that comes between 1 and 3???

In my opinion, Brazil (like say Poland and Ukraine) is a second world country, by that I mean it is developing. Where as first world countries are developed and third world countries are under-developed (and usually incapable, for one reason or another to develop).

[redstar2000]

Originally posted by Luís Henrique
In which case, obviously, Latin America no longer belongs to the third world.

Even I can do better than that. :lol:

Argentina (including Uruguay), Brazil, Chile, and now Venezuela are clearly emerging capitalist powers. I don&#39;t think that can yet be said for Peru, Paraguay, Bolivia, Colombia, and Ecuador...though they are moving in that direction.


The problem is, it doesn&#39;t belong to the first world as well. Where do they belong?

I suggested earlier the term "second world" for the "new" capitalist countries.

Granted, the "numbering scheme" is grossly inadequate. I personally prefer a simple division between "old" capitalist countries -- western Europe and North America -- and "new" capitalist countries -- Asia and Latin America.

It isn&#39;t as if we have reliable "statistical indicators" for this sort of thing. We can look at how a country and its ruling class makes its presence felt in its region and globally.

Severian would say that&#39;s "impressionistic" and you might well agree.


...when told that productive relationships in Brazil are overwhelmingly capitalist, you resort to telling us that capitalism is a cultural phenomenon, and that, as long as people reverence their elders, capitalism is not a possibility...

Good grief, that&#39;s not what I said at all.

What I said was that the cultural attitudes of a modern capitalist system differ markedly from those of a pre-capitalist system...and that it takes time for the culture to reflect the new relations of production.

What&#39;s so hard to understand about that?


...as you suggested that Brazil was a country with no direct experience of oppression before the "arrival" of imperialism&#33;

What in the world are you talking about here...warring tribes in the Amazon jungle c.1300???

The Portuguese brought slavery to the region now called Brazil, right?

I&#39;d call that Brazil&#39;s first "direct experience of oppression", wouldn&#39;t you?


Is Brazilian bourgeoisie open to the idea of confronting first world bourgeoisie? No, it isn&#39;t.

Ok, that&#39;s a crucial disagreement. And you have the "advantage" on me because you&#39;re there and I&#39;m not.

I assert that historical materialism requires the Brazilian bourgeoisie to break its "dependency" on the first world bourgeoisie...and that it "ought" to be happening right now.

You evidently think that they "won&#39;t" or even "can&#39;t" do that.

That they will look in vain for their own "Chavez" or "Allende" who will mobilize such popular support as may be required to "get the job done".

I cannot "prove" that you&#39;re wrong about this...only time can do that.

I can only say that if you are right, then that would raise very serious problems for the entire historical materialist paradigm...a permanently servile bourgeoisie would be a genuine anomaly.

And very difficult to explain&#33;


Is the Brazilian proletariat "modern"? Yes, I would say so. It is acquainted with modern machinery, huge furnaces, automation of processes, technological unemployment, wage slavery, impossibility of surviving without hiring themselves to a capitalist - what else is needed to make it a modern proletariat?

Wide-spread cynicism about all figures and institutions of authority. Declining participation in bourgeois "elections" and reformist trade unions. Visible contempt for "leaders" of all sorts. Total indifference to superstition if not open hatred for it.

And an internet connection. :D

The printing press was a material prerequisite for the rise of the bourgeoisie. I think that historians will reach a similar verdict on the internet for the rise of the proletariat.


Is Britain still an imperialist country, or has its time passed?

Its time is passing...as is that of all of the "old" capitalist countries.


How do we decide about that?

A "young" capitalism vigorously develops the means of production. Brazil, for example, is one of the world leaders in the production of plant-based fuels and cars that can run on those fuels.

In California, one of America&#39;s most "progressive" states, the whole idea is just now beginning to take hold.

An "old" capitalism loses the ability to develop the means of production...it begins to noticeably "lag behind". Instead of things "getting better", standards-of-living stagnate and, if Marx was right, begin to actually decline.

Real wages in the U.S. are now where they were back around 1964...and the average work-week has increased to levels not seen since the mid-1920s.

Instead of profiting from foreign investments, an "old" capitalism rests mostly on a mountain of consumer and government debt. Asset values are grossly inflated.

Indeed, an "old" capitalist economy seems to actually require foreign direct investment from "new" capitalist countries in order to continue to function.

It&#39;s been suggested that the "old" capitalist countries can gain a "new lease on life" through information technology and "financial services" -- arranging international loans, corporate mergers and buy-outs, futures marketing, commodities marketing, and such.

But I am pretty skeptical. It&#39;s been reported that Iran is planning to set up an "oil futures" market denominated in Euros...a potentially severe blow to American finance capital.

I see no reason why the "new" capitalist countries cannot develop their own financial instruments over time...making the picture even grimmer for the "old" capitalist countries.


If Britain effectively succumbs, and loses its imperialist autonomy, does its population go back into believing religious superstition?

Of course not. :lol:

What happens is a series of economic crises and consequent radicalization of the English proletariat.

It begins to become obvious that the English bourgeoisie are no longer "fit to rule".

That capitalism has reached "the end of the line" and something must be done if progress is to resume.

IF Marx was right, that "something" will be proletarian revolution and communism.

I obviously think he was right...but we shall see.


Don&#39;t you think a new attempt is possible?

Sure it&#39;s "possible".

Likely? Probably not.


A Brazilian "Allende" would in fact put American domination over the whole of Latin America at risk...

It&#39;s already "at risk"...in fact, I think it&#39;s doomed.

And probably in the not too distant future, either.

The U.S. imperialists lack the resources to militarily occupy or even intimidate "the whole world"...not to mention the painful consequences of the occupations of Iraq and Afghanistan.

No doubt they will attempt to "purchase a military coup" from time to time. I suspect the number of merchants will be declining in that market. Not only do we have the big flop in Venezuela but a lot of Pinochet&#39;s associates are now actually facing trial and possible imprisonment for their services to U.S. imperialism. I don&#39;t think those lessons will be lost on the Latin American military.


Could you explain your position about Portuguese/Spanish "imperialism"? Is imperialism, to you, unrelated to capitalism?

The Portuguese and Spanish Empires were pre-capitalist empires, of course...like Rome, they existed purely for the sake of plunder and slaves.

Holland was, in my estimation, a "proto-capitalist" empire...much like the British East India Company.

I&#39;m inclined to favor the "common sense" definition of the word "imperialism" rather than lose myself in the mysteries of Hilferding, Luxemburg, and Lenin. Capitalism "does imperialism" in different ways (sometimes) than pre-capitalist systems did it.

But it still "smells the same" and has basically the same consequences: islands of "hyper-development" surrounded by oceans of misery and stagnation.

And it never "lasts forever". :D

http://www.websmileys.com/sm/cool/123.gif

[Luís Henrique]

Isn&#39;t there a number that comes between 1 and 3???

It is usually called "2". ;)

The problem is, "second world" is not an empty cathegory. "Second world" were the former "soviet bloc" in Eastern Europe. So the expression cannot be used for countries like Brazil or Poland without generating conceptual confusion.

Some have suggested using the expression "fourth world" for third world countries that are both very poor and clearly stagnant: which essentially means, sub-saharian Africa.


In my opinion, Brazil (like say Poland and Ukraine) is a second world country, by that I mean it is developing. Where as first world countries are developed and third world countries are under-developed (and usually incapable, for one reason or another to develop).

There are some reasons that such classification is inept.

The GNPs per capita of China or India are roughly equivalent to that of Kenya. But China and India&#39;s economies are growing at a pace of 5% +. Kenya is stagnant.

The GNPs per capita of Argentina, Brazil, or Poland are about ten times higher than those of China, India, and Kenya. But, unlike China and India - and like Kenya - Brazil, Argentina, and Poland have stagnant economies, that haven&#39;t significantly grown for the last two decades.

So China is much more "underdeveloped" than Brazil - but is also much more "developing".

In fact, of course, every capitalist economy - including Argentina, Zaire, Albania, and even Britain - is "developing". The key issue, though, is: is its development relatively autonomous (China) or dependent (Malaysia)? Without understanding, and applying, such distinction, the tendency is to reproduce bourgeois ideological assumptions about the emancipatory possibilities of capitalism.

Luís Henrique

[Amusing Scrotum]

Originally posted by Luís Henrique
There are some reasons that such classification is inept.

In a sense bourgeois statistics for economies are rather "inept" as well. They usually paint a "blurry picture".

If you like (taking note of your suggestions) this is how I&#39;d class countries today....

First World -- a country with a fully developed economy, plus an independent bourgeois, a growing proletariat, a shrinking peasantry and a shrinking petty-bourgeois.

Second World -- a country with elements of both pre-Capitalism and modern Capitalism. A bourgeois (part independent and part dependent) and a clear (and relatively large) working class and a large peasantry.

An important factor in a Second World country (in my opinion) is that it would basically have two distinct paths that it will follow in the next few decades. Either it has a bourgeois revolution (of sorts) where a confident and capable native bourgeois comes to the fore. Or it continues as a dependent country and eventually sinks back down to the status of "Third World".

Third World -- a country that is a neo-colony. The native bourgeois hardly exists and the country "looks" pre-Capitalist (there is hardly any modern infrastructure).

Plus I suppose you could call most of Africa a "Fourth World" country, if you liked. However just saying it&#39;s a really miserable example of a "Third World" country is, in my view, sufficient.

[Luís Henrique]

Argentina (including Uruguay), Brazil, Chile, and now Venezuela are clearly emerging capitalist powers.

Argentina should not include Uruguay - but both, very clearly, are decadent economies, not emerging at all.

Brazil and Chile are somewhat more vital, especially the former. They are places that international capital still deems useful as bases for their operations.

Venezuela is a different kind of critter. Due to its dependency on oil exports, it is even more profoundly de-industrialised than Argentina or Uruguay, but, paradoxically, it is much wealthier. This phenomenon is called by professional economists "dutch disease" and I must confess that I do not know enough about its functioning to explain other people what it does and what consequences it has. :(


I don&#39;t think that can yet be said for Peru, Paraguay, Bolivia, Colombia, and Ecuador...though they are moving in that direction.

Paraguay is another case of stagnant economy, the small dynamism it still is able to show being mostly derived of parasytical activities - falsification, smuggling, etc. The others are countries into which cocaine economy has a profound impact - perhaps somewhat analogous to that of oil in Venezuela. Compared to the economies to their South, however, they look poorer, but more dynamical.


Granted, the "numbering scheme" is grossly inadequate. I personally prefer a simple division between "old" capitalist countries -- western Europe and North America -- and "new" capitalist countries -- Asia and Latin America.

The problem is that such classification confuses completely different cases, like those of Taiwan and South Korea, both very dynamical economies, and those of Argentina and Uruguay, that look like poorer versions of Britain.


It isn&#39;t as if we have reliable "statistical indicators" for this sort of thing. We can look at how a country and its ruling class makes its presence felt in its region and globally.

Some statistical indicators should be quite useful, though. GNP, GNP per capita, and GNP growth come to mind. But you are right, we should take a qualitative analysis into consideration too. For instance, the Argentinian ruling class makes its presence felt in Brazil as a political tool for Renault and Citroen, while the Brazilian ruling class makes its presence felt in Argentina as a political tool for Volkswagen and Fiat.

At this moment, Argentina and Uruguay are bitterly struggling about paper factories about to be installed in the Uruguayan side of Uruguay river (that the Argentinians deem to be dangerously pollutant). One of these factories is ... Finnish ... and the other ... Spanish&#33;

Of course things are more complicated than that - but this is the essential picture.


Good grief, that&#39;s not what I said at all.

What I said was that the cultural attitudes of a modern capitalist system differ markedly from those of a pre-capitalist system...and that it takes time for the culture to reflect the new relations of production.

What&#39;s so hard to understand about that?


You don&#39;t have modern capitalism when a foreign corporation develops an oil field, opens a copper mine, or even builds a modern factory. It takes a long time to bring a whole people "into the modern world". You have a whole panoply of pre-capitalist cultural artifacts that must be drastically modified or completely discarded before the idea of proletarian revolution can even "make sense".

Emphasys mine. Perhaps we have here just a communication problem, but I read that as meaning that oil fields, copper mines, and modern factories are not what characterise "modern capitalism"; instead, it is the discarding of "pre-capitalist cultural artifacts" that so do.


What in the world are you talking about here...warring tribes in the Amazon jungle c.1300???

The Portuguese brought slavery to the region now called Brazil, right?

I&#39;d call that Brazil&#39;s first "direct experience of oppression", wouldn&#39;t you?

Well, the problem here is that you call Portuguese feudal expansionism "imperialism", which evidently I don&#39;t.

Anyway, much before capitalism started here, slavery had became a Brazilian institution. So the idea that Brazilians can be brutally oppressive against their compatriots never needed the development of a local bourgeoisie, which was your point.


Ok, that&#39;s a crucial disagreement. And you have the "advantage" on me because you&#39;re there and I&#39;m not.

Yes, I think this is the main disagreement.


I assert that historical materialism requires the Brazilian bourgeoisie to break its "dependency" on the first world bourgeoisie...and that it "ought" to be happening right now.

You evidently think that they "won&#39;t" or even "can&#39;t" do that.

That they won&#39;t and can&#39;t do that - unless catastrophic changes take place in the world arena. That they only can do that through a revolution - a revolution that they have absolutely no intention to start, support, or even tolerate, unless absolutely forced by circumstances.


That they will look in vain for their own "Chavez" or "Allende" who will mobilize such popular support as may be required to "get the job done".

They have already found "their Chavez or Allende", and have deliberately, proudly, and unrepentantly destroyed them. Vargas, that they forced into suicide. Jango, that they deposed and exiled. Brizola, that they exiled and only allowed back once he no longer posed any danger to their power.

They have chosen Jesus, not Bar-Abbas&#33;


I cannot "prove" that you&#39;re wrong about this...only time can do that.

Nor can I prove you wrong. I can only point to the many numerous elements that show otherwise. And lament that you systematically refuse to take them into account, because they contradict your prestablished scheme...


I can only say that if you are right, then that would raise very serious problems for the entire historical materialist paradigm...

Because, of course, and only because, you refuse the contributions of Hilferding, Rosa, Lenin, and Trotsky to such paradigm.


a permanently servile bourgeoisie would be a genuine anomaly.

Nothing is permanent.

There are conditions that need to be fullfilled for such a change. They include a catastrophic crisis of imperialism.

They would only proclaim their independence whence they had no longer anything to lose from the end of their dependece. In any "normal" situation, they have too much to lose to even consider the hypothesis.


Wide-spread cynicism about all figures and institutions of authority.

It is quite probably much more widespread here than in Europe or the United States. In fact, there is no historical character in Brazil that enjoys the unanimous respect Washington, Lincoln, Patton or Eisenhower have...


Declining participation in bourgeois "elections" and reformist trade unions.

You are here doing what Rosa Luxemburg denounced as "taking necessity as virtue"...


Visible contempt for "leaders" of all sorts. Total indifference to superstition if not open hatred for it.

Then there is no modern proletariat in the world?


And an internet connection. :D

So the Paris Commune wasn&#39;t a proletarian uprising?


A "young" capitalism vigorously develops the means of production. Brazil, for example, is one of the world leaders in the production of plant-based fuels and cars that can run on those fuels.

:lol:

Cars that are produced by Italian, German, and American corporations&#33;


Real wages in the U.S. are now where they were back around 1964...and the average work-week has increased to levels not seen since the mid-1920s.

This must be the case for Brazil. Perhaps even worse: unlike you, we had a convenient military dictatorship to avoid wages rising when the purely economical conditions pointed in that direction...


Indeed, an "old" capitalist economy seems to actually require foreign direct investment from "new" capitalist countries in order to continue to function.

Which seems to be the case for Brazil. More than half of investment here is foreign investment&#33;


What happens is a series of economic crises and consequent radicalization of the English proletariat.

It begins to become obvious that the English bourgeoisie are no longer "fit to rule".

That capitalism has reached "the end of the line" and something must be done if progress is to resume.

IF Marx was right, that "something" will be proletarian revolution and communism.

But if such revolution fails, as it failed in 1919 in Germany? How much time before superstion regains its place in British minds?


Sure it&#39;s "possible" [a second coup in Venezuela].

Likely? Probably not.

Do you remember the first attempt at a coup in Chile (in which General René Schneider was killed) failed? Do you remember the second attempt at a coup in Chile failed (in Tacna, July 1973)?

Likely? Likely being planned at this moment, while I am writing this&#33; (will it succeed? different question. We will see. Hopefully, not). Question for you: why did Ms. Rice visit Brazil some months ago, and why was she so satisfyed with her results?


I&#39;m inclined to favor the "common sense" definition of the word "imperialism" rather than lose myself in the mysteries of Hilferding, Luxemburg, and Lenin.

Pity. You lose the important differences. As a result, you are forced to be contradictory - believing that the American Empire is still impressive, while it has never been more impressive than the Italian one. Or, of course, to buy into the bourgeois common sense idea that US is not imperialist because it has no Empire...


And it never "lasts forever". :D

Granted. To quote a class enemy for a change, though, in the long term we will all be dead.

Luís Henrique

[Luís Henrique]

Originally posted by Armchair [email protected] 28 2006, 08:11 PM



First World -- a country with a fully developed economy, plus an independent bourgeois, a growing proletariat, a shrinking peasantry and a shrinking petty-bourgeois.

What is a "fully developed economy"? Germany has a more developed chemical industry than the United States, which in turn has a more developed auto industry than Germany. In this sense, both are somewhat "underdeveloped"...

