Mexican Revolution of 1911: what could have been

One of the aspects to objecting towards all the polemics of Third World "[state] capitalism without capitalists" is foreign state sponsorship. The perceived role of the Soviet Union tends to be heightened with regards to anti-colonial struggles. However, there is one instance that didn't require foreign state sponsorship.

What could have happened during the Mexican Revolution starting in 1911? I'll quote the wiki account and then suggest the potential for what could have been instead:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mexican...2.80.931913.29

With the support of the mostly peasant native Mexicans, Madero's army fought DÃ*az's army and had some success. DÃ*az's army gradually lost control of Mexico and his administration started to fall apart.

Madero was a liberal, but here there was potential for both People's War and Focoism. Such could have avoided the route of Orozco's rebellion for better working hours, pay, and conditions regarding rural workers.

Madero's time as leader was short lived and came to an end after General Victoriano Huerta set in motion a coup d'état. Madero had appointed Huerta as commander-in-chief when he first claimed power, but Huerta had turned against him. Following Huerta's coup d'état, Madero was forced to resign in 1913. Madero and vice president José MarÃ*a Pino Suárez were both assassinated less than a week later. The murder of Madero ruptured the country, but he became honored as a martyr of the revolution.

Huerta was a conservative, but here there was potential for disgruntled lower-ranking commanders, perhaps with class backgrounds in Mexico's peasantry, to stage a Breakthrough Military Coup and eliminate both Madero and Huerta.

Combined, the People's War, Focoism, and Breakthrough Military Coup would have amounted to a modern March on Rome, even though only one approach is necessary.

The political aspect of the new order could have combined politico-ideological independence for Mexico's rather large proletarian demographic minority, Urban Petit-Bourgeois Democratism, and Peasant Patrimonialism, with the latter two having precedents in ancient people's history:

1) The first aspect allows for adopting the SPD/USPD model for worker-class mass organization in Mexican conditions. The German worker-class was able to do this in spite of authoritarian repression.

2) The second aspect emphasizes things like equal suffrage (no weighting of votes against either the peasantry or urban areas) and proportional representation, and could further emphasize participatory budgeting and full communal power replacing the full scope of municipal power from the neighbourhood to the metropolis.

3) The third aspect involves things like a National Leader exercising an extensive neo-patrimonial power (over the military, law enforcement and corrections, bureaucracy, and courts of constitutional law to the point of "court-packing") not bound by the formal office of El Presidente or by term limits en la Presidencia, personality cults regarding the central authority, and militarized culture (especially in opposition to US imperialism).

At the core of the political setup would be a managed multi-party system (here, here, and here) whereby attempts to form political organizations to the right of the Mexican Revolution's “Party of Order� would receive executive treatment not unlike the full spectrum of the Kremlin’s treatment of today's liberal opposition groups or similar treatment in neighbouring Belarus: immediate criminalization for actions like receiving funds from foreign capitalists and their governments (thus countering Huerta's coup and similar coup attempts), more mundane haranguing, collective monopoly on electoral registration to be held by the officially sanctioned parties or groups of parties (so that, like with the difficulties of third-party registration in the US, this further-right opposition would be forced to file endless stacks of papers, go through long waiting times, and so on), coordinated media taboos, and Potemkin diversions (pseudo-parties staffed entirely by public agents with the goal of dividing the further-right opposition, all the while making organizational and political mishaps at that opposition’s expense).

From here, economic development could have proceeded without any segment of the bourgeoisie and without compradors amongst the petit-bourgeoisie. The national/patriotic petit-bourgeoisie amongst tenant farmers, sharecroppers, shopkeepers, other small business owners, and the socially productive self-employed (as opposed to the unproductive self-employed) will have been liberated from landed aristocracy and US imperialism. The existing "specialists" could be developed further into a coordinator class.

