Reply to Hinrich

[Louis Proyect]

At 03:51 PM 12/1/98 -0500, you wrote:
>Louis Proyect wrote:
>
>>The proper strategy would be one that operates on a clearly delineated
>>class basis. This means, first and foremost, that independent institutions
>>of the working class be strengthened. This includes unions, parties,
>>newspapers, mutual aid associations, etc. In addition, the social movements
>>should make every effort that they can to rely on their own strength rather
>>than collaborating with the ruling class. This means breaking with
>>"progressive" friends of black people or women in the Democratic Party.
>
>What will they do after they do that? What are their demands, their agenda?
>What would they do with corporations and shareholders? Just how do you go
>about socializing that kind of property, which operates on an international
>scale?
>
>Doug

Doug, the important thing to understand is that the only thing that
socialists can demand is public ownership of corporations. If the US went
socialist, then the question of how property can be socialised on a global
scale becomes elementary. What inhibited socialist development in the past
is that weak and isolated countries like the USSR in its infancy, or Cuba
today, simply lacked the leverage or the means to exist in a
capitalist-dominated world.

However, these sorts of problems seem entirely secondary to the ones we
face in our capitalist future. As I have pointed out repeatedly to fans of
"market socialism" or the Albert-Hahnel schema, socialist revolution will
not be inspired by some kind of air-tight, logically and morally consistent
blueprint but because the everyday conditions of life are intolerable.

The goal of Marxists is not to supply blueprints for the future but figure
out ways to break down illusions in the capitalist system and organizing
people in struggle against it.

Louis Proyect

(http://www.panix.com/~lnp3/marxism.html)