Is Belgian bourgeoisie really independent?

Is the proletariat growing in any first world country? The bourgeois theorists claim not; they may be wrong, but I would like to see some evidence of that.

It is my impression that the dwindling of the petty-bourgeoisie was stopped with the supremacy of monopolistic capitalism over concorrential capital.


Second World -- a country with elements of both pre-Capitalism and modern Capitalism. A bourgeois (part independent and part dependent) and a clear (and relatively large) working class and a large peasantry.

Brazil - almost no elements of pre-capitalism, production largely dominated by modern monopolistic capital. An overwhelmingly dependent bourgeoisie, with no visible ideas of going independent. A large working class, an enormous lumpen-proletariat, a small peasantry. An average national income per capita. First or Second?

Venezuela - few elements of pre-capitalism, production totally dominated by monopolistic and State-monopolistic capitalism - but mainly restricted to oil extraction, being most of other products simply imported from abroad. A dwindling bourgeoisie, totally dependent of American imperialism, but no longer able to rule over the productive process. An enormous State-dependent class of "modern petty-bourgeoisie" (State employees, technicians, bureaucrats), a concetrated proletariat limited to oil extraction, an enormous lumpen-proletariat, a small peasantry. An average national income per capita. First, Second, Third?

Saudi Arabia - some elements of pre-capitalism, production as in Venezuela. A pre-capitalist State, practically no national bourgeoisie. A huge parasitical "nobility". Large numbers of foreign born proletarians and lumpen proletarians; most of national population composed of middle class State parasytes. No peasantry. A high national income per capita. First, Second, Third, Seventh?


An important factor in a Second World country (in my opinion) is that it would basically have two distinct paths that it will follow in the next few decades. Either it has a bourgeois revolution (of sorts) where a confident and capable native bourgeois comes to the fore. Or it continues as a dependent country and eventually sinks back down to the status of "Third World".

So you don&#39;t believe it possible that it simply continues to develop its capitalist relations of production under the rule of a bourgeoisie associated with imperialism? Why?


Third World -- a country that is a neo-colony. The native bourgeois hardly exists and the country "looks" pre-Capitalist (there is hardly any modern infrastructure).

Is there any example?


Plus I suppose you could call most of Africa a "Fourth World" country, if you liked. However just saying it&#39;s a really miserable example of a "Third World" country is, in my view, sufficient.

Do you believe production in these countries is pre-capitalist?

Luís Henrique

[Amusing Scrotum]

Originally posted by Luís Henrique+--> (Luís Henrique)What is a "fully developed economy"?[/b]

Well I don&#39;t know if this an economic term, but I heard the phrase "well rounded economy" on a few occasions. And basically, from what I can tell that (generally) means a "fully developed economy".

By "fully developed economy" I mean an economy where there is a modern infrastructure ("first world" standard healthcare, advanced transport systems, relatively good educational system of which most of the educational facilities do not require class privilege, etc. etc.).

Plus, there would also be a independent bourgeois and a sophisticated proletariat. By "sophisticated" I mean a proletariat that is capable (and does more) than "grunt work".

The Welsh proletariat 100 years ago was almost completely made up of Industrial workers (Steel workers, Coal Miners etc.) which is backbreaking work yes, but not "sophisticated" and usually only requires a certain amount of skill.

Today the Welsh proletariat does jobs that require far higher skill levels (computer skills, reasonable language skills, College level education etc.).

The development of the means of production and the subsequent changes in types of labour, basically means the bourgeois has to give the proletariat more "skills" which will make the proletariat more competent and therefore more equipped for self rule.

In a sense, Universal education and National healthcare (at least theoretically) should have been supported by the Capitalist Class because they created "better" workers able to do more things and therefore make the Capitalists more money.

Other factors I&#39;d expect to see in a "fully developed economy" are (a lot) of scientific institutions, especially in the scientific fields which advance the means of production, exploitation of under-developed countries and recently the export of "grunt work".

Fewer and fewer proletarians in the "first world" are working in the "traditional" Industrial sector, rather a lot are working in areas that require (at least) an education up to the age of 18. Something like 40% of my generation is going to University, most of those people will end up wage slaves.

That&#39;s all I can think of for now. :)


Originally posted by Luís Henrique+--> (Luís Henrique)Is Belgian bourgeoisie really independent?[/b]

I don&#39;t know.

I honestly know hardly anything about Belgium or the Belgian economy. I suspect that they are too small to be really independent, but that it is able to form alliances (say through the European Union) with bigger countries.

The thing which I suppose would differentiate the Belgian bourgeois from a dependent bourgeois, is that the Belgian bourgeois is able to negotiate its position from the starting point of a "good hand". I would imagine the Belgian bourgeois could tell France to fuck off and still not suffer any (great) repercussions.


Originally posted by Luís Henrique
Is the proletariat growing in any first world country?

Well in Britain I know class mobility is (apparently) virtually stagnant. So no one&#39;s moving "up". I suspect (and from what I&#39;ve noticed around me) that the working class is getting bigger.

For instance in the Construction Industry, fewer and fewer new tradesmen are becoming self-employed. Instead they are going to work for big companies. And if I remember correctly, the average size of a Construction firm (how many people are employed) has risen from 4 to 12 (or something like that) in the last 30 years.

Now I don&#39;t think the population of Britain has tripled over the last 30 years, neither has the amount of Construction workers gone up (there&#39;s actually a "trade shortage"). Which leaves me with the conclusion the working class is growing.

As you can see, this is a tiny example, but been as the bourgeois don&#39;t gather statistics to back up Marx and I don&#39;t have the resources or time to either look for (scraps) of bourgeois evidence, or gather my own. "Tiny examples" are all I have to rely on. :(


Originally posted by Luís Henrique
It is my impression that the dwindling of the petty-bourgeoisie was stopped with the supremacy of monopolistic capitalism over concorrential capital.

Well the business section of The Independent had a piece a few months back where an Economist predicted by 2015 there would be no Corner Shops in Britain, just Supermarkets.

From personal experience I&#39;ve noticed that "One Man Bands" in the Construction Industry are dieing out and a lot of "traditionally" self-employed jobs (dressmaking, farming etc.) are being "proletarianised".

Plus "monopolistic capitalism" (unless I&#39;m using a different definition) requires Monopolies and Monopolies don&#39;t leave much room for the "small businessman".


Originally posted by Luís Henrique
Brazil [....] First or Second?

Well at the moment, I&#39;d say Second. However from what you have said in this thread the "foundations" (material conditions) for modern Capitalism appear to be getting close (or are there). All that would be required is for a Brazilian bourgeois to assert itself and finish the development of the economy.

Which probably will happen, especially if the American Empire starts to falter and other South American countries start to develop modern Capitalism. I&#39;d say all the talk about a "South American European Union" is a good sign that a large portion of South America is about to enter the "first world" and that the South American bourgeois are getting confident as a class.

Think the emerging French bourgeois looked (bar a few radicals) completely dependent on the Monarchy. Yet they gradually grew in confident and then chop&#33; :lol:


Originally posted by Luís Henrique
Venezuela [....] First, Second, Third?

Well I&#39;d say Second, but ahead of Brazil.

True, the old Brazilian bourgeois is dependent and useless, but the new bourgeois (represented by Chavez) looks confident and ready to rule. I suspect that Venezuela will industrialise very quickly and that within (perhaps) two decades it will emerge as a real "world player".

Indeed Chavez does seem to be forging a lot of "friendships" with other countries, which in my opinion, suggests that Venezuela is already starting to fancy itself as a "world player".


Originally posted by Luís Henrique
Saudi Arabia [....] First, Second, Third, Seventh?

Well "Saudi" Arabia is really complicated. :(

I honestly have no idea what life is actually like there, I gather that&#39;s it really horrendous. Based on this (and that it seems to have no other big industry bar coal or looks like it is trying to develop one) I&#39;d say it&#39;s "third world".

I&#39;m not a "history buff" but I&#39;d suspect that there are a lot of parallels between "Saudi" Arabia and some of the old Empires which had overwhelmingly pre-Capitalist relations, but elements of "Merchant Capitalism".

I mean is there a working class of a decent size there? ....because from what I know, it seems most of the "Saudi" born poor live lives similar to those of the 16th century British poor.


Originally posted by Luís Henrique
So you don&#39;t believe it possible that it simply continues to develop its capitalist relations of production under the rule of a bourgeoisie associated with imperialism?

Well it obviously develops Capitalist relations, but also leaves large portions of the country virtually untouched.

As I understand it, Russia in 1917 was horrendous, however a few of the big cities (Moscow, Petrograd etc.) could probably have been confused with London or Paris.

A foreign bourgeois doesn&#39;t seem to develop the economy in the same (rounded) way as a native bourgeois. And they also seem to favour pre-Capitalist "style" Governments in the countries they exploit.


Luís [email protected]
Is there any example?

Most of Africa.


Luís Henrique
Do you believe production in these countries is pre-capitalist?

Well from what I gather a lot of Africans still live a nomadic "lifestyle".

Some of Africa no doubt produces commodities, but most of it looks like Europe did during the Ottoman Empire, horrible.

[Severian]

Originally posted by [email protected] 26 2006, 09:00 AM
A new "gambit" from Severian: Marx was "pro-imperialist" while Lenin was the first "real anti-imperialist".
Of course I didn&#39;t say that Marx was pro-imperialist, and Redstar is fabricating quotes again.


Well, let&#39;s try this one...

That Marx sometimes opposed colonial wars hardly proves that he was always on the side of semi-colonial countries, as you say you are. That position was developed by Lenin, as I said.


They didn&#39;t know that imperialism distorts the development of capitalism in the countries it conquers; it hyper-develops a small sector of the conquered country&#39;s economy and leaves the rest to rot.

Not exactly; see LH&#39;s posts for a more accurate description of the nature of that distortion.


In fact, I would argue that it&#39;s only been really clear since 1945 that this is the normal outcome of imperialism.

Lenin&#39;s Russia (1895-1917) was an early example of this...and it&#39;s certainly to his credit that he noticed it when so many of his contemporaries didn&#39;t.

Exactly&#33; Lenin was the first to clearly explain this, an adopt a political stance which you&#39;re still committed to...without its Marxist basis*.

So why are you claiming to be for Marx&#39;s perspective rather than Lenin&#39;s on imperialism?




*That is, Lenin was for fighting imperialism in a way that strengthened the alliance of the workers and peasants in the imperialist countries and the colonies and semicolonies. You in contrast, support bourgeois nationalism as a way of developing national capitalism.

Actually, this is parallel to the difference Luxemburg, in "Reform or Revolution" (http://www.revolutionaryleft.com/index.php?showtopic=45512&st=0) points out between Bernstein&#39;s approach and the revolutionary Marxist approach.

Bernstein hoped the fight for reforms would bring about positive changes in the objective conditions; just as you hope bourgeois nationalism will.

Luxemburg points out that reforms can only bring about limited changes; and the reason for the fight is to develop workers&#39; consciousness and the subjective conditions for revolution. Just as from Lenin&#39;s perspective, the reason to support the fight against imperialism is to develop the revolutionary alliance of working people in all countries. To build a revolutionary international which is not just a "international of the white race", as he said about the Second International.

[Severian]

Originally posted by [email protected] 28 2006, 12:45 PM
And an internet connection. :D
Right; no proletariat can be revolutionary unless it has read the Holy Scripture known as the Redstar papers.

But lemme ask you something, Redstar: if some of these countries have now emerged as modern capitalist states, and are beginning to develop their own imperialisms...are you no longer on their side in a conflict with the U.S., Western Europe, etc?

Seems like a bit of an inconsistency. Iraq, after all, is one of the more industrialized, urbanized, educated and wealthy of the "emerging" countries. It certainly has its own history of "imperialism" in the common sense of the term which you seem to use - its aggressions against Iran and Kuwait, which were naked grabs for land and oil. (As well as an attempt to counter the Iranian revolution.)

And since the attack on Iran was done in collaboration with Washington, France, etc.....the opposition of Iraqi Ba&#39;athists to Washington is as "phony" as that of Canadian nationalists. To refer back to your post on why you don&#39;t support Canadian nationalism, despite supporting everything else directed against the "US empire."

So....what reason can you have for your stand of unconditionally supporting Iraqi nationalists against Washington? Why not treat it as just another conflict among imperialists?

[redstar2000]

Originally posted by Severian
So why are you claiming to be for Marx&#39;s perspective rather than Lenin&#39;s on imperialism?

Actually, I&#39;m not "for" either. I&#39;m against "my own" ruling class.

I am "for" anything that serves to weaken it and bring closer its overthrow.

If this means supporting Guevaraists in Colombia, fine. If it means supporting Maoists in the Philippines, fine. If it means supporting "left" bourgeois reformists like Chavez in Venezuela, fine. If it means supporting the Ba&#39;athist resistance in Iraq, fine. If it means supporting the Talaban resistance in Afghanistan, fine.

Any genuine resistance to U.S. imperialism from any source helps ME&#33;

That does not mean that I "must" flop on my belly before any of those forces or pretend that in some sense they are "more" than or "better" than they actually are. None of them have anything to do with communism and most of them would be flatly opposed to the idea...if they could even imagine it.

I wish the opposition to U.S. imperialism in backward countries was more "progressive"...but historical materialism compels the recognition that resistance to imperialism is going to reflect the class realities and resultant prevailing ideologies in those countries.

You (and Lenin) imagine that "desirable" resistance movements can be "created" in backward countries at all times in all circumstances. And you won&#39;t support one unless it "measures up" to your standards.

Which are...


That is, Lenin was for fighting imperialism in a way that strengthened the alliance of the workers and peasants in the imperialist countries and the colonies and semicolonies.

The "alliance of workers and peasants" is a metaphysical concept.

They have opposing material class interests...and such an "alliance" is merely a device to conceal the dominance of one over the other.

As a rule, it&#39;s the peasantry that "loses out"...but not in every case or on every issue.

In the real world, your position leaves you supporting either very tiny or completely nonexistent "forces" in the neo-colonies.

You are effectively neutral in the global struggle against U.S. imperialism.

Sure, you can attack the "rationales" offered by the American ruling class for its imperial adventures and expose their hypocrisies.

But the logic of your position leads to indifference as to the outcome.

Perhaps you personally are not indifferent...but you ought to be.


Just as from Lenin&#39;s perspective, the reason to support the fight against imperialism is to develop the revolutionary alliance of working people in all countries.

Lenin&#39;s perspective was false...there were almost no workers to "unite" in his day outside of Europe and North America.

Granted that things have changed for the better in that regard, we still have a huge gap between the modern proletarians and those that have newly emerged in Asia and Latin America.

The working class in India could support an Indian "Lenin". The working class in North America or Europe won&#39;t do that ever.


Right; no proletariat can be revolutionary unless it has read the Holy Scripture known as the Redstar papers.

Your words, not mine. :lol:

In the decades to come, there will be many working class people who will write their own versions of the "redstar2000papers"...and that may turn out to be of considerable significance.

Certainly more relevant than the stale formulas of 20th century Leninism.


But lemme ask you something, Redstar: if some of these countries have now emerged as modern capitalist states, and are beginning to develop their own imperialisms...are you no longer on their side in a conflict with the U.S., Western Europe, etc.?

Your own guru said it: Turn the imperialist war into a civil war&#33;

On this occasion, he "got it right".

Not that his epigones, like yourself, would ever actually do that.


....the opposition of Iraqi Ba&#39;athists to Washington is as "phony" as that of Canadian nationalists.

Oh? There&#39;s no difference between shooting down U.S. helicopters over Iraq and some reformist blabbermouth singing "Oh Canada"?

As I&#39;ve often had occasion to remark, Trotskyism is really strange.

http://www.websmileys.com/sm/cool/123.gif

[redstar2000]

Originally posted by Luís Henrique
Because, of course, and only because, you refuse the contributions of Hilferding, Rosa, Lenin, and Trotsky to such paradigm.

Well, they missed and missed badly&#33; The things they thought would happen after World War I didn&#39;t happen.

Their hypotheses were within the historical materialist paradigm (aside from all that "vanguard party" nonsense)...but they didn&#39;t pan out.

If you wish nevertheless to "apply" them to Brazil (or other places), fine.

But what does it get you? Just what I suggested at the beginning of this thread. You&#39;ll end up doing the same things that the American Communist Party did here 70 years ago...and with exactly the same result: zip&#33;

Oh, you&#39;ll get your reforms. :)

But you won&#39;t get proletarian revolution or communism. :(


Then there is no modern proletariat in the world?

My impression (there&#39;s that word again :lol:) is that the French proletariat is probably the "most modern" in the world today. But I think all of the countries in western Europe contain what I would consider very advanced proletariats. The proletariat in North America lags somewhat...primarily because of superstition and the successes of empire.

Otherwise...ain&#39;t much happening yet.


But if such revolution fails, as it failed in 1919 in Germany? How much time before superstition regains its place in British minds?

Although it is common to refer to Germany&#39;s Spartikus uprising as a "failed" revolution, I think it would be more useful to consider it a premature insurrection. The vast majority of German workers did not support it...probably not even in Berlin.

I expect a very different situation in the U.K. c.2075 or sooner.


Question for you: why did Ms. Rice visit Brazil some months ago, and why was she so satisfied with her results?

I have absolutely no idea&#33; :lol:

What&#39;s the gossip in Rio?


As a result, you are forced to be contradictory - believing that the American Empire is still impressive, while it has never been more impressive than the Italian one.

Your perspective is certainly an unusual one. :huh:

http://www.websmileys.com/sm/cool/123.gif

[Luís Henrique]

Actually, I&#39;m not "for" either. I&#39;m against "my own" ruling class.