The "[state] capitalism without capitalists" could have featured the following:

1) “Public and democratically controlled ownership of general public service, social infrastructure, the energy industry and the finance sector as well as […] transfer large, structure-setting industrial companies to democratic social ownership and to overcome capitalist ownership�; “the prohibition of mass dismissals in companies not threatened by insolvency [and] the socially secured transfer of employees from shrinking branches into sustainable ones�; “a public future fund for helping out endangered yet economically viable enterprises, and promoting socio-ecological transformation [where] governmental aid should be allotted only in exchange for [permanently] according property shares to the public sector or to employees […] to be employed for changing management criteria�; “effective control and regulation of international capital flows and a ban on highly speculative investment vehicles, which jeopardize the stability of the finance system and hence of the entire world economy�; “wealth tax in the form of a millionaires’ tax of an annual five per cent on property exceeding one million euros in value�; and “the abolishment of humiliating means tests, and an end to the coercion into accepting jobs paid below the pay-scale or one’s qualification level� (Die Linke Draft Program, March 2010).

[I'd go further on the public ownership front economically so to encompass all "steps toward socialism," all Economic Republicanism (real, Ricardian, and radical Bourgeois Socialism), and all National-Democratization (not just finance, energy, transport, communication infrastructure, but also insurance, international trade and trade policy, construction, food production, health, etc.). However, there would still be room for state-aided cooperatives, shopkeepers, small tenant farmers, sharecroppers, non-industrial fishermen, etc. plus non-worker intellectuals and really self-employed schmucks (and their market-bullying guild-like organizations) to do their thing.]

2) Land value taxation instead of consumption taxes.

3) The Yugoslav model of market socialism with more overt signs of economy-wide indicative planning, plus perhaps Hyman Minsky and Swedish economist Rudolf Meidner to jointly dump the gold standard and to tackle structural unemployment and working-class savings, respectively - (a) public services to fully include employment of last resort for consumer services, (b) mandatory and significant redistributions of annual business profits, by private enterprises with more workers than a defined threshold, as non-tradable and superior voting shares to be held by geographically organised worker funds.

4) Some policy like Bismarck’s anti-Catholic Kulturkampf for ending legal and economic ties between organized religion and political affairs.

5) Stakeholder co-management, but on a more populist basis (becoming in essence "co-determination" without the bourgeoisie) than a working-class basis.

All this for what could have been Mexico's Revolution, and without a foreign state sponsor!

As for US imperialism ever since the Mexican-American War, the new order would have been worthy of a class-strugglist defencist position and indeed more, recalling my musings in the March on Rome discussion:

If the pan-national petit-bourgeoisie of the whole Caesarean Socialist sphere of influence decides to *start* a war with bourgeois states knowing they've got a good chance of winning, the "defencist support" I mentioned earlier kicks in. It would be in the best interests of the global proletariat to throw its lot in with the Caesarean Socialist "warmongers." Naturally the bourgeoisie will portray the Caesarean Socialists as "aggressors," "would-be conquerors," "barbarians," etc.

That's the relevance of Julius Caesar's foreign policy.

immediate criminalization for actions like receiving funds from foreign capitalists and their governments (thus countering Huerta's coup and similar coup attempts), more mundane haranguing, collective monopoly on electoral registration to be held by the officially sanctioned parties or groups of parties (so that, like with the difficulties of third-party registration in the US, this further-right opposition would be forced to file endless stacks of papers, go through long waiting times, and so on), coordinated media taboos, and Potemkin diversions (pseudo-parties staffed entirely by public agents with the goal of dividing the further-right opposition, all the while making organizational and political mishaps at that opposition’s expense).

Why don't we just make more right-wing parties illegal right off the back instead of giving them some form of "legality" but making them go through endless stacks of papers, long waits, etc.?

The "[state] capitalism without capitalists" could have featured the following:

1) [I'd go further on the public ownership front Economy so to encompass all "steps toward socialism," all Economic Republicanism (real, Ricardian, and radical Bourgeois Socialism), and all National-Democratization (not just finance, energy, transport, communication infrastructure, but also insurance, international trade and trade policy, construction, food production, health, etc.). However, there would still be room for state-aided cooperatives, shopkeepers, small tenant farmers, sharecroppers, non-industrial fishermen, etc. plus non-worker intellectuals and really self-employed schmucks (and their market-bullying guild-like organizations) to do their thing.]

I agree with you that this would surely be a characteristic trait of any TWCS.

2) Land value taxation instead of consumption taxes.

I would argue to have both instead of one or the other.

5) Stakeholder co-management, but on a more populist basis (becoming in essence "co-determination" without the bourgeoisie) than a working-class basis.

I can see this being a part of TWCS, considering the whole "Bloc of Dispossessed" and everything.

