that "contradictions within the ruling class" is "marxist jargon" and only applicable to a contradiction of the magnitude of that between
> northern industrialists
>versus the slaveowning class,
which sounds to me like a contradiction *between* two ruling classes.
Of course it is not compulsory to attempt to be a marxist. Nor is it compulsory to expect to find contradictions within phenomena, even if one wants to proclaim oneself a Marxist. I suggest who is more marxist than whom is a waste of time. Let the arguments speak for themselves.
At his most reasoned, which I would rather concentrate on, Louis argued :
>Pragamatic convervatism? This is George Bush, George Pataki, etc. It is a
>more centrist approach to politics as opposed to the right-wing "contract
>on America" politics of Gingrich and company. There is no serious
>difference between pragmatic conservatism and the pragmatic liberalism of
>Clinton.
Fine. Unless other subscribers disagree compellingly, let us take that. It looks as if the Republican are positioning themselves in preparation for a younger Bush candidacy, and have jettisoned within 4 years the Gingrich contract that had looked so successful.
If that does remove any gap between him and Clinton, that indeed puts pressure in turn on Clinton.
> Nothing is going on except a
>repudiation of the Monica crusade.
I suggest that is superficial. I suggest that overall, the Clinton adminstration was seen as the better manager of capitalism and better able to win it popular acceptance.
>Your problem is not that you "discuss" contradictions among the
>bourgeoisie, but that you foster illusions in Clinton, Blair and company. I
>usually ignore your mush-mouthed posts,
"Proyect's" real target here is not myself, but the poor other members of this list who may be fooled by my illusions, and could not see through them without his strident interventions.
Otherwise if it causes Louis so much discomfort, he could always revert to ignoring my posts. Which all of us have to do with a large proportion of this active list.
>but when you said that Clinton
>would spend billions around the planet on human needs because
>"neoliberalism" had been rejected, I decided to answer your capitalist
>spin-doctoring.
Typical Proyect distortion. Direct quote please. And reasoned, compelling argument rather than expressions of contempt. Few people want to read an internet list for mere personal abuse.
>>So what is the underlying movement here expressed through the mid-term
>>election and the crisis in the Republican, not the Democratic Party? What
>>opportunities does it give genuine left wingers? How does marxism, for
>>those who are interested in marxism, illuminate it?
>
>Marxists are not fixated on bourgeois elections. My suggestion is that you
>send off for a transcript of Washington Week in Review from our PBS, where
>you will find discussion by kindred spirits.
One of Louis's methods is to try to control the content of a list by demonstrating his ability by hostile posts to drive certain individuals off a list. The target is actually the list as a whole, rather than the individual. The retribution is meant to be exemplary. I suggest that if he thinks it is important to try to demonstrate that my approach is un-marxist it would be more courteous to the other members of this list and to the moderator to carry on that struggle on his own list entitled, "marxism", where we are currently discussing Louis's position of opposing the second world war.
As far as this thread here is concerned, I quoted from the end of Doug's book on Wall Street, which talked, in pragmatic terms, about a sort of market socialism, a term on which Louis has heaped abuse in the past in the same one-sided personalised way, as at times he does to myself.
Those posts will be on another computer so I cannot easily quote them. But I would put the much more interesting challenge to Louis: does he accept that the prospects for a revolution in the near future in the US are slim? Does he agree that there has to be movement towards a sort of "market socialism"?
Does he accept, without being "fixated on bourgeois elections" certainly in the sense of creating illusions in the trustworthiness of a bourgeois party, that certain steps of financial reform will have to be struggled over, through campaigning, just as in Marx's day, the 10 Hours Bill was won as a valuable reform by working class and democratic struggle?
Or does he argue that a reform like the 10 Hours Bill can be a genuine reform, but a financial reform, by definition cannot.
Chris Burford
London.