I am "for" anything that serves to weaken it and bring closer its overthrow.

If this means supporting Guevaraists in Colombia, fine. If it means supporting Maoists in the Philippines, fine. If it means supporting "left" bourgeois reformists like Chavez in Venezuela, fine. If it means supporting the Ba&#39;athist resistance in Iraq, fine. If it means supporting the Talaban resistance in Afghanistan, fine.

Any genuine resistance to U.S. imperialism from any source helps ME&#33;

Unhappily, we down in the colonies need to oppose our own ruling classes as well.


Well, they [Hilferding, Rosa, Lenin & Trotsky] missed and missed badly&#33; The things they thought would happen after World War I didn&#39;t happen.

As well, the things Marx and Engels thought would happen before WWI didn&#39;t. This is a dangerous perspective: if we take our theorists as Biblical Prophets, we will see them failing every time.

Whatever Hilferding and Lenin thought would happen after WWI (and I would dare say they thought very different things&#33;), their guessings - that were probably no more than attempts to boost confidence - are immaterial. Their analysis of how capital works in its monopolistic phase are what counts.

When you capitulate to the bourgeois concept of imperialism - because such is what you are doing - you lose the specifical content of late capitalism. It will eventually lead you to deny the very existence of imperialism, as modern imperialism very clearly dispenses with the political forms of domination usually called "Empire".


Their hypotheses were within the historical materialist paradigm (aside from all that "vanguard party" nonsense)...but they didn&#39;t pan out.

You apply a double standard: Hilferding or Trotsky would have had to guess the details of political development after WWI. Marx, Proudhon or Blanqui should be praised for their high vision in seeing how the utter failure that was Paris Commune signed the future of mankind?

But you are right in that the "vanguard party" theories are indeed nonsense. They directly stem out from Kautsky, and are essentially reformist, because they deny the revolutionary nature of the working class (even when, like most Trotskysts do, they hypostasise such revolutionary nature into a metaphysical principle&#33;).

That&#39;s the true superiority of Rosa over "the men": she integrally accepted class-ship, including the fact that working class defeats are defeats of the whole class, not of its eventual vainguard.


But you won&#39;t get proletarian revolution or communism.

Here is also something should be retained from Rosa: do what needs to be done. Whether it is going to succeed is something that cannot be known outside from doing it. This is called being a revolutionary. Those who forfeit their duties because they might fail may well not be reformists - but more certainly than anything, they don&#39;t qualify as revolutionaries&#33;


The proletariat in North America lags somewhat...primarily because of superstition and the successes of empire.

But it shouldn&#39;t: American capitalism is the most developed, much more than the French one. Its own success should have wiped out "superstition". And the success of the "empire" is an ad hoc political explanation, foreign to your economicist version of "historical materialism" - indeed, a curious concession to "leninism"&#33;


Although it is common to refer to Germany&#39;s Spartikus uprising as a "failed" revolution, I think it would be more useful to consider it a premature insurrection. The vast majority of German workers did not support it...probably not even in Berlin.

Spartakus, not "Spartikus".

So it was premature. The whole structure of the bourgeois State disappeared, leaving the power in the hands of the proletariat - how is this premature? We should take into consideration the role of the right and center tendencies of Socialdemocracy, that duly reinstated the bourgeoisie into power. That is a failure. You may accuse Lenin of eating the bananas green, but what the German proletariat did was to leave the bananas to rotten, instead of eating them (as well, this was the case in Barcelona, 1936-37, with the remarkable difference that, instead of dirty Noske and dirtier Ebert, the treason was committed by uninpeachable Abad de Santillán and Federica Montseny).

Your argument about the majority of German workers stems directly from Kautskist tradition, are you aware?


What&#39;s the gossip in Rio? [about Ms. Rice&#39;s visit to Brazil]

Rio is quite far from here, no less than Baton Rouge from Washington...

In Brasília, the gossip is that she came here to buy Brazilian neutrality in the case of an intervention against Venezuela... and, of course, that her obvious satisfaction should be interpreted as a sign of her success in such mission, rather than maliced as a sign of her appreciation of Zé Dirceu&#39;s flirtatious abilities...


Your perspective [about the impressivity of the American Empire] is certainly an unusual one.

Adopting you "common sense" definition of "Empire", what is it? Puerto Rico, Guam, half of Samoa, a rock in Cuba called Guantánamo, the Solomon islands and Diego Garcia?

Of course, if we "loose ourselves" in Rosa&#39;s or Trotsky&#39;s "mysteries", we might come to the understandment of how really impressive the Empire-that-is-no-Empire shows. But it is impossible to swim like that in the shallow waters of "common sense" - unless using hidden premises.

Luís Henrique

[redstar2000]

Originally posted by Luís Henrique
You apply a double standard: Hilferding or Trotsky would have had to guess the details of political development after WWI. Marx, Proudhon or Blanqui should be praised for their high vision in seeing how the utter failure that was Paris Commune signed the future of mankind?

Marx and Engels used historical materialism to make many predictions. Quite a few of them have "panned out"...and some did miss.

One that missed throughout most of the last century was the "immiseration" of the proletariat.

The rising standard-of-living of workers in the advanced capitalist countries was celebrated by bourgeois ideologues as "proof" that "Marx was fundamentally wrong".

I don&#39;t know if they&#39;re still making that argument...but if they are, I don&#39;t think a whole lot of people are listening. :lol:

It&#39;s starting to look like Marx was right again.

Proudhon and Blanqui are not really relevant to this discussion...as far as I&#39;m concerned anyway.


Here is also something should be retained from Rosa: do what needs to be done.

A truism...but what is it that actually needs to be done?

I expect the Brazilian left to find a "Chavez" and try to put him in office...probably successfully.

I don&#39;t expect them, at this point, to develop a perspective involving proletarian revolution...I just don&#39;t think that would "make sense" to them.

Sure, I could be completely full of shit about that. :(

My crystal ball is no better than anyone else&#39;s.

If the Brazilian proletariat actually made a "Paris Commune v.2.0", then I would cheerfully reconsider the Hilferding-Luxemburg-Lenin hypothesis...because then there would be something to consider.


Whether it is going to succeed is something that cannot be known outside from doing it.

That&#39;s what we have history for. Certain strategies and their related tactics have been done over and over again without measurable success.

Of course, you can try them again...and perhaps historical materialism dictates that you must try them again.

Luxemburg&#39;s idea (c.1908) that a parliamentary party based on a large organized trade union apparatus will "lead" the working class "to take power" may have to be "tried out" in every "new" capitalist country because it seems to "make sense" in those circumstances.

I can&#39;t see any reason whatsoever why it should suddenly "start working" when it never has before.

But I don&#39;t "know everything"...so we&#39;ll see.


Its own success should have wiped out "superstition".

Well, that was happening up until 1970-80 or so. And the raw numbers of the superstitious are still actually declining...albeit painfully slowly.

The relatively high immigration rate from Mexico reinforces the strength of superstition here, of course.

In addition, there is the known phenomenon of "end of the world" superstitions springing up when people sense that "things cannot go on like this".

Christianity was one of many competing cults that grew during the final century of the western Roman Empire.

Not to mention the secular superstitions that flourished briefly in the final decades of the French monarchy....like "magnetic healing" for example.

In my opinion, "peak oil" is just such a modern secular superstition.

I expect superstition to "deflate" rather rapidly over the next five decades or so...though it certainly looks quite intimidating here at the moment.

Mostly because everyone is afraid to publicly attack it. All of our so-called "revolutionaries" insist on "tolerance of religion" -- as positively stupid a thing as they&#39;ve ever done.


And the success of the "empire" is an ad hoc political explanation, foreign to your economicist version of "historical materialism"...

Why "foreign"? When a working class lives in a successful empire, why shouldn&#39;t that prove appealing? Particularly when standards-of-living are visibly rising?


The whole structure of the bourgeois State disappeared, leaving the power in the hands of the proletariat - how is this premature?

No...the army did not "disappear" at all.

Unlike the case in Russia, the army remained loyal to the values of the old regime.

As did, I expect, a substantial majority of the German working class.

There was no massive uprising in Germany on the scale of Petrograd in February 1917.

Social democracy had not taught the German working class "to take power".


Your argument about the majority of German workers stems directly from Kautskyist tradition, are you aware?

No...but it&#39;s no surprise he would take that position.

The difference between us is that he would take that position before an insurrection no matter what was actually going on.

My judgment is purely historical.


Adopting your "common sense" definition of "Empire", what is it? Puerto Rico, Guam, half of Samoa, a rock in Cuba called Guantánamo, the Solomon islands and Diego Garcia?

You left out "Saudi" Arabia, Kuwait, Iraq, and Afghanistan. :lol: American rule is clearly undisputed in those places by any other imperialist country...except perhaps the small British enclave in southern Iraq.

It would appear that the U.S. also has its eye on some of the portions of the old Russian Empire in central Asia...but there it faces some serious competition from China.

My "common sense" definition of empire has nothing to do with "nominal sovereignty". It has to do with who actually runs the show.

I don&#39;t need Luxemburg or Trotsky to figure that out.

http://www.websmileys.com/sm/cool/123.gif

[Nothing Human Is Alien]

I am becoming more and more convinced that you have given in to chauvinist theories of "cultural superiority" of US/Western Europe.

That&#39;s a conclusion I came to long ago comrade.

[Martin Blank]

Originally posted by [email protected] 29 2006, 11:46 PM

I am becoming more and more convinced that you have given in to chauvinist theories of "cultural superiority" of US/Western Europe.

That&#39;s a conclusion I came to long ago comrade.
What do you expect from an agent of bourgeois ideology but some of its most backward elements as rhetorical flotsam?

Or, as the more "homespun" saying goes: What do you expect from a pig but a grunt?

Miles

[redstar2000]

Originally posted by CompaneroDeLibertad+Jan 29 2006, 11:46 PM--> (CompaneroDeLibertad @ Jan 29 2006, 11:46 PM)
I am becoming more and more convinced that you have given in to chauvinist theories of "cultural superiority" of US/Western Europe.

That&#39;s a conclusion I came to long ago comrade. [/b]


CommunistLeague
What do you expect from an agent of bourgeois ideology but some of its most backward elements as rhetorical flotsam?

Or, as the more "homespun" saying goes: What do you expect from a pig but a grunt?

I know this sort of dogshit will impress none of the intelligent members of this board. But it does suggest a cautionary lesson.

Whenever you publicly defend historical materialism these days, expect to be vilified by the "culture vultures"...that is, those who have something reactionary that they want to preserve but can&#39;t just come out and say what it is they don&#39;t want to give up.

Could be religion. Could be sexism. Could be homophobia.

Could be anything.

As you know, the bourgeois "post-modern" consensus is that "all cultures are equally valid" and adjectives like "advanced" or "backward" are simply Euro-centric "prejudices".

While most often found in the lecture halls of elite "first world" universities, this sort of ignorant crap does seep into the "left" from time to time...sort of an ideological toxic spill.

It&#39;s often mixed in with a generous serving of primitivism. When the evil Europeans and their nasty machines are finally destroyed, we&#39;ll all go back to living the way the gods intended for humans to live.

That celebrity "anarchist" anthropologist who got fired from Yale actually sent me an email calling me a "caveman" for my obstinate refusal to genuflect to some small tribe on Madagascar which he claimed had been "anarchist" since 300CE. :lol:

What gives the lie to such scams is how ordinary people in backward countries actually behave. They hate being backward and want to enter modern civilization as fast as they can&#33;

That doesn&#39;t meaning learning to read Plato or listen to Bach or admire Rembrandt or any of that "western civ" crap. It means clean drinking water, indoor plumbing, electricity, air conditioning, a computer with an internet connection...real stuff like that which we "arrogant westerners" presume to be the basic minimum of civilized existence.

And if that weren&#39;t bad enough in the eyes of the "culture vultures", it means that those people actually want real knowledge about the real world...in place of all the primitive crap that their own cultures taught them.

Horrors&#33; :o

When they can, they&#39;ll make enormous sacrifices to send one of their own to a "western" university...to find out for themselves how to do it&#33;

How to "be modern".

Not because they want to bow towards Paris instead of Mecca...but because they want to stop bowing and start standing up.

Naturally, the reactionaries in all those countries howl in outrage...but to no avail. Technology doesn&#39;t care what color your skin is, or if your father was a peasant, or if your grandfather lived in the stone age.

Learn how the machine works and it will work for you.

Learn some more and you can build one&#33;

In the meantime, we unfortunately have to deal from time to time with those "westerners" who lament the loss of "all the old cultures"...as if humans should be "content" to be exhibits in a museum.

When such people attempt to pass themselves off as "leftists", you may assume the worst of motives.

Miles, for example, is just thoroughly pissed off at me because I completely trashed his feeble defense of "dialectics" -- that wretched Hegelian superstition that no modern thinker takes seriously at all. It&#39;s a "sin" for which I will never be "forgiven". :lol:

I have no idea what&#39;s bothering CompaneroDeLibertad...perhaps he thinks I&#39;m going to take away his favorite cultural artifact at gunpoint. :lol:

CDL does like "flame threads" and perhaps he just wants to provoke one with me.

In any event, I trust the reader will forgive me for this "off-topic" response. I intend to continue to defend historical materialism regardless of the "bites" of these political "mosquitoes".

But once in a while I will let my irritation show. :D

http://www.websmileys.com/sm/cool/123.gif

[Martin Blank]

Originally posted by redstar2000+Jan 30 2006, 05:59 AM--> (redstar2000 &#064; Jan 30 2006, 05:59 AM)I know this sort of dogshit will impress none of the intelligent members of this board. But it does suggest a cautionary lesson.[/b]

If it was meant to impress, it would have been impressive. And if I wanted to impress people here (i.e., if I was as vain and self-absorbed as you), I would post about my political activities of late or a copy of something I recently wrote.


Originally posted by [email protected] 30 2006, 05:59 AM
Whenever you publicly defend historical materialism these days, expect to be vilified by the "culture vultures"... yada yada yada ... blah blah blah ...

I am not making a claim to stand for or against any of the views you claim to be fighting (not that you seem to understand them, one way or the other). Besides, the only thing you seem to be doing these days is reinforcing the view many of us have that you only write these overstressed screeds just to read your own words. Case in point:...


Originally posted by [email protected] 30 2006, 05:59 AM
Miles, for example, is just thoroughly pissed off at me because I completely trashed his feeble defense of "dialectics" -- that wretched Hegelian superstition that no modern thinker takes seriously at all. It&#39;s a "sin" for which I will never be "forgiven". :lol:

Actually, I disengaged from that farce of a thread because it was clear that you could do nothing other than chant overpunctuated and overstressed mantras like one of those worthless media bobbleheads on the Sunday morning talk shows.

Political discussion is not a high school debate class or a rehashing of a talking points memo. Your anti-Marxian ramblings may score brownie points with your cohorts, Larry and Curly, but they did nothing for the discussion. You give nothing for people to think about -- one way or the other. I&#39;m not "pissed off", RedStar, I&#39;m disappointed. I was expecting better. I guess I shouldn&#39;t have expected much from a New Leftover from the NOLA Red Collective other than incoherent vanity posts.

You are welcome to puff out your chest and present yourself as a big bad "thinker" on this board, but someday you may have to make good on all those high-sounding "theories" of yours. But then, practice isn&#39;t your thing, is it? That&#39;s for others to do, isn&#39;t it? What a great way to dodge responsibility for the implications of your "theories"&#33; It only reinforces the charlatanism that permeates your politics.


[email protected] 30 2006, 05:59 AM
In any event, I trust the reader will forgive me for this "off-topic" response. I intend to continue to defend historical materialism regardless of the "bites" of these political "mosquitoes".

You miss the point. In order to defend historical materialism, you have to understand it first. And that is impossible for you to do (which it seems is the point so many others are attempting to make). This is because you reject what Marx (you remember Marx, right?) considered to be at the heart of historical materialism: dialectics.

Miles

[STI]

Haha, so true. Did you see how they went off on the WSM for suggesting that the occupation of Ireland should be opposed?


...And Quebec, and Iraq (not a typo&#33;), and so on and so forth.

I&#39;m actually in an 8-page thread (alone) against like 7 people over whether or not victory for the Iraqi insurgency would be progressive. It&#39;s as though they want no part of anything that isn&#39;t an anarchist revolution "right this minute".

Then they called me a trot :lol:


Granted, the "numbering scheme" is grossly inadequate. I personally prefer a simple division between "old" capitalist countries -- western Europe and North America -- and "new" capitalist countries -- Asia and Latin America.


Are you familiar with the five-world model? I&#39;ve found it much more useful in understanding and especially explaining what the hell is going on internationally.

Unfortunately, the only reference I&#39;ve ever found to it was in one of my high school Geography textbooks... any attempts to find even a vague reference to it on the internet have been dismal failures, to put it generously.

[redstar2000]

I&#39;ve never heard of the "five-world" model...but it&#39;s not an "impossible" number if the distinctions can be made really clear.

I&#39;m certainly willing to "have a look" if you ever manage to turn up a link. :)

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[Dr. Rosenpenis]

The first world, second world, third world thing had to do with standard of living, if I&#39;m not mistaken.
The UN Human Development Index is probably the best indicator of that.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_development_index

It doesn&#39;t really show you which countries are developing, developed, pre-capitalist, capitalist, backwards, or any of that.

It hardly does a good job are indentifying countries under the subordination of a foreign bourgeoisie versus imperialist countries.