If the pan-national petit-bourgeoisie of the whole Caesarean Socialist sphere of influence decides to *start* a war with bourgeois states knowing they've got a good chance of winning, the "defencist support" I mentioned earlier kicks in. It would be in the best interests of the global proletariat to throw its lot in with the Caesarean Socialist "warmongers." Naturally the bourgeoisie will portray the Caesarean Socialists as "aggressors," "would-be conquerors," "barbarians," etc.

I disagree here. I would think it would be a suicide mission for any third-world state, even if developing, to wage a war against an imperialist and developed capitalist country. I also disagree that it would be in the interests of the proletariat to throw it's support behind the Caesarean Socialist state, because it is a state for the petit-bourgeoisie and not the proletariat (although, I would agree that they should be sympathetic).

Why don't we just make more right-wing parties illegal right off the back instead of giving them some form of "legality" but making them go through endless stacks of papers, long waits, etc.?

Good question, comrade. I merely wanted to establish a sort of "Left Putinism" as the minimum course of action. Keep in mind I called TWCS "Left Putinism" before reading... Gramsci!

I agree with you that this would surely be a characteristic trait of any TWCS.

Otherwise it simply isn't TWCS at all (what, with bourgeois segments still remaining).

I would argue to have both instead of one or the other.

Marx argued against consumption taxes in his IWMA political activism. Why? Despite their being extremely efficient to collect, they're regressive.

However, I did raise some questions to comrade Cockshott about turnover taxation as applied in the USSR, as a possible transitional measure with progressive tweaks, etc.

I can see this being a part of TWCS, considering the whole "Bloc of Dispossessed" and everything.

Just consider the increased role for the national/pan-national petit-bourgeoisie in the supply chain management aspect of Stakeholder Co-Management.

I disagree here. I would think it would be a suicide mission for any third-world state, even if developing, to wage a war against an imperialist and developed capitalist country. I also disagree that it would be in the interests of the proletariat to throw it's support behind the Caesarean Socialist state, because it is a state for the petit-bourgeoisie and not the proletariat (although, I would agree that they should be sympathetic).

Um, I stated quite reasonable conditions there. I stated "sphere of influence" because I didn't have only one state with a TWCS regime in mind. I also stated that they'd go to such an offensive war only if they know they have a good chance of winning. In other words, such TWCS sphere of influence as a whole should have enough development before considering a offensive war.

As for "throwing its lot in with," I guess more care should be considered. To the extent that the TWCS sphere of influence smashes the military machines of the bourgeois states, even the proletarian demographic majorities there should be cheerleading.

However, the problem indeed is: What if the TWCS sphere of influence has enough logistical power to occupy the relevant bourgeois states and does indeed emulate Julius Caesar (even people's history cannot deny his conquests)?

However, I did raise some questions to comrade Cockshott about turnover taxation as applied in the USSR, as a possible transitional measure with progressive tweaks, etc.

Actually, that seems like a really, really good idea.

Um, I stated quite reasonable conditions there. I stated "sphere of influence" because I didn't have only one state with a TWCS regime in mind. I also stated that they'd go to such an offensive war only if they know they have a good chance of winning. In other words, such TWCS sphere of influence as a whole should have enough development before considering a offensive war.

Okay, that does seem reasonable.

As for "throwing its lot in with," I guess more care should be considered. To the extent that the TWCS sphere of influence smashes the military machines of the bourgeois states, even the proletarian demographic majorities there should be cheerleading.

Well, I guess supporting the "smashing the bourgeoisie state" should be supported for sure but, even if the TWCS would be necessary and essential, I don't think the proletariat should "cheerlead" for the establishment of the dictatorship of the national/pan-national petit-bourgeois but instead keep in mind that it is a necessary transition to their eventual dictatorship.

However, the problem indeed is: What if the TWCS sphere of influence has enough logistical power to occupy the relevant bourgeois states and does indeed emulate Julius Caesar (even people's history cannot deny his conquests)?

Well, that is a good question that I honestly think depends all on material conditions (I am not using this as a cop-out like some on this site do, but I honestly think this is all dependent on material conditions and there would be absolutely no point in trying the predict and/or generalize this point).

Actually, that seems like a really, really good idea.

Actually, the comrade doesn't think so: http://www.revleft.com/vb/progressiv...005/index.html