[Severian]

Originally posted by [email protected] 28 2006, 11:56 PM
Oh? There&#39;s no difference between shooting down U.S. helicopters over Iraq and some reformist blabbermouth singing "Oh Canada"?

As I&#39;ve often had occasion to remark, Trotskyism is really strange.

http://www.websmileys.com/sm/cool/123.gif
Oh, so is that the difference then? Whether somebody&#39;s in a shooting war with Washington or not determined your attitude towards them?

It&#39;s not based on an economic difference between the countries? Just tryin&#39; to clarify where you stand, and maybe iron out a few of your many inconsistencies.

[Severian]

Originally posted by [email protected] 30 2006, 04:59 AM
What gives the lie to such scams is how ordinary people in backward countries actually behave. They hate being backward and want to enter modern civilization as fast as they can&#33;
And yet there is a difference between the Marxist understanding of historical progress and the chauvinist idea of inherent Western cultural superiority.

Your statements are closer to the second, given your ignorant sweeping generalizations about people who are in processes of uneven social development, and a lot more modern than you think. See LH&#39;s posts for details of just how ignorant and false some of your sweeping generalizations are.

You assume that the "Western world" is always, everywhere, and in all ways more advanced. Reality is messier.

[Luís Henrique]

By "fully developed economy" I mean an economy where there is a modern infrastructure ("first world" standard healthcare, advanced transport systems, relatively good educational system of which most of the educational facilities do not require class privilege, etc. etc.).

Fine definition. But it only works for post-WWII world. Before that, the countries that we use to call first world had no standard welfare, and their educational systems were taylored to fit - and reinforce - class privileges.

Yet, there was a difference between 1930 France and 1930 Argentina.


Plus, there would also be a independent bourgeois and a sophisticated proletariat. By "sophisticated" I mean a proletariat that is capable (and does more) than "grunt work".

You bring into discussion an aspect that I was wanting to address before.

Your concept of a "sophisticated" proletariat seems related to whether "relative" surplus value is prevalent over "absolute" surplus value. As a general rule, were the bourgeoisie is "independent", "relative" surplus value predominates.

This brings back a problem with redstar&#39;s economicist catastrophism, though. The "catastrophe" he invisions is the turning back to "absolute" surplus value in the first world. He believes this would be in direct contradiction with a "sophisticated proletariat" (he sometimes is quite dialectical... :P ).

But this places the question: if what defines a "sophisticated proletariat" is the prevalence of "relative" surplus value, how does the proletariat remain "sophisticated" in conditions in which "absolute" surplus value predominates? Or, perhaps, since the problem will probably take a historical aspect, how much time does the bourgeoisie have to resist the indignation of the proletariat with the falling life standards, before it gets used to the new, more exploitative conditions?

Simply put, if there is the need of a breakdown of the system that it may be replaced by a different system, then there is no linear correlation between capitalist development and class struggle strenght relations. Of course, this unfortunate circumstance makes all the supposedly well buried ghosts to start dancing in the underworld: Lenin, Lukacs, Trotsky, Rosa, even Hegel... dancing and chanting some metaphysical nonsense about, excuse me the foul mouthed expression, dialectics...


Today the Welsh proletariat does jobs that require far higher skill levels (computer skills, reasonable language skills, College level education etc.).

I am quite willing to redefine the concept of "proletariat", but I don&#39;t know if all marxists are that receptive to the idea. If we have to rediscuss it, how would "bosses" and "policemen" be placed? In other words, the absolute Leninist distinction between those who exert "productive" work and those whose work is "improductive" remains valid?


Other factors I&#39;d expect to see in a "fully developed economy" are (a lot) of scientific institutions, especially in the scientific fields which advance the means of production, exploitation of under-developed countries and recently the export of "grunt work".

You see, if there is "exporting" of "grunt work", then the need for "grunt work" remains: it is not that the proletariat has became "sophisticated", but that it (or part of it) has been sent abroad&#33; But this vision, which finds its most grotesque version in MIM&#39;s musings, is certainly quite different from what redstar (let&#39;s give him this well deserved credit&#33;) has been proposing.


I honestly know hardly anything about Belgium or the Belgian economy. I suspect that they are too small to be really independent, but that it is able to form alliances (say through the European Union) with bigger countries.

The thing which I suppose would differentiate the Belgian bourgeois from a dependent bourgeois, is that the Belgian bourgeois is able to negotiate its position from the starting point of a "good hand". I would imagine the Belgian bourgeois could tell France to fuck off and still not suffer any (great) repercussions.

While I can&#39;t also claim a good knowledge about Belgian capitalism (I know the classic difference: there are Belgian corporations operating in Brazil, there are no Brazilian corporations operating in Belgium), I believe that yours is a good take.

Earlier in this thread I have asked about Canadian and Australian bourgeoisies, both of which are imperialist today. I was answered that Both countries were politically dependent of the British Empire, so their bourgeoisie could not have been imperialist. Of course, this is again the problem of the definition of "imperialism". If the "common sense" definition that redstar favours is used, Portugal was an imperialist power up to 1974; Canada was never imperialist.

The Belgian example puts some light into it. Evidently they are able to be, and remain, imperialist only in the frame of the present political process that we call European Union; otherwise their time would have clearly passed. With Canada and Australia the opposite happened; their imperialism, in the past, was framed within the British Empire; no more.


Well in Britain I know class mobility is (apparently) virtually stagnant. So no one&#39;s moving "up".

Some bourgeois theorists hold that people are moving down, that a new underproletariat is forming, composed of people who are structurally unemployable. To be clear, I not only disbelieve such thesys, as I have been one of the most vocal political opponents of Brasília&#39;s former governor, Cristovam Buarque (who is one of those theorists). But just denying the idea is insufficient; which arguments do we effectively have against it?


And if I remember correctly, the average size of a Construction firm (how many people are employed) has risen from 4 to 12 (or something like that) in the last 30 years.

Now I don&#39;t think the population of Britain has tripled over the last 30 years, neither has the amount of Construction workers gone up (there&#39;s actually a "trade shortage"). Which leaves me with the conclusion the working class is growing.

Alternatively, the number of construction firms may well have dwindled to a third part.


Well the business section of The Independent had a piece a few months back where an Economist predicted by 2015 there would be no Corner Shops in Britain, just Supermarkets.

That is very possible. On the other hand, I suspect that franchises will be in the rise.


Plus "monopolistic capitalism" (unless I&#39;m using a different definition) requires Monopolies and Monopolies don&#39;t leave much room for the "small businessman".

MacDonalds - which certainly is monopolist capital - alone is able to make place for a whole petty-bourgeois stratum...


Well at the moment, I&#39;d say Second. However from what you have said in this thread the "foundations" (material conditions) for modern Capitalism appear to be getting close (or are there). All that would be required is for a Brazilian bourgeois to assert itself and finish the development of the economy.

Well, I fear that would also mean substituting "relative" for "absolute" surplus value. This, however, is something I don&#39;t believe is scheduled to happen.


True, the old Brazilian [I believe you meant Venezolan?] bourgeois is dependent and useless, but the new bourgeois (represented by Chavez) looks confident and ready to rule. I suspect that Venezuela will industrialise very quickly and that within (perhaps) two decades it will emerge as a real "world player".

This was my analysis some four years ago... but I am increasingly suspicious that Chávez does not represent "the bourgeoisie" or any of its sectors. He seems to represent the dismissal of the Venezolan bourgeoisie as a class, in a situation in which all economical activity seems to be more and more lead by either the State or a few foreign conglomerates. Evidently he is ideologically bourgeois, but it seems that he went politically astray. In any case, it doesn&#39;t look to me the birth of a new, confident, autonomous bourgeoisie.


Indeed Chavez does seem to be forging a lot of "friendships" with other countries, which in my opinion, suggests that Venezuela is already starting to fancy itself as a "world player".

Yes, he seems to be a hypertrophied Lula: Foreign Affairs is what counts, and is directed without real base in the internal situation. But Lula is much more afraid of the bourgeoisie (not because the Brazilian bourgeoisie is weaker, but, on the contrary, because it is stronger and opposed to international adventures).


Well "Saudi" Arabia is really complicated. :(

I wouldn&#39;t have added a "Seventh World" option if I was not aware of that... ;)


I honestly have no idea what life is actually like there, I gather that&#39;s it really horrendous.

Life standards seem to be consistently falling, but, mysoginistic madness apart, I would say that it compares favourably with most of the third world.


I&#39;m not a "history buff" but I&#39;d suspect that there are a lot of parallels between "Saudi" Arabia and some of the old Empires which had overwhelmingly pre-Capitalist relations, but elements of "Merchant Capitalism".

There are impressive differences, though. Those old Empires had nothing comparable with the "oil enclave", that totally dominates and distorts Saudi economy, utterly destroying any possibility of development of other industries. Besides, their "Merchant Capital" was not only truly internal, with all decision mechanisms strictly kept inside borders, but it also succesfully intruded in foreign economies. Nothing similar happens in Saudi Arabia.


I mean is there a working class of a decent size there? ....because from what I know, it seems most of the "Saudi" born poor live lives similar to those of the 16th century British poor.

From what I know, they live lives similar to Latin American upper middle classes - but I am just parroting old information I was exposed to in high school: possibly false, and certainly far from up to date.


Well it obviously develops Capitalist relations, but also leaves large portions of the country virtually untouched.

That may well be valid for some countries, and certainly it was for most of them under the dominance of British or European imperialism. American imperialism works differently, at least in huge countries like Brazil or Mexico: it effectively transforms the whole of the economy; very little is left untouched.


A foreign bourgeois doesn&#39;t seem to develop the economy in the same (rounded) way as a native bourgeois.

Certainly no, but such disequilibriums are hardly shaped in the way you describe. They have to do with dominance of some sectors over others, rather than with the "enclave" phenomenon you seem to have in mind.


And they also seem to favour pre-Capitalist "style" Governments in the countries they exploit.

This I believe is just false: the bourgeoisie can very well use undemocratic forms of government, even in the first world (bonapartism, fascism, come to mind). Those dictatorial governments aren&#39;t feudal (or slaverish) remains, they are strictly bourgeois dictatorships.


Well from what I gather a lot of Africans still live a nomadic "lifestyle".

Maybe, but are they doing the "grunt work" that has been "exported" from Europe? Are they generating surplus value that ends up in European bank accounts?

Is their misery due to their exploitation by capital, or due to the inexistance of enough capital to exploit them properly?

Or by some specific combination of the two?


Some of Africa no doubt produces commodities, but most of it looks like Europe did during the Ottoman Empire, horrible.

Or like England as depicted by Dickens and Marx, horrible in a fully capitalist way?

Luís Henrique

[Luís Henrique]

From About Wet Snow, in my Oevres Choisies ;) , a pertinent critique of Leninism:


The Relationship between “avant-garde” and class
The synthesis of the blanquist position is expressed in Trotsky&#39;s very famous sentence: "mankind&#39;s crisis is its revolutionary direction&#39;s crisis". This sentence means exactly the reaffirmation of Blanqui&#39;s classical thesis: working class is permanently at hand for revolution; if revolution does not happen, it is because the direction is incapable to enact its role. How could, however, be possible that the proletariat&#39;s revolutionary direction is in crisis, it the proletariat in itself is not? Naturally, only if the "revolutionary direction" is not a part of the proletariat.

In this case, what are these political groups that claim the condition of revolutionary direction? They are bourgeois or petty bourgeois ... that get loose from their original class and go to the proletariat. But why they come to us to be the direction, instead of placing themselves under the command of the class? Because... they bring with them a general, scientific, comprehension of capitalism&#39;s historical process. Now, this general scientific comprehension, which did not spring out of practical experience, is the general, scientific, academical and bourgeois comprehension of capitalism&#39;s historical process. It is necessary for the revolutionary struggle - doubtlessly&#33; - but it needs to be subdued to process of formation of working class conscience through revolutionary struggle. Not to "come from outside" to, conversely, subordinate revolutionary struggle to its own direction.

On the other hand, the working class is not a "thing". It is a social force, historically built. Not only the struggle, victory and defeat experiences do not hit it evenly, but also the very insertion of individual workers into profoundly unequal capitalist society and economy is radically heterogeneous. Like any social class, be it contemporary or ancient, its experiences of exploitation and struggle divide it in sectors more and less exploited, more and less identified with the exploitators, more and less organised, mobilised, eager to struggle - and also in sectors with a greater or smaller comprehension of the capitalist society&#39;s general movements and its contradictions.

There is not the least doubt that this process of internal stratification includes the permanent downward movement of bourgeois and petty bourgeois layers, defeated in the game of capitalist competition. These layers bring to the working class, certainly, precious technical knowledge and willingness to fight; but they also bring an enormous range of prejudices, bourgeois ideology and "want of power" frustrated by capital&#39;s blind mechanism. To reduce this contradictory process to the coming, from outside, of a revolutionary avant-garde bringing a revolutionary class conscience is to reduce the process of building the workers&#39; directions to a technical process.

Naturally, the opposite side of the coin to the blanquist position is the traditional right-sing spontaneism that branded European social democracy&#39;s history: there is no need to talk about avant-garde, since social revolution is the task of the whole class. But the class is not considered as an historical, contradictory, subject involved in a permanent internal strife. So the revolutionaries may sit down and wait for the "coming day" in which the proletarians will be the majority of the population (due to the automatical advance of capital&#39;s concentration) and the working class parties will win the elections (due to the "natural" consolidation of bourgeois democracy) and will easily defeat reactionary bourgeoisie coups-d&#39;Etat (for they will have on their behalf, also automatically, bourgeois State&#39;s bourgeois legitimacy). A complete and ending criticism of this working class reformism, however, is not a pending task: it can be find in Lenin and, specially, in Rosa Luxembourg (Reform or Revolution).

(...)

Autonomy and centrality
One of the consequences of the Leninist conception that the revolutionary avant-garde is an element external to the class is centralism. Once made the correct criticism on working class reformism, and once posited that the class&#39; revolutionary direction is constituted by petty-bourgeois individuals that come to it "from outside", it is necessary to secure this direction mechanisms with which it may defend itself against the permanent bourgeois common sense influence over the ensemble of the resisting organisations. Thence the centralised character of the Leninist party: decisions are taken by the summit, whose revolutionary condition is not on discussion - except to split the organisation and instaurate a new summit... this is what Rosa calls "night-ward" spirit.

(...)

The limits between organisation and individual

Another consequence of the blanquist thesis that the masses are always ready to take the side of revolution, albeit being incopetent to start it, is the ideology of the absolute responsibility of the direction, responsiblity that immediately unfolds into individual responsiblity of the members of the organisation. In crisis situations, this means the responsibilisation of the summit of the organisation and a splinter (in the Trotskyst version) or an external intervention (in the Comintern/Cominform age Stalinist version); in ordinary situations, it gives the organisation summit the ideological instrument to press the common cadres, who are never able to fulfill the irrealistic aims proposed by the summit. From her to intervening in the activists&#39; private life (since boy/girlfriend, college, job, the habit of watching soap operas, or anything else that may be responsibilised for the "waste" of "revolutionary energy" endanger the great aim that is the Revolution) is just a step.

Naturally, such ideology is rooted in the purest bourgeois utilitarism: Revolution is a kind of political assembly line, in which any "unnecessary" movement is a waste.

All emphasys from the original work&#33;

Luís Henrique

[redstar2000]

Originally posted by Luís Henrique
You see, if there is "exporting" of "grunt work", then the need for "grunt work" remains: it is not that the proletariat has became "sophisticated", but that it (or part of it) has been sent abroad&#33;

Quite so. But it is a mistake, I think, to "buy into" the "myth of de-industrialization". There are still many millions of industrial workers in the U.S. and pretty much every manufactured product that the U.S. imports could be manufactured here.

Indeed, as labor costs inevitably rise in the "new" capitalist countries, quite a bit of "grunt work" may well return to the "old" capitalist countries...though more and more of it would be done by advanced machinery imported from the "new" capitalist countries.


But this places the question: if what defines a "sophisticated proletariat" is the prevalence of "relative" surplus value, how does the proletariat remain "sophisticated" in conditions in which "absolute" surplus value predominates? Or, perhaps, since the problem will probably take a historical aspect, how much time does the bourgeoisie have to resist the indignation of the proletariat with the falling life standards, before it gets used to the new, more exploitative conditions?

A generation or two?

It&#39;s a hard question. If the working class in the "old" capitalist countries is willing to "accept" immiseration indefinitely, then the whole communist project is reduced to fantasy.

The "old" proletariat would be too ignorant to make a communist revolution and the "new" proletariat would see no reason to bother.

Here we are in the realm of the hypothetical...where the outcome of the historical materialist paradigm has yet to be proved.

I think it will be proved...but no one knows yet.


Simply put, if there is the need of a breakdown of the system that it may be replaced by a different system, then there is no linear correlation between capitalist development and class struggle strength relations. Of course, this unfortunate circumstance makes all the supposedly well buried ghosts to start dancing in the underworld: Lenin, Lukacs, Trotsky, Rosa, even Hegel... dancing and chanting some metaphysical nonsense about, excuse me the foul mouthed expression, dialectics...

Ideological voodoo is not going to help. The "spirits of the dead" may be invoked...but they will not answer.

If "there is no correlation", then nothing interesting is going to happen, period. Any "revolution" that might happen -- no matter where -- will be followed by a despotism, in turn followed by the restoration of capitalism.

We&#39;re all fucked&#33; :o

Of course the people who actually make a revolution will claim that "they&#39;re different" and that "they&#39;ve learned from past mistakes", and so on.

They&#39;ll be "well-intentioned" as all get-out.

Won&#39;t mean a thing&#33; A portion of historical materialism that has been indisputably confirmed is that an unsophisticated proletariat will succumb to despotism.

And the despots will become a new ruling class.

Consequently, I think the only rational option is to proceed on the assumption that Marx was right and see how things turn out.

Because if he was wrong, we&#39;re all just wasting our time and energy over nothing. :(

http://www.websmileys.com/sm/cool/123.gif

[Luís Henrique]

Quite so. But it is a mistake, I think, to "buy into" the "myth of de-industrialization". There are still many millions of industrial workers in the U.S. and pretty much every manufactured product that the U.S. imports could be manufactured here.

Sure. But the issue is, does capitalism structurally need "grunt work", or might it be able to altogether free mankind from such burden?

If it does structurally need "grunt work", but the proletariat will only be ready for revolution once it no longer does "grunt work", what the prospects for revolution are?

And if it might free mankind from the burden of "grunt work", do we still need a revolution?


It&#39;s a hard question. If the working class in the "old" capitalist countries is willing to "accept" immiseration indefinitely, then the whole communist project is reduced to fantasy.

Oh, we know that they accept immiseration, if not indefinitely, at least for much time. And if they don&#39;t, a few reforms ought to shut them up.

Besides, does the "immiseration" need to be material? Are the proletariat only able to realise they are oppressed if the total amount of beans in their dishes decreases?


I think it will be proved...but no one knows yet.

I think we know quite well that it (in the crippled form you present it) has been already disproved.


The "spirits of the dead" may be invoked...but they will not answer.

Nope... the problem is that they start to answer, even when not invoked.


If "there is no correlation", then nothing interesting is going to happen, period.

Well, we know there is no such correlation. Even you know it - you believe advanced capitalism brings necessarily a revolution - but - if advanced capitalism brings also a successful empire (as you so believe) - then advanced capitalism may bring counterrevolution.

It is undecided, actually, and is something concrete human beings will decide in concrete conditions. Either we are going to defeat them, or they are going to defeat us. But no god or "historical inevitability" has promised victory to either side.

Luís Henrique

[Amusing Scrotum]

Originally posted by Luís Henrique+Jan 31 2006, 12:35 AM--> (Luís Henrique &#064; Jan 31 2006, 12:35 AM)Fine definition. But it only works for post-WWII world. Before that, the countries that we use to call first world had no standard welfare, and their educational systems were taylored to fit - and reinforce - class privileges.[/b]

Yes the definition does only work for now, but in my opinion that is what a "good" definition does. If I had attempted to create a definition for what modern Capitalism was and in it included all the Capitalist countries who are or had been modern, I would have ended up with a definition that most countries would fall under. In other words useless.


Originally posted by Luís Henrique+--> (Luís Henrique)Yet, there was a difference between 1930 France and 1930 Argentina.[/b]

No doubt.

I think Argentina was still a colony of Britain in 1930 (or was it an American neo-colony of America by then?).

Aside from that, if we compared all the world in 1930, we would no doubt be able to come up with another definition for what modern Capitalism was back then. However times have changed and therefore the definitions have too.


Originally posted by Luís Henrique
Your concept of a "sophisticated" proletariat seems related to whether "relative" surplus value is prevalent over "absolute" surplus value. As a general rule, were the bourgeoisie is "independent", "relative" surplus value predominates.

I mus admit, you&#39;ve lost me a bit here....

What is "relative" surplus value? ....and what is "absolute" surplus value?

My (basic) understanding of economics has led me to the conclusion that there is only one kind of surplus value, and surplus value is its name. <_<


Originally posted by Luís Henrique
....if what defines a "sophisticated proletariat" is the prevalence of "relative" surplus value, how does the proletariat remain "sophisticated" in conditions in which "absolute" surplus value predominates?

Well I suppose I&#39;d have to fink out the meanings of the terms "relative" surplus value and "absolute" surplus value before I can answer this question properly. However I&#39;ll give it shot....

I suspect you&#39;re asking how does a proletariat that goes back to doing "grunt work" still keep the new skills it acquired during its "sophisticated" period. Well, in my opinion, it doesn&#39;t keep those skills and I have to agree with redstar2000 that within one or two generations the previously "sophisticated" proletariat will resemble its material conditions.

Meaning the "window of opportunity" for proletarian revolution is within those two generations. And if the revolution doesn&#39;t take place, then we get more Capitalism. :(

If (as I do) you look at it and think for the proletariat to rule they must first acquire the "skills" for self rule and that these skills will come with the development of Capitalism.

Then you&#39;d have to agree that a proletariat no longer acquainted with those skills, will no longer be capable of ruling itself.


Originally posted by Luís Henrique
Simply put, if there is the need of a breakdown of the system that it may be replaced by a different system, then there is no linear correlation between capitalist development and class struggle strenght relations.

Well yes we could say there is a "linear correlation" if we also say that Capitalism only "break[s]down" at a certain stage.

However, that statement could run into trouble and therefore I&#39;ll agree with redstar2000 (again :o ) and say that even though Capitalism could "breakdown" earlier, the proletariat will not be capable of self rule.

And for that matter, the infrastructure that would have come with Capitalist development may not be there, meaning that "Capitalist epochs" would have to happen. Therefore a Capitalist class would be created.


Originally posted by Luís Henrique
I am quite willing to redefine the concept of "proletariat"....

Well there&#39;s no need to "redefine" what being a proletarian means (these people are still proletarians within a Marxist framework).

All that is needed is that we bin some of the old Russian propaganda which creates the mental image of someone being a proletarian only if they come home with dirt on their face. :lol:


Originally posted by Luís Henrique
In other words, the absolute Leninist distinction between those who exert "productive" work and those whose work is "improductive" remains valid?

Well that&#39;s a tricky one. I can&#39;t remember "off hand" whether Lenin limited productive workers to those who produced visible commodities, or whether he included other forms of work?

Anyway, no one would deny that say a ferry worker was a worker (yet they don&#39;t produce a visible commodity (corn, iron etc.). Therefore I see no reason why there needs to be a new definition of the word proletarian so that a person working in Debenhams or a teaboy can be included.

Everyone knows that they are part of the working class.


Originally posted by Luís Henrique
But this vision, which finds its most grotesque version in MIM&#39;s musings....

Yes MIM do have a strange take on it, to put it kindly. :lol:

Anyway, I can&#39;t speak about "de-industrialisation" in America (I don&#39;t know enough about it). What I can tell you about is Britain, and more specifically South Wales.

There is hardly any "heavy Industry"left in South Wales and as much as some of the older generations of the working class may miss it, my generation (on the whole) would (probably) find it disgusting if we were told we&#39;d have to go back down the pits again.
_____

Now just to clear up why I think there is no longer (as much) "heavy Industry" in Britain.

Well, I don&#39;t think it is (mainly) due to economic reasons. Indeed I suspect it has actually been a net loss with regards the British bourgeois moving a lot of the heavy industry (to think they now have to teach us "unworthies" more stuff and I suspect they&#39;ve lost a lot of money on this, hence "Tuition Fees").

Rather I think during the "Thatcher era", big business consciously decided that they needed to make the working class "impotent". And what was the best way to do this, well there are two things that needed to be done....

1) Regulate the Unions more tightly. This has been a huge success, because the Union "bigwigs" have (happily&#33;) accepted this regulation.

2) Undercut the base of the Unions. The Coal Industry had the largest (and one of the more militant) Unions. It was capable of destroying the Government (it forced the Conservatives out of Office in 64&#39; or 65&#39;).

Therefore you best destroy the Union, not through regulation, but through destroying the Industry. And to be honest, the British bourgeois were (probably) remarkably clever here. If they&#39;d waited any longer the Miners Union may have become to strong to destroy.

Anyway, by shipping out some of the "heavy Industry", you make the working class "less clever" as a class. We&#39;d been working in "heavy Industry" for years, we knew how to organise within these Industries, how to fight battles, etc. etc.

Now by changing our kind of work, you (perhaps) make it the case that the working class has to think of new ways to organise as a class.
_____

I think a lot of what happened in "Thatcher&#39;s Britain" (the specific policies etc.) can been seen through the prism of big business trying (and probably succeeding up to now) in making the working class less powerful as a class.


Originally posted by Luís Henrique
I believe that yours is a good take.

Thank you. :)


Originally posted by Luís Henrique
Earlier in this thread [....] Canada was never imperialist.

Well I&#39;d say what makes Canada Imperialist now, is that the benefits of Imperialism go "back into" the pockets of the Canadian. They no longer have to pay "royalties" to the British.


Originally posted by Luís Henrique
With Canada and Australia the opposite happened; their imperialism, in the past, was framed within the British Empire; no more.

Well no.

Canada (like India) acted as "foot soldiers" for British Imperialism. Now (like Belgium) they may not be able to be an Imperialist power on their own (they usually have "joint ventures" with America), but when they do "do" Imperialism, they act as an "equal partner".

Britain couldn&#39;t invade Iraq, so they ask America for help. However, (in my opinion) they don&#39;t act as subordinates for America, they act as equal partners who get their share of the profits.

Actually the "profit system" for Imperialist ventures is probably "fair". If Britain occupies a quarter of Iraq, they get a quarter of the plunder.

Britain&#39;s getting the "full value of its labour" in a weird kind of way. :lol:


Originally posted by Luís Henrique
But just denying the idea is insufficient; which arguments do we effectively have against it?

Well I honestly don&#39;t know if there is an "underproletariat" forming. If there is, I&#39;d say they&#39;re not there because they are "structurally unemployable" but rather because there are no jobs.

Though to be honest I don&#39;t see how having a "vast army of the unemployed" would be such a "bad thing" (other than the obvious reasons of people having no jobs). Why? ....because from our (a Communist) point of view, unemployed people make really militant Communists. Think the KDP and their street fighters, virtually all of which were unemployed.


Originally posted by Luís Henrique
Alternatively, the number of construction firms may well have dwindled to a third part.

If I remember correctly, the number of Construction Firms has stayed around about the same.


Originally posted by Luís Henrique
On the other hand, I suspect that franchises will be in the rise.

I don&#39;t know. Franchises only seem useful in certain areas ("fast food" especially).


Originally posted by Luís Henrique
This was my analysis some four years ago... but I am increasingly suspicious that Chávez does not represent "the bourgeoisie" or any of its sectors. He seems to represent the dismissal of the Venezolan bourgeoisie as a class, in a situation in which all economical activity seems to be more and more lead by either the State or a few foreign conglomerates. Evidently he is ideologically bourgeois, but it seems that he went politically astray. In any case, it doesn&#39;t look to me the birth of a new, confident, autonomous bourgeoisie.

Well neither did "Communist" Russia or "Communist" China, but things tend to take people by surprise.

In my opinion, what could happen (and in sense hopefully will happen) is that a dozen or so South American countries will form an European Union type organisation. Which will lead to those countries developing more thoroughly and through that institution become "world players".


Originally posted by Luís Henrique
Yes, he seems to be a hypertrophied Lula: Foreign Affairs is what counts, and is directed without real base in the internal situation. But Lula is much more afraid of the bourgeoisie (not because the Brazilian bourgeoisie is weaker, but, on the contrary, because it is stronger and opposed to international adventures).

However Lula won&#39;t be there for ever. in 94&#39; you could probably have said a similar thing about Venezuela and now look&#33;

Personally I don&#39;t see how any bourgeois can remain dependent forever, the same way as I don&#39;t see how any proletariat could remain wage slaves for ever. Sooner or later (hopefully sooner) something will break.


Originally posted by Luís Henrique
From what I know, they live lives similar to Latin American upper middle classes....

That does surprise me. I&#39;d say this time, the education system failed you. :P


Originally posted by Luís Henrique
American imperialism works differently, at least in huge countries like Brazil or Mexico: it effectively transforms the whole of the economy; very little is left untouched.

Does it?

I read a while back that United Fruit (I think) used to buy everything in a village, virtually turning the village into a landed estate, with the villagers (in a way) serfs.


Originally posted by Luís Henrique
Certainly no, but such disequilibriums are hardly shaped in the way you describe. They have to do with dominance of some sectors over others, rather than with the "enclave" phenomenon you seem to have in mind.

However in Europe and North America, the "weak" sectors were given a "helping hand". This doesn&#39;t seem to happen in South America, does it?


Originally posted by Luís Henrique
This I believe is just false: the bourgeoisie can very well use undemocratic forms of government, even in the first world (bonapartism, fascism, come to mind). Those dictatorial governments aren&#39;t feudal (or slaverish) remains, they are strictly bourgeois dictatorships.

Well I remember something interesting a liberal once said to me (in fact probably the only interesting thing I&#39;ve heard from a liberal&#33;).

Anyway he said that people shouldn&#39;t try to "install (bourgeois) democracy", rather they should just trade and develop the "undemocratic" countries economy because the "democracy" would follow.

In many ways, I think that&#39;s a fair statement. Modern Capitalism doesn&#39;t seem to be able to function well under a dictatorship. Therefore "liberal democracy" and "liberal society" is needed.

So perhaps one could refer to dictatorships of the person as a pre-modern-Capitalist form of governance and dictatorships of capital as modern Capitalist countries.

Plus of course, traditional fascism borrowed a lot of pre-Capitalist stuff and I suspect a fascist regime could last very long (left on its own) in a Capitalist country.

It would either implode or drag the country back to Feudalism.


Originally posted by Luís Henrique
Maybe, but are they doing the "grunt work" that has been "exported" from Europe?

I could be wrong, but I thought most of the "grunt work" went to Asia?


Luís [email protected]
Are they generating surplus value that ends up in European bank accounts?

I&#39;m not sure whether Africans themselves actually get employed. The Shell works in the Niger Delta employs mainly outside workers.


Luís Henrique
Is their misery due to their exploitation by capital, or due to the inexistance of enough capital to exploit them properly?

Well they live a nomadic "lifestyle". Meaning they wonder around and kill shit. I don&#39;t think there&#39;s much exploitation by capital there.

Plus, here I&#39;m talking about the really wretched parts of Africa, not South Africa, etc. etc.

[Luís Henrique]

I had written a long, thoroughly tought answer to your post... but managed to lose it into the mystical bowels of the internet.


Originally posted by Armchair Socialism
What is "relative" surplus value? ....and what is "absolute" surplus value?

My (basic) understanding of economics has led me to the conclusion that there is only one kind of surplus value, and surplus value is its name. <_<

Yes, ther is only one kind of surplus value. There are two different methods of expanding it, though:

Absolute surplus value is when you increase duration or intensity of labour, ie, essentially force people to work more.

Relative surplus value is when you increase productivity of labour, ie, essentially put better machinery to the service.


Meaning the "window of opportunity" for proletarian revolution is within those two generations. And if the revolution doesn&#39;t take place, then we get more Capitalism. :(

I fear that this might fall under the Great Sin of Dialectics.

It implies a distinction between the economical development of capitalism and the political development of the proletariat. And I think you are right; those two things are indeed related, but not in a mechanical way. Meaning that capitalism may well be more developed in country A, and the proletariat of country B be more apt for revolutionary struggle. Or that in the history of country A, the proletariat might have been more ready for revolution in 1870 than in 1938, albeit in the 68 years inbetween capitalism would have of course become more "advanced".

That, however, seems to be contrary to the dogma of "historical materialism" as conceived by redstar.


If (as I do) you look at it and think for the proletariat to rule they must first acquire the "skills" for self rule and that these skills will come with the development of Capitalism.

In fact, this would be the dogma I referred above. The political development of the proletariat as a linear function of the economical development of capitalism.

But "if Marx was right", the Parisian proletariat in 1870 forged the instruments of its dictatorship, and failed because of tactical mistakes, not because of its immaturity to rule. And they even hadn&#39;t internet&#33;

To me, and I fear to Marx as well, the proletariat&#39;s skills for self-rule are political skills, not technical skills.


Well that&#39;s a tricky one. I can&#39;t remember "off hand" whether Lenin limited productive workers to those who produced visible commodities, or whether he included other forms of work?

As far as I know, he would have considered non-productive workers part of the petty-bourgeoisie. That&#39;s what Poulantzas does, without mentioning any updating of Lenin&#39;s theories, and Poulantzas can hardly be accused of anti-Leninism.


Therefore you best destroy the Union, not through regulation, but through destroying the Industry. And to be honest, the British bourgeois were (probably) remarkably clever here. If they&#39;d waited any longer the Miners Union may have become to strong to destroy.

Well, the capitalists are capitalists because they put their money to reproduce itself by buying labour force and putting it to produce surplus-value. This has the inconvenient of creating a proletariat, but the only way to avoid a proletariat is to avoid being capitalists. And this is something I think would be out of question.

Besides, I wonder why would they try and destroy the Unions? Weren&#39;t the Unions supposed to be in fact part of the scheme of labour exploitation?


Well I honestly don&#39;t know if there is an "underproletariat" forming. If there is, I&#39;d say they&#39;re not there because they are "structurally unemployable" but rather because there are no jobs.

The problem is, there are not enough jobs for all proletarians. Which implies that some proletarians are employed, others are not. And obviously, those employed tend to be the more skilled. And if the difference in skill grows too much (and it tends to, since unemployment destroys skill), it is possible that the lower layers become in fact permanently unemployed. The theory then concludes that those who have the skills are in fact "privileged" for having a job, and those who would be really interested in destroying the system have not the skills.

Luís Henrique

[Severian]

Originally posted by Luís [email protected] 6 2006, 07:58 PM
As far as I know, he would have considered non-productive workers part of the petty-bourgeoisie. That&#39;s what Poulantzas does, without mentioning any updating of Lenin&#39;s theories, and Poulantzas can hardly be accused of anti-Leninism.
That&#39;s a pretty shady method: because somebody seems pro-Lenin, therefore whatever he/she thinks is what Lenin thought?

I can "hardly be accused of anti-Leninism" myself, and it seems flatly ridiculous to me to say that non-productive workers are therefore petty-bourgeois. A proletarian is someone who can only live by selling their labor-power. Whether their labor produces value, or not, is simply irrelevant.

And conversely, there are a lot of producers who are not wage-workers. E.g. peasants and working farmers.

But a lot of people do make that leap and assume that non-productive equals non-proletarian.

There was a good thread on this, actually. Here (http://www.revolutionaryleft.com/index.php?showtopic=41139)

[Luís Henrique]

Originally posted by Severian+Feb 7 2006, 02:34 AM--> (Severian @ Feb 7 2006, 02:34 AM)
Luís [email protected] 6 2006, 07:58 PM
As far as I know, he would have considered non-productive workers part of the petty-bourgeoisie. That&#39;s what Poulantzas does, without mentioning any updating of Lenin&#39;s theories, and Poulantzas can hardly be accused of anti-Leninism.
That&#39;s a pretty shady method: because somebody seems pro-Lenin, therefore whatever he/she thinks is what Lenin thought? [/b]
That&#39;s fair, but should I say in my defence that I am referring to Poulantzas book on Fascism and Dictatorship. In that book, he quotes Lenin frequently, even defines "marxism-leninism" as "the" "proletarian ideology", and, whenever he sees necessary to differentiate from Lenin, he states it and explains why. When he discusses non-productive workers, he does not quote Lenin (rather Wilhelm Reich) but does not seem to think necessary to point that his view (that non-productive workers are not part of the proletariat, but of the petty-bourgeoisie) differs from Lenin&#39;s and to offer and explanation to such heterodoxy. Assuming his intelectual honesty, I suppose his understanding of Lenin is that Vladimir Illitch wouldn&#39;t disagree.

But you are right that this can only be settled by a direct quote from Lenin stating clearly what he thinks of non-productive workers, one way or other.

And I think you are right in your definition of the proletariat, too. Proletarians are those who can only survive by selling their labour force; often if such labour force will be used in a productive or improductive way depends not on the labourer. So I would say that improductive workers are a fraction or a sector of the proletariat, not of the petty-bourgeoisie.

In that, I disagree with both Poulanzas and redstar. And I think so does Armchair Socialism.

Luís Henrique

[Amusing Scrotum]

Originally posted by Luís Henrique+--> (Luís Henrique)I had written a long, thoroughly tought answer to your post... but managed to lose it into the mystical bowels of the internet.[/b]

I know the feeling. I once wrote out a reply that took me three and a half hours and then when I clicked "Add Reply" the page didn&#39;t load and I lost it all. I almost cried. :lol:


Originally posted by Luís Henrique+--> (Luís Henrique)There are two different methods of expanding it, though....[/b]

That seems a good distinction (and a useful one).

I suppose in this framework I would be arguing that workers who produce "relative surplus value" would be more "capable" of self rule and of becoming a "competent" class.

Why? ....well I think someone who works 16 hours a day is going to be literally to exhausted and (most likely) not confident enough to think of revolution and self rule.

I think there&#39;s probably a "mentality" that builds up around "grunt work" that leads the workers doing that work to think that is all they are capable of. Plus the educational requirements for such work aren&#39;t that high and personally I think the proletariat needs to be "clever" before it can stand on its own as a class.

Secondly, the people producing "relative surplus value" will in my opinion have a more confident outlook on their ability and more "skills" for self rule. A worker performing highly skilled tasks which require quite a bit of education is likely to develop two "mentalities" from the same starting point....

They will think "I&#39;m really fucking good at this and really valuable" - which will lead them to the following class outlooks....

1) I should go into business for myself and become a Capitalist.

Or....

2) I should get rid of the Capitalists all together and me and my highly capable co-workers can run society together.
____

I have been reading a bit on the French bourgeois recently and what struck me was they didn&#39;t just overthrow the King. Rather they first became a confident class which ridiculed the establishment constantly.

I think in many ways the proletariat will have to be more confident and by the time of a proletarian revolution (which goes on to establish a Communist society) they will have already destroyed all the myths of bourgeois rule, organised religion, bourgeois "democracy", etc. etc.

If I&#39;m right, it&#39;ll be a long wait before we get Communism. However, I suspect that I&#39;m right, but as ever, I can&#39;t tell the future.


Originally posted by Luís Henrique
I fear that this might fall under the Great Sin of Dialectics.

Ah&#33; :lol:


Originally posted by Luís Henrique
It implies a distinction between the economical development of capitalism and the political development of the proletariat. And I think you are right; those two things are indeed related, but not in a mechanical way.

Well there is a "distinction", but I think they are closely correlated.

For instance, America is the most developed economic power, but France or perhaps South Korea seems to have the most "politically developed" working class.

I think the best way I could put it, is that in every stage of "economic development", there are certain levels of "political development" and these "levels" are set between certain boundaries.

So at say stage 1, the highest "political development" possible could be really militant Unions and the lowest outright support for a fascist party. Where as at stage 5, the highest would be proletarian revolution and the lowest support for a Social-Democrat.

There is probably an exception. This being that when the ruling class declares outright war on the working class (Franco&#39;s coup) then the working class is "forced" to respond. However, because the working class lost in Spain, we&#39;d been unable to judge properly as to whether a working class that has been "kicked up the arse" to become revolutionary, is ready as a class to rule itself.

I suspect that had the working class won in Spain, that within a decade or so some left-populist despot would have taken power "on behalf" of the workers.


Originally posted by Luís Henrique
That, however, seems to be contrary to the dogma of "historical materialism" as conceived by redstar.

Well I can&#39;t speak for redstar2000, but I suspect his "dogmatic historical materialism" is a bit more "flexible" than you think. I think he&#39;s probably been a bit what I think the Russians called "technologically deterministic" because he spends a lot of time arguing with people who insist Communism is possible at any time anywhere.


Originally posted by Luís Henrique
The political development of the proletariat as a linear function of the economical development of capitalism.

Well I&#39;ve talked about it above, but really I&#39;d say that in my opinion the development is not "linear", rather it is "closely correlated".


Originally posted by Luís Henrique
But "if Marx was right", the Parisian proletariat in 1870 forged the instruments of its dictatorship, and failed because of tactical mistakes, not because of its immaturity to rule.

Well the Paris Commune didn&#39;t last long enough to make a really good judgement in this respect. Really the Paris Commune needed to function for over 10 years if we were to make a thorough judgement on the subject.


Originally posted by Luís Henrique
To me, and I fear to Marx as well, the proletariat&#39;s skills for self-rule are political skills, not technical skills.

Well you could find both arguments in parts of Marx&#39;s work. A little quote here, a little quote there, etc. etc.

For me, the "technical skills" bring with them the "political skills". Not "linear", but "closely correlated". :P


Originally posted by Luís Henrique
Weren&#39;t the Unions supposed to be in fact part of the scheme of labour exploitation?

It depends. Some of the Unions went out on strike all the time and others just tried to bargain with the state.

Pre-Thatcher the Union laws were not as tight and the Unions were far more militant. Thatcher (who stood on the platform of "taming" the Unions) tightened up the laws and the Unions have abided by them ever since - making them useless.


Originally posted by Luís Henrique
The theory then concludes that those who have the skills are in fact "privileged" for having a job, and those who would be really interested in destroying the system have not the skills.

Well I think proponents of this theory could use the example of Germany where the unemployed joined the KPD and fought fascism and the employed joined the SDP and well....voted.

Generally, I don&#39;t think having skills is a "privilege" that will make people "un-revolutionary", indeed I think that a decent education in particular does help to "build" a confident class outlook.

I mean the posters on this board for instance who&#39;s post I enjoy the most, all seem to be both educated at College level and working class. A "deadly mix" for the bourgeois in my opinion&#33; :)
____

On a side note, does anyone think that this thread should be moved to Theory so that the rest of the board can see it? ....especially since we&#39;ve had the vote on a sub-forum for Reformism.

Edit....


Luís [email protected]
In that, I disagree with both Poulanzas and redstar. And I think so does Armchair Socialism.

Well if Poulanzas asserts that one must produce a "visible commodity" or they are petty-bourgeois, then I&#39;d to disagree with him and so I think does redstar2000....


Mickey&#045;Maoism
Perhaps because the "service industry" was "too small to notice" in his time.

Using England as an example (where Marx did most of his research), millions of people were employed as private servants to the wealthy and even the upper middle class. In fact, Marx&#39;s wife had a servant (a personal retainer that came along with her from her family when she and Marx married).

These people labored but did not produce any commodities...and thus no surplus value.

There are still a small number of servants now; but, for the most part, all the services that were once produced outside the sphere of commodity circulation are now produced inside that sphere.

I frankly don&#39;t see how MIM can deny this obvious fact.

If you obstinately maintain that some unknown proportion of the proletariat does not produce surplus value even though they produce commodities (services) for sale in the marketplace, then as far as I am concerned, the credibility of your "3 to 1" or "4 to 1" ratio of "unproductive workers (or "parasites") to "real workers" is already questionable.

I gather that your view limits "commodity production" to physical entities...corn and iron, in Marx&#39;s example.

But you should really know better than that. Are railroad workers "real proletarians"? After all, they don&#39;t produce "anything"...they just move stuff around.

http://www.redstar2000papers.com/theory.ph...rt_from=&ucat=& (http://www.redstar2000papers.com/theory.php?subaction=showfull&id=1083851178&archive=&cnshow=headlines&start_from=&ucat=&)

[redstar2000]

Originally posted by Luís Henrique
But "if Marx was right", the Parisian proletariat in 1870 forged the instruments of its dictatorship, and failed because of tactical mistakes, not because of its immaturity to rule.

It is quite true that Marx (and Engels) were very critical of the tactical errors of the Communards.

Because, I think, both of them operated under the assumption that successful proletarian revolution was possible in their own time.

That turned out to be wildly over-optimistic. At the very time that they thought capitalism was careening towards "the end", it was actually just really getting underway.

As others have pointed out, they lived in the era of bourgeois revolutions in Europe.

And this affected how they viewed the events of their time. They "saw" a far more class conscious proletariat than actually existed.

As revolutionaries are constantly tempted to do, they read their "hopes" into events.

It&#39;s certainly a mistake that I&#39;ve made all too often...and there&#39;s probably not a person on this board who hasn&#39;t done it at least once.

It seems to me that the "best course" is to look at past revolutionary efforts as hints of what might someday be possible rather than quarrel over historical "what ifs" -- e.g., if they hadn&#39;t done "that" and instead had done "this", then the revolutionaries would have "won".

I think a sober conclusion is that it probably didn&#39;t matter what they did...they still would have been defeated.

My "historical materialist dogma" rests on the simple proposition that it takes enormous "high tech" to create both the potential material abundance and the revolutionary consciousness to make communism both practical and enduring.

You simply can&#39;t do it "on the cheap".

http://www.websmileys.com/sm/cool/123.gif

[Luís Henrique]

I did a search for Lenin&#39;s opinions on non-productive workers, but couldn&#39;t find nothing besides groups claiming the "correct" leninist position is this or that, whithout providing actual cites. So I fear that Lenin did not in fact write on the subject...

Does someone know better?

Luís Henrique

[Severian]

Originally posted by Armchair Socialism+Feb 7 2006, 09:45 AM--> (Armchair Socialism @ Feb 7 2006, 09:45 AM)
Luís Henrique
I had written a long, thoroughly tought answer to your post... but managed to lose it into the mystical bowels of the internet.

I know the feeling. I once wrote out a reply that took me three and a half hours and then when I clicked "Add Reply" the page didn&#39;t load and I lost it all. I almost cried. :lol: papers.com/theory.ph...rt_from=&ucat=&[/URL] [/b]
The simple way to avoid this is to copy long posts to the clipboard before hitting "post."

The more complex but reliable way, which you probably already know, is to write &#39;em in or copy &#39;em to Wordpad or another program.

It wouldn&#39;t be surprising if Lenin actually never expressed a view on non-productive workers; he didn&#39;t really write a lot about general economic theory. Just some data-rich stuff on the economic situations of particular times and/or places. (Imperialism and Development of Capitalism in Russia.)

[redstar2000]

Funny as it sounds, check the MIM site...I seem to recall they have threads about "unproductive workers" and quotes from Lenin.

http://irtr.org/forums/index.php?sid=66a94...911fe16343ad210 (http://irtr.org/forums/index.php?sid=66a94f183bfebc438911fe16343ad210)

http://www.websmileys.com/sm/cool/223.gif

[Amusing Scrotum]

Also on the other MIM site you may wish to look over the "quotes" section....

http://www.etext.org/Politics/MIM/classics/classics.html

If there&#39;s stuff by Lenin on un-productive workers, they&#39;ll have found it. :lol:

[Vanguard1917]

Funny as it sounds, check the MIM site...I seem to recall they have threads about "unproductive workers" and quotes from Lenin.

http://irtr.org/forums/index.php?sid=66a94...911fe16343ad210


Also on the other MIM site you may wish to look over the "quotes" section....

http://www.etext.org/Politics/MIM/classics/classics.html

If there&#39;s stuff by Lenin on un-productive workers, they&#39;ll have found it.

I checked out both of those links. Some crazy stuff...

American Maoism is very strange. :o

It seems to me that it&#39;s very much a product of American society and culture - particularly in the ways it has embraced the politics of cultural identity.

Why "womyn", "wimmin" and "persyn"? What was wrong with "woman", "women" and "person"? Don&#39;t answer that...&#33;

Has the women&#39;s movement really sunk so low that it needs the petty re-spelling of words to give it some edge?

I don&#39;t want to go off the subject of this clearly very important thread on reformism (although i obviously have) but could someone who knows tell me why the RCP (USA) was initially against homosexuality? Or perhaps just provide a link with some information on the matter?

[Amusing Scrotum]

Originally posted by Severian+Feb 7 2006, 11:53 PM--> (Severian @ Feb 7 2006, 11:53 PM) The simple way to avoid this is to copy long posts to the clipboard before hitting "post." [/b]

I select all the post and press "copy" now, it saves the "effort" of opening the notepad. :P


Originally posted by [email protected]
American Maoism is very strange. :o

I don&#39;t think that should come as a surprise. :lol:


Vanguard1917
Or perhaps just provide a link with some information on the matter?

There is some stuff on it here....

http://www.redstar2000papers.com/theory.ph...rt_from=&ucat=& (http://www.redstar2000papers.com/theory.php?subaction=showfull&id=1114268920&archive=&cnshow=headlines&start_from=&ucat=&)

....some quotes from former RCP members on the issue of homosexuality.

[Severian]

Originally posted by Armchair Socialism+Feb 8 2006, 08:34 AM--> (Armchair Socialism @ Feb 8 2006, 08:34 AM)
[email protected] 7 2006, 11:53 PM
The simple way to avoid this is to copy long posts to the clipboard before hitting "post."

I select all the post and press "copy" now, it saves the "effort" of opening the notepad. :P [/b]
Yeah, that&#39;s what I meant.

MIM is beyond very strange into borderline clinically insane; but keep in mind it&#39;s a tiny group which few people have ever seen in the flesh. The RCP, PL, and in a sense Workers World are probably more typical of "American Maoism". Strange in their own ways, I guess.

The RCP was homophobic because Stalin and Mao were, IMO. I don&#39;t think a lot of special explanation is required.

About that quote page, MiM doesn&#39;t seem to have found anything from Lenin particularly relevant to this discussion. Just his well-known view that imperialist superprofits enable the bourgeoisie to "bribe" the top layer of the working class into a more petty-bourgeois outlook. In places, they grab stuff out of context to conceal that Lenin&#39;s talking about a potential for what could happen if certain tendencies of imperialism continued unchecked and all manufacturing was shifted to the colonies and semicolonies.

They have a more relevant Marx quote, actually, about unproductive "workers" - but he&#39;s talking about bureaucrats, lawyers and other drones who are not ordinarily considered part of the working class.

[Amusing Scrotum]

On the whole homosexuality issue, this thread appeared at another board....

http://www.libcom.org/forums/viewtopic.php...der=asc&start=0 (http://www.libcom.org/forums/viewtopic.php?t=7920&postdays=0&postorder=asc&start=0)

The Militant were very influential in the "Poll Tax Riots" if I remember correctly, but don&#39;t quote me on that one - I wasn&#39;t even born when they happened&#33;

Anyway, I think most of the "Old Left" was (or is) homophobic and its "roots" can be found in some of Marx&#39;s letters with an old German friend were they joked about a gay Gynaecologist (I think).

That being said, it&#39;ll probably all die out with "my generation" as it certainly seems the "New Left" is linking itself with a lot of GLBT rights groups - and about time I say.

[redstar2000]

There is at least one extant letter from Marx to Engels (written in the late 1870s, I think) which complains rather nastily about the influence of gays in German social democracy.

But it&#39;s pretty obscure and probably was never widely read. I think the left in the last century was homophobic in general...it was just a reactionary part of the existing culture that people picked up "naturally" without ever questioning it.

Much like a lot of socialists in the early decades of the 20th century touted socialism as a good way to "improve the race".

Much like, for that matter, some contemporary lefties who argue that we need socialism "to save humanity from extinction".

The tendency to uncritically incorporate whatever ideas might be "trendy" or "just common sense" in bourgeois society is one that must constantly be fought against.

The bourgeoisie never say anything without a reason...and usually it&#39;s a very bad one.

http://www.websmileys.com/sm/cool/123.gif

[Severian]

Originally posted by Armchair [email protected] 10 2006, 12:00 AM
Anyway, I think most of the "Old Left" was (or is) homophobic and its "roots" can be found in some of Marx&#39;s letters with an old German friend were they joked about a gay Gynaecologist (I think).
That really makes no sense. Marx shared a lot of the prejudices of his time (and certainly prejudice against homosexuals was the norm then); but not all of Marx&#39;s prejudices became eternal on the left.

If you want to know why this particular prejudice persisted for so long and even grew for a time among certain large sectors of the left, not to mention the Soviet government....you&#39;d do well to ask what class interests this served, not an idealistic explanation based on Marx&#39;s letters.

The persecution and demonization of homosexuals by the Stalinist apparatchiks and their followers internationally - which, in the 20th century, went far beyond anything Marx said or did in the less enlightened 19th - was part of a general roll-back of women&#39;s rights and changed family relations. Trotsky described this general process in the Revolution Betrayed:

The marriage and family laws established by the October revolution, once the object of its legitimate pride, are being made over and mutilated by vast borrowings from the law treasuries of the bourgeois countries. And as though on purpose to stamp treachery with ridicule, the same arguments which were earlier advanced in favor of unconditional freedom of divorce and abortion—“the liberation of women,” “defense of the rights of personality,” “protection of motherhood”—are repeated now in favor of their limitation and complete prohibition.

The retreat not only assumes forms of disgusting hypocrisy, but also is going infinitely farther than the iron economic necessity demands. To the objective causes producing this return to such bourgeois forms as the payment of alimony, there is added the social interest of the ruling stratum in the deepening of bourgeois law. The most compelling motive of the present cult of the family is undoubtedly the need of the bureaucracy for a stable hierarchy of relations, and for the disciplining of youth by means of 40,000,000 points of support for authority and power.

Those "marriage and family laws established by the October revolution", incidentally, did not include any prohibition against homosexuality. The U.S. Supreme Court didn&#39;t catch up with that til the 21st century.

A bit on how this applied to homosexuality specifically. (http://www.blythe.org/arenas-e2.html) Scroll down to the sections on "Pioneering Steps by Russian Revolution" and "Counter-revolutionary Retreat on Gay Rights". The article as a whole is about gay rights in Cuba, and the most in-depth look at that subject I&#39;ve seen.

[James]

this is 8 pages long, and seems to now be a conversation about homosexuals :S

Anyhow i&#39;ll say what i wanted to say, sorry if its been already delt with:

Surely reformism is also a path to "communism". Marx himself said that capitalism would destroy itself. I&#39;m not convinced that revolution is the only way. Indeed, a case could be made that revolutions (or attempting to spark them off) may in some cases be counter-productive (or counter-revolutionary in the long term&#33;).

[Severian]

"Marx himself said that capitalism would destroy itself."

When? Seems to me he said capitalism would create the working class, and the conditions for the working class to destroy capitalism.

Still requires our actions, not our passivity.

[Amusing Scrotum]

Originally posted by Severian+Feb 10 2006, 09:46 AM--> (Severian &#064; Feb 10 2006, 09:46 AM)
Armchair [email protected] 10 2006, 12:00 AM
Anyway, I think most of the "Old Left" was (or is) homophobic and its "roots" can be found in some of Marx&#39;s letters with an old German friend were they joked about a gay Gynaecologist (I think).
That really makes no sense. Marx shared a lot of the prejudices of his time (and certainly prejudice against homosexuals was the norm then); but not all of Marx&#39;s prejudices became eternal on the left.[/b]

Of course not, we don&#39;t for instance use the term "Jewish Niggas" around here, or anywhere else.

However, it was one of Marx&#39;s "observations" that homosexuality was a bourgeois phenomena and that is certainly the view parts of the "Old Left" (RCP included) take on the matter.

Whether or not this view stemmed from Marx or not, isn&#39;t all that important in my opinion, but that he said it is important. Certainly one mustn&#39;t be afraid of "sullying" Marx&#39;s reputation if it means that such views will be driven out of the "Left".


....you&#39;d do well to ask what class interests this served, not an idealistic explanation based on Marx&#39;s letters.

The persecution and demonization of homosexuals by the Stalinist apparatchiks and their followers internationally....

Geez, if my explanation for the "roots" of the problem is "idealistic", then what will people make of your explanation - the "subjective" force of "Stalinism"???

The Militant by the way - as far as I am aware - are not a "Stalinist" group, indeed I&#39;m pretty sure they&#39;re a Trotskyist group. Certainly most of the "Stalinist" groups had disappeared by the 80&#39;s as a major political force.

[Vanguard1917]

Thanks for the information, guys.


If you want to know why this particular prejudice persisted for so long and even grew for a time among certain large sectors of the left, not to mention the Soviet government....you&#39;d do well to ask what class interests this served, not an idealistic explanation based on Marx&#39;s letters.

I agree.

[Chaim]

:rolleyes: To stand and/or fight for laborers&#39;s rights is the essence of revolution and revolutionary thinking.
Che once told us that the motivation for revolution was always great love.
If he were still alive today he would tell you that there is no revolution for revolution&#39;s sake alone. There is not even any change for changes sake alone. There is only what and who we love and believe in, and what we do or do not do to live that love and those beliefs.

[Severian]

Originally posted by Armchair [email protected] 10 2006, 07:48 AM
Geez, if my explanation for the "roots" of the problem is "idealistic", then what will people make of your explanation - the "subjective" force of "Stalinism"???
Redstar always says that too. You have learned to parrot well.

But as I&#39;ve pointed out to him before, Stalinism is no more subjective than capitalism: the apparatchiks have definite material privileges and interests, and their power and priveleges arise from the objective economic conditions. The quotes and links I posted tie the bureaucracy&#39;s interests into the persecution of gays.


The Militant by the way - as far as I am aware - are not a "Stalinist" group, indeed I&#39;m pretty sure they&#39;re a Trotskyist group.

Labels. And the original question was about the RCP.

The problem may have different roots in the case of Militant - the posters in that forum give a fairly plausible explanation. A narrowly economic approach to workers&#39; interests.

[Amusing Scrotum]

Originally posted by Severian+--> (Severian)Redstar always says that too. You have learned to parrot well.[/b]

Well you know the good thing about a Parrot is that they are consistent. Unable to think "freely", they hear something and - for want of a better phrase - "parrot it".

In this case, my "parrot like brain" has found a source other than redstar2000....


Originally posted by Severian+Jan 26 2006, 09:02 PM--> (Severian &#064; Jan 26 2006, 09:02 PM)There have been a whole number of revolutionary movements which reached for power in the "Western World" - and sometimes even took power briefly, as in Bavaria. Redstar&#39;s statement is true only in that they&#39;ve all been defeated - and yes, I&#39;d argue that it&#39;s because of the subjective factor in history, including the misleadership of Social Democratic and Stalinist parties. (The two tended to follow a fairly simiilar course.)[/b]

http://www.revolutionaryleft.com/index.php...st&p=1292010310 (http://www.revolutionaryleft.com/index.php?showtopic=45512&view=findpost&p=1292010310)

I&#39;ll give you a little piece of "free advice" here, if you&#39;re going to try and be a clever twat, try to be clever first. Otherwise you&#39;ll just come across as a twat&#33; :)


[email protected]
But as I&#39;ve pointed out to him before, Stalinism is no more subjective than capitalism....

Your memory seems to be failing you at a very young age. :lol:


Severian
Labels. And the original question was about the RCP.

The problem may have different roots in the case of Militant - the posters in that forum give a fairly plausible explanation. A narrowly economic approach to workers&#39; interests.

Well why isn&#39;t that a "plausible explanation" for the RCP?

The RCP after all, is not a "Stalinist" group and if I&#39;m not mistaken "King Avakian" has gone to some length in criticising Stalin - something which other Maoists have "denounced" him for.

[Severian]

Originally posted by Armchair Socialism+Feb 11 2006, 12:52 PM--> (Armchair Socialism @ Feb 11 2006, 12:52 PM)
[email protected] 26 2006, 09:02 PM
There have been a whole number of revolutionary movements which reached for power in the "Western World" - and sometimes even took power briefly, as in Bavaria. Redstar&#39;s statement is true only in that they&#39;ve all been defeated - and yes, I&#39;d argue that it&#39;s because of the subjective factor in history, including the misleadership of Social Democratic and Stalinist parties. (The two tended to follow a fairly simiilar course.) [/b]
You gotta have a pretty rigid and mechanical and well, anti-dialectical conception of the world to think you&#39;ve caught me in self-contradiction here.

The subjective factor in history has objective roots - that&#39;s part of the ABC of Marxism. The economic base effects the ideological superstructure. E.g. Stalinism was based on the economic interests of the bureaucracy, and had an effect on the subjective factor, the political leadership of the workers movement internationally.

&#39;Course anti-dialecticians like Redstar usually deny any role for the subjective factor at all...then when it creeps in anyway - you can hardly talk about politics without it - it&#39;s conceived in total isolation from any economic basis. Like your idealistic explanation of homophobia on the left by means of Marx&#39;s letters.


The RCP after all, is not a "Stalinist" group

What planet are you from? They haven&#39;t even rejected Stalin personally, just said he made some mistakes.

And that&#39;s not what Stalinism means, anyway. (http://www.revolutionaryleft.com/index.php?showtopic=41124)

[Amusing Scrotum]

Originally posted by Severian+--> (Severian)You gotta have a pretty rigid and mechanical and well, anti-dialectical conception of the world to think you&#39;ve caught me in self-contradiction here.[/b]

Stop talking out of your ass. You accused me of "parroting redstar" (http://www.revolutionaryleft.com/index.php?showtopic=43998&view=findpost&p=1292018781). So I pointed that the "subjective" force of "Stalinism" was your position and therefore showing that your accusation was baseless.


Originally posted by [email protected]
Like your idealistic explanation of homophobia on the left by means of Marx&#39;s letters.

Well the "homophobia on the left" pre-dates Stalinism and therefore the explanation that it is a "Stalinist" based problem is incorrect.

Which means my explanation that homophobic Marxists may have based that opinion, or developed it, from the foundations of Marx&#39;s economic analysis - that homosexuality was a "bourgeois concept" - is in my opinion, more credible.


Severian
They haven&#39;t even rejected Stalin personally, just said he made some mistakes.

Well that matters little.

They don&#39;t identify with Stalin&#39;s theories, rather they identify with Mao&#39;s and been as they are not funded by any of the former "Socialist" regimes, they are not (by the standards you laid out) a "Stalinist Party".

[Vanguard1917]

Well the "homophobia on the left" pre-dates Stalinism and therefore the explanation that it is a "Stalinist" based problem is incorrect.

The Soviet bureaucracy, as a backward and conservative force in Russian society, promoted backward and conservative ideas. It promoted chauvinist attitudes concerning women and family relations as part of an attempt to achieve social stability for the backward and conservative society that it stood above. Social instability in capitalist society has usually always gone hand in hand with further state intrusion into people&#39;s homes. Stalinist society was not much different in this aspect. Due to the nature of Stalinist society, the promotion of reactionary ideas concerning the family&#39;s social role was widespread.

Homosexuals did not fit neatly into such conservative notions of family. This is from where Stalinist homophobia stems. And if we make the assumption, an assumption that is based on reality, that the Soviet Union had a very significant impact on leftwing movements elsewhere, then we recognise that homophobia within the left was largely a product of Stalinist influence on the left.

[Amusing Scrotum]

Originally posted by Vanguard1917+--> (Vanguard1917)The Soviet bureaucracy, as a backward and conservative force in Russian society, promoted backward and conservative ideas.[/b]

And Lenin fought tooth and nail against the "Workers Opposition" - no ones perfect. :P


Originally posted by [email protected]
Homosexuals did not fit neatly into such conservative notions of family. This is from where Stalinist homophobia stems.

I&#39;d say that as a person, Stalin&#39;s personal homophobia was affected by his upbringing and his schooling at a Catholic school - which undoubtedly affected any notions of the family Stalin had.


Vanguard1917
....that the Soviet Union had a very significant impact on leftwing movements elsewhere, then we recognise that homophobia within the left was largely a product of Stalinist influence on the left.

"Stalinist influence" had virtually disappeared after the 1960&#39;s and was struggling tremendously in that period. Of course Severian&#39;s standards make "Stalinism" the word for every "Socialist" country bar Cuba, that was in place during the last century. Most people just call those countries Leninist, but each to his own I suppose.

However "Stalinist influence on the left" certainly doesn&#39;t explain the homophobia of non-Russian "franchises". Certainly the Trotskyist groups could never be accused of such a crime. :lol:

[emokid08]

Right on redstar2000&#33; Reformism is just setting the people and workers up for a major disillusionment. When Socialism and State Capitalism or State Socialism let&#39;s the workers down, they lose hope, interest, and they stop placing thier trust in us, thier vanguards. I agree with redstar&#39;s secretarian approach and think it&#39;s the best path towards achieving true communism.

[Vanguard1917]

I&#39;d say that as a person, Stalin&#39;s personal homophobia was affected by his upbringing and his schooling at a Catholic school - which undoubtedly affected any notions of the family Stalin had.

That is simple idealism. It also gives Stalin (&#39;as a person&#39;) more credit than he deserves. Stalin didn&#39;t create Stalinism. The conditions that gave way to Stalinism were created by forces that Stalin himself could only have had modest control over. The conditions that gave way to reactionary notions concerning family had very little to do with the homophobic ideas that Stalin may have had in his head. That is, in effect, the same as saying that the Holocaust was the product of Hitler&#39;s anti-semitism. Marxists leave such philistine analyses to the bourgeois - who are more than happy to write volumes of junk based on them. We study society in a historical, materialist and dialectical manner.


"Stalinist influence" had virtually disappeared after the 1960&#39;s and was struggling tremendously in that period. Of course Severian&#39;s standards make "Stalinism" the word for every "Socialist" country bar Cuba, that was in place during the last century. Most people just call those countries Leninist, but each to his own I suppose.

(I would include Cuba.)

Stalinism is a social system. The death of Stalin did not end that system. A social revolution was needed to overthrow Stalinism - not simply the death of one of Stalinism&#39;s leaders. That, again, gives Stalin a kind of ahistorical, superhuman credit. Leaders are products of the social forces taking place in real life society - not vice versa. The death of Stalin did not give way to any fundamental changes in the social dynamics of the Soviet Union. It merely gave way to the replacement of one leader of the bureaucracy with another. Krushchev may have denounced Stalin in words after Stalin&#39;s death but he led a society whose social dynamics remained unchanged. He was a Stalinist because he represented the same system.


However "Stalinist influence on the left" certainly doesn&#39;t explain the homophobia of non-Russian "franchises". Certainly the Trotskyist groups could never be accused of such a crime.

Stalinism influenced every leftwing movement. No one was immune to it. In the UK everyone from the Labour Party&#39;s left to the pro-Moscow CPGB to the Trostkyist movement to leftwing trade unionists were, to varying degrees, influenced by the politics of the Stalinist Soviet Union.

[Amusing Scrotum]

Originally posted by Vanguard1917+--> (Vanguard1917)Stalin didn&#39;t create Stalinism.[/b]

Well this is where you and I differ.

For me, "Stalinism" is the theories of one Joseph Stalin and these were indeed affected by Stalin&#39;s class position and his upbringing.

What you refer to as "Stalinism" - a bureaucratic caste etc. etc. - I would refer to as a State-Capitalist system.


Originally posted by Vanguard1917+--> (Vanguard1917)The conditions that gave way to Stalinism were created by forces that Stalin himself could only have had modest control over.[/b]

You&#39;d save yourself a lot of time by just saying it was State-Capitalism. Yet "Trots" never miss a chance to associate "Uncle Joe" with something bad. :lol:


[email protected]
He was a Stalinist because he represented the same system.

Again, why not just say he was part of the Russian ruling class?


Vanguard1917
Stalinism influenced every leftwing movement. No one was immune to it. In the UK everyone from the Labour Party&#39;s left to the pro-Moscow CPGB to the Trostkyist movement to leftwing trade unionists were, to varying degrees, influenced by the politics of the Stalinist Soviet Union.

So "Trots", who opposed Russia on nearly every issue, were"influenced" by the Soviet Unions homophobia.

That&#39;s one of the best excuses I&#39;ve heard in a while.

[Vanguard1917]

For me, "Stalinism" is the theories of one Joseph Stalin and these were indeed affected by Stalin&#39;s class position and his upbringing.

Anyone can create a theory. But for that theory to become significant in a social sense, certain social conditions need to permit that to happen. The fact that Stalinism became the official ideology of Soviet society, and the fact that it dominated the politics of Communist parties in the West and, to various extents, anti-imperialist movements in the underdeveloped world, has nothing whatsoever to do with Stalin&#39;s &#39;upbringing&#39;.

A Marxist analysis is needed to explain Stalinism.


What you refer to as "Stalinism" - a bureaucratic caste etc. etc. - I would refer to as a State-Capitalist system.

It wasn&#39;t &#39;state capitalist&#39;. It was a society based on bureaucratic rule. Tony Cliff&#39;s thesis is flawed.


Again, why not just say he was part of the Russian ruling class?

&#39;Stalinism&#39; is only a name that we give to a system. We use it to express the continuity of that system after Stalin&#39;s death.


So "Trots", who opposed Russia on nearly every issue, were"influenced" by the Soviet Unions homophobia.

That&#39;s one of the best excuses I&#39;ve heard in a while.

Many Trotskyist policies were influenced by Stalinism. During that time it was very difficult for anyone on the left to not be influenced by the politics of official Communism. Many, including Trotskyists, looked to the Soviet Union as an alternative to capitalist society: &#39;it may be a "deformed worker&#39;s state" led by Stalinists but capitalism is our real enemy and we must defend the Soviet Union against Western aggression, which may mean having to defend or apologise for various Soviet policies.&#39; In effect, this way of thinking gave way to the adoption of various Stalinist ideas by many on the left.

[redstar2000]

Originally posted by Armchair Socialism
So "Trots", who opposed Russia on nearly every issue, were "influenced" by the Soviet Union&#39;s homophobia.

That&#39;s one of the best excuses I&#39;ve heard in a while.

Me too&#33; :lol: :lol: :lol:

http://www.websmileys.com/sm/cool/123.gif

[Amusing Scrotum]

Originally posted by Vanguard1917+--> (Vanguard1917)The fact that Stalinism became the official ideology of Soviet society....[/b]

Wasn&#39;t the "official ideology" "Marxism-Leninism"?

Anyway it could just as easily be argued that it wasn&#39;t "Stalinism" that was happening in Russia, it was Leninism and that it was Lenin&#39;s theories that became "significant in a social sense".


Originally posted by Vanguard1917+--> (Vanguard1917)It wasn&#39;t &#39;state capitalist&#39;. It was a society based on bureaucratic rule.[/b]

So what? ....it was "bureaucratic capitalist" in your opinion?


Originally posted by Vanguard1917
&#39;Stalinism&#39; is only a name that we give to a system. We use it to express the continuity of that system after Stalin&#39;s death.

Yet I see no point in doing that. The only thing I can think of that results in this analysis is that Trotskyist politicians find it easier to get a seat in Parliament. :P

Plus, given that at times the theories of Stalin and the actions of the Russian ruling class contradict each other, calling it "Stalinist" only adds confusion to the whole process. Especially as there are people who adhere to Stalin&#39;s theories who also call themselves "Stalinists".


[email protected]
Many Trotskyist policies were influenced by Stalinism. During that time it was very difficult for anyone on the left to not be influenced by the politics of official Communism. Many, including Trotskyists, looked to the Soviet Union as an alternative to capitalist society: &#39;it may be a "deformed worker&#39;s state" led by Stalinists but capitalism is our real enemy and we must defend the Soviet Union against Western aggression, which may mean having to defend or apologise for various Soviet policies.&#39; In effect, this way of thinking gave way to the adoption of various Stalinist ideas by many on the left.

That&#39;s a nice paragraph of bullshit&#33;

The Trotskyist group in question here - The Militant - were active in the 80&#39;s. Long after "Trots" had stopped "pledging allegiance" to "Mother Russia" and depending on ones intepretation of "Stalinism", long after it was a major political force.
______

I&#39;m actually relatively happy to accept that they did this based on both an already existing prejudice and a "narrow" economic analysis, which gained some "status" through Marx&#39;s own economic analysis of homosexuality.

Invoking the bogeyman of "Stalinist influence" really doesn&#39;t do a lot for me.


redstar2000
Me too&#33; :lol: :lol: :lol:

Just imagine, that "Prayer for Socialism" you talked about will conclude with everyone saying that they are going to pray a lot in order to save their souls from "Stalinist influence". :o

[Vanguard1917]

In the absense of understanding and criticism, silly faces ( :lol:, etc. ) emerge to fill the void.

[Vanguard1917]

Wasn&#39;t the "official ideology" "Marxism-Leninism"?

Anyway it could just as easily be argued that it wasn&#39;t "Stalinism" that was happening in Russia, it was Leninism and that it was Lenin&#39;s theories that became "significant in a social sense".

If you think that there is a continuity between Leninism and Stalinism, you have to prove it. You&#39;ll find that very difficult.


So what? ....it was "bureaucratic capitalist" in your opinion?

No, it was a society quite distinct from either capitalism or socialism.


Plus, given that at times the theories of Stalin and the actions of the Russian ruling class contradict each other, calling it "Stalinist" only adds confusion to the whole process. Especially as there are people who adhere to Stalin&#39;s theories who also call themselves "Stalinists".

That&#39;s because by Stalinism we don&#39;t mean the particular aspects of &#39;Stalin&#39;s thought&#39;. We&#39;re talking about a system.


The Trotskyist group in question here - The Militant - were active in the 80&#39;s. Long after "Trots" had stopped "pledging allegiance" to "Mother Russia" and depending on ones intepretation of "Stalinism", long after it was a major political force.

No, the movement in Britain that came to be known as Militant was active decades before the 1980s. A serious study into Trostkyist movements of that period will reveal the influence that Stalinist ideas had in those movements.


I&#39;m actually relatively happy to accept that they did this based on both an already existing prejudice and a "narrow" economic analysis, which gained some "status" through Marx&#39;s own economic analysis of homosexuality.

Where is this &#39;analysis of homosexuality&#39; that Marx is supposed to have made? And i&#39;m not talk about passing comments made in letters.


Invoking the bogeyman of "Stalinist influence" really doesn&#39;t do a lot for me.

Denying the reactionary impact of Stalinism on the world working class movement was always a reactionary current itself running through the world working class movement.

[Amusing Scrotum]

Originally posted by Vanguard1917+--> (Vanguard1917)If you think that there is a continuity between Leninism and Stalinism, you have to prove it. You&#39;ll find that very difficult.[/b]

I have no intention to embark upon the "Battle of Quotes" that is the Stalin-Trotsky question and which one of them was the "rightful heir" to Lenin&#39;s "throne". After all, that&#39;s what you folks have the History forum for.

So, for the purposes of this thread, I&#39;ll work on the assumption that Trotsky should have been the one who became Chairman of Russia and sons. Okay?


Originally posted by Vanguard1917+--> (Vanguard1917)No, it was a society quite distinct from either capitalism or socialism.[/b]

Well, that is one I&#39;ve never heard before.

I&#39;ve heard that is was a "deformed workers state" - which implies it was some form of Socialism - and that it was State-Capitalist. Yet I have never heard that it was a completely different epoch of class society.

So naturally, I am relatively intrigued by this development and would appreciate it if you could point me in the direction of a piece (which is relatively short) which explains this phenomena.


Originally posted by Vanguard1917
That&#39;s because by Stalinism we don&#39;t mean the particular aspects of &#39;Stalin&#39;s thought&#39;. We&#39;re talking about a system.

Like I said, it would avoid a lot of confusion if you called this system by a "technical" name. Is that such a difficult request?


Originally posted by Vanguard1917
No, the movement in Britain that came to be known as Militant was active decades before the 1980s.

Check the thread I linked. In that thread, The Militants homophobia in the 80&#39;s was being discussed and....


Originally posted by october_lost+Wed 01 Feb, 2006 11:51 am--> (october_lost &#064; Wed 01 Feb, 2006 11:51 am)In the 80&#39;s Militant did take the arguement up, that homosexuality was a middle class thing, ala Oscar Wilde and others.[/b]

http://www.libcom.org/forums/viewtopic.php?p=94849#94849

Plus....


Ian Donovan
And on the subject of homophobia, I am old enough to remember the vicious ‘queer’ and ‘lezzie’ baiting that was once the lot of activists from other left tendencies that fought for gay rights at Labour Party Young Socialists events in the 1970s and 80s, when Militant dominated that movement. In truth, Militant were among the last ‘left’ Neanderthals to be forced to recognise the justice of gay rights.

http://www.libcom.org/forums/viewtopic.php?p=95076#95076

I think the description of them as "Neanderthals" is rather fitting myself.


[email protected]
Where is this &#39;analysis of homosexuality&#39; that Marx is supposed to have made? And i&#39;m not talk about passing comments made in letters.

Well the letters are all that I&#39;m aware of. However, it&#39;s pretty safe to assume in my opinion that when Marx talked about homosexuality being a "bourgeois thing" he had considered the idea and make some kind of "mental analysis" at least.

Indeed, as with his loathing of Russians and Palmerston (I think it was Palmerston who he thought was a "Russian spy" - a view he shared with a complete nut of a Conservative MP). Marx was capable of "cooking up" all kinds of irrational things in that big brain of his.


Vanguard1917
Denying the reactionary impact of Stalinism on the world working class movement was always a reactionary current itself running through the world working class movement.

If you want to talk about "reactionary current[s]", then I suppose we&#39;ll have to discuss the defeat of the "Workers&#39; Opposition" in 1921 and Lenin&#39;s opposition to them.

[Vanguard1917]

So, for the purposes of this thread, I&#39;ll work on the assumption that Trotsky should have been the one who became Chairman of Russia and sons. Okay?

No, because that&#39;s ahistorical. Stalin and Stalinism became powerful for historical reasons. The defeat of the workers&#39; movement in Germany gave way to the rise of Stalinism in Russia. Stalinism and &#39;socialism in one country&#39; were convenient means to rationalise Soviet isolation.


I&#39;ve heard that is was a "deformed workers state" - which implies it was some form of Socialism - and that it was State-Capitalist. Yet I have never heard that it was a completely different epoch of class society.

So naturally, I am relatively intrigued by this development and would appreciate it if you could point me in the direction of a piece (which is relatively short) which explains this phenomena.

&#39;State capitalism&#39; and &#39;degenerate workers&#39; state&#39; theses are both flawed. While i&#39;m far from being an expert, it appears to me that the Soviet Union was distinct in many ways. It was a social system held in place artificially, with the help of intense coercion, against all historical laws.

I found this introduction to theories of Stalinism. Might be useful...

http://www.lrp-cofi.org/book/intro.html


Like I said, it would avoid a lot of confusion if you called this system by a "technical" name. Is that such a difficult request?

&#39;Stalinism&#39; is just a name, like i said before. We can call it whatever you like.


Well the letters are all that I&#39;m aware of. However, it&#39;s pretty safe to assume in my opinion that when Marx talked about homosexuality being a "bourgeois thing" he had considered the idea and make some kind of "mental analysis" at least.

Have you got a link to the letter where Marx calls homosexuality a &#39;bourgeois thing&#39;? I&#39;m not aware of such a comment.


Indeed, as with his loathing of Russians

&#39;Loathing of Russians&#39;?

[Amusing Scrotum]

Originally posted by Vanguard1917+--> (Vanguard1917)I found this introduction to theories of Stalinism. Might be useful...[/b]

Well that link seems to confirm my view....


Originally posted by Theories of Stalinism+--> (Theories of Stalinism)More deeply, we will show that the seemingly wide-open debate over the Russian question is in reality quite narrow. Despite their surface differences, the four theories share a common world outlook: they deny the proletarian class struggle at the center of Marxism. Therefore, although we hold Stalinism to be capitalist, we have no fundamental agreement with the standard state capitalist analyses. And, precisely because we are Trotskyist, we reject the “orthodox Trotskyist” position that Russia is still a degenerated workers’ state.[/b]

And....


Originally posted by Theories of Stalinism
Chapter 4 analyzes the stages of the Stalinist counterrevolution, showing both its practical destruction of the workers’ gains and its ideological corruption of Marxism. We disprove the notion that Stalin’s breakneck industrialization policy of the early 1930’s abolished the law of value. Instead, a the new capitalist bureaucracy was consolidated at the end of the decade. In this chapter we also consider in depth Trotsky’s developing theory of Stalinism.

Chapter 5 is the pivotal chapter of the book, illustrating why the Stalinist bureaucracy is capitalist and how the laws of motion operate in statified capitalism. Stalinism’s "violations” of value reflect those inherent in capitalism’s epoch of decay; its distortions of normal capitalist methods are determined by the remnants of the workers’ state it usurped.

http://www.lrp-cofi.org/book/intro.html

It looks an interesting book and it seems to refute this....


Originally posted by [email protected] 13 2006, 12:36 AM
No, it was a society quite distinct from either capitalism or socialism.

http://www.revolutionaryleft.com/index.php...st&p=1292019804 (http://www.revolutionaryleft.com/index.php?showtopic=43998&view=findpost&p=1292019804)

....in its bit about "Third-System Theories".

I&#39;d be tempted to buy that book if they carried their analysis all the way through - which they seem not to have done - and say that "Stalinism" was not the result of "counter-revolution" or any of that nonsense. Rather it was the "natural" result of a bourgeois revolution in a place where the bourgeois was not yet ready to hold power.

However, such an opinion would in turn totally refute Trotsky&#39;s theories about "political revolution" - at least how I understand them - because the implication of such a theory is that if Trotsky (or a Trotskyist) had taken over the "Throne", then everything would have been okay.

Indeed your first paragraph in your last post seems to imply that you disagree with Trotsky&#39;s analysis which I assumed you thought was correct - hence my acceptance of Trotsky as Lenin&#39;s "heir" for the sake of a fluid debate.


Originally posted by Vanguard1917
&#39;Stalinism&#39; is just a name, like i said before. We can call it whatever you like.

Leninist despotism okay with you? :P


Originally posted by Vanguard1917
Have you got a link to the letter where Marx calls homosexuality a &#39;bourgeois thing&#39;? I&#39;m not aware of such a comment.

Well as ever, the search engine at marxists.org (http://marxists.org/) has failed to produce the desired result. Three results for the word "gay" - all with the word meaning happy - and only one result for the word "homosexual". Which was this....

http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works...rs/69_06_22.htm (http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1869/letters/69_06_22.htm)

....particuarly homophobic letter from Engels to Marx....


[email protected]
The Urning you sent me is a very curious thing. These are extremely unnatural revelations. The paederasts [homosexual paedophiles] are beginning to count themselves, and discover that they are a power in the state. Only organisation was lacking, but according to this source it apparently already exists in secret. And since they have such important men in all the old parties and even in the new ones, from Rosing to Schweitzer, they cannot fail to triumph. Guerre aux cons, paix aus trous-de-cul [war on the ****s, peace to the arse-holes] will now be the slogan. It is a bit of luck that we, personally, are too old to have to fear that, when this party wins, we shall have to pay physical tribute to the victors. But the younger generation&#33; Incidentally it is only in Germany that a fellow like this can possibly come forward, convert this smut into a theory, and offer the invitation: introite [enter], etc. Unfortunately, he has not yet got up the courage to acknowledge publicly that he is ‘that way’, and must still operate coram publico‘ from the front’, if not ‘going in from the front’ as he once said by mistake. But just wait until the new North German Penal Code recognises the droits du cul [rights of the arse-hole] then he will operate quite differently. Then things will go badly enough for poor frontside people like us, with our childish penchant for females. If Schweitzer could be made useful for anything, it would be to wheedle out of this peculiar honourable gentleman the particulars of the paederasts in high and top places, which would certainly not be difficult for him as a brother in spirit.

From the context - "acknowledge publicly that he is ‘that way’" - it seems Engels isn&#39;t talking about "homsexual paedophiles", but homosexuals in general who want to be allowed to have sex with other men legally.

Anyway, been as the letter seems not to show up on there, I might have a little browse through Francis Wheen&#39;s Marx biography which is where I think I may have read a section of Marx&#39;s correspondence in which he labels homosexuality a result of "bourgeois decadence" or something similar.

However I can&#39;t promise anything because I may have read it somewhere else - not the type of thing you "bookmark" as an important comment for later use.


Vanguard1917
&#39;Loathing of Russians&#39;?

One of the Tsar&#39;s lackeys got him sacked from a newspaper in Germany and after that he had a tendency to associate "bad things" with Russia and Russians.

Indeed "Marx the person" was completely different from "Marx the Marxist" and if someone just read his personal correspondence, they may well come away thinking he was very weird.

On a side note, he also thought the French were a bit strange and extravagant, that the English were not intellectual enough to compose good music and that their "political ability" seemed to be limited to getting hit on the head with truncheons and that Poets were above criticism.

He was an amusing and colourful person in my opinion.

[Severian]

Originally posted by [email protected] 13 2006, 12:33 AM
&#39;State capitalism&#39; and &#39;degenerate workers&#39; state&#39; theses are both flawed. While i&#39;m far from being an expert, it appears to me that the Soviet Union was distinct in many ways. It was a social system held in place artificially, with the help of intense coercion, against all historical laws.
That does have the advantage of fitting the more recent observed facts that the Stalinist regimes were very brittle and proved to be a historical dead-end. (In a way, it seems like the old "bureaucratic collectivism" theory modified to fit those facts - at any rate it is a "third system" theory if one uses the LRP&#39;s classification.)

But it doesn&#39;t remotely fit the complete facts of the USSR&#39;s existence over decades. Where did that "force" come from? How did it defy gravity - "all historical laws" - for decades? How did it not only survive but emerge victorious from WWII, after taking blows which, as its enemy Churchill recognized, would have destroyed any other regime?

Additionally: after the dissolution of the USSR, it&#39;s become clearer than ever that its economic differences from capitalism were advances from the workers&#39; point of view, and are defended by workers operating with the most basic kind of consciousness. Even the peasants don&#39;t much care for breaking up the cooperatives and legalizing the sale of land (which keeps getting put off in Russia.)

***

You&#39;re probably right that Militant was influenced by Stalinism - who wasn&#39;t? Stalinism was the glue that held the left together, as anyone can see from the disorientation that resulted from the crisis of Stalinism. Even the much larger social democracy was affected - how not, for smaller groups?

But there is another likely material basis for Militant&#39;s narrowly economic approach (aka workerism.) Militant operated for decades within the Labour party, seeking a permanent or semi-permanent niche as an opposition caucus there. The pressures of that environment - of the Labour Party and trade-union bureaucracy - had to be intense.

&#39;Course that was part of the social basis of Stalinism too....and analagous to the other part of Stalinism&#39;s social basis, the apparatchik caste in the workers&#39; states.