Well, we have different definitions of Marxism. Your definition includes support for capitalist parties and NATO bombing campaigns in former Yugoslavia. Of course, support for Bill Clinton and bombing the Serbs into submission is in fundamental conflict with everything Marx stood for. As I have stated repeatedly, I would ignore everything you write if you didn't drag poor Marx into it. For example, when Susan Sontag demanded that B-52s teach the dirty Serbs a lesson, she felt no need to accuse her opponents of not fully understanding Lenin's pamphlet on ultraleftism.
>
>So long as they never make demands of one of the bourgeois parties? ...
I have no idea why you get so confused over this. This issue is not one of whether one should not campaign for abortion rights, for example, because a bourgeois politician is also for it. That is the Spartacist League, not Marxism. The issue is whether to orient to bourgeois politicians as a way of achieving abortion rights. Marxists in the abortion rights movement used proletarian methods of struggle, such as mass demonstrations, to advance their cause. Bourgeois feminists urged reliance on liberal politicians. But they, unlike you, did not feel the need to quote from Marx or Lenin.
>I see trade unionism as now of limited strategic value. Trade unions are
>important organs of resistance to capital but they are essentially
bourgeois.
I dunno. Maybe somethings have changed since the days of Marx, but the role of unions seems about the same as ever. Marx said that "But they [trade unions] are the means for the unification of the working-class, the preparation for the overthrow of the whole society together with its class antagonisms. And from this standpoint the workers rightly laugh at the clever bourgeois pedants who count up what these civil wars [strikes] cost them in dead and wounded and in financial sacrifices. He who would beat the opponent will not discuss the cost of the war with him." (Wages, Prices and Profit)
>True but not centrally challenging capitalism.
Well, perhaps when I get out to consult with Long Standing Bear Chief I can talk him into buying some Hong Kong real estate.
>And wanted to avoid the spread of "communism".
>Nothing to do with the class struggle indeed!
The Marshall Plan was also meant to avoid the spread of communism. Marxists do not support the Marshall Plan. NATO was also meant to avoid the spread of communism. Marxists do not support NATO. Well, except for a Burford Marxist.
>Of course crises are inevitable under capitalism, as noted in the Fidel
>Castro passages. That does not mean it is wrong to try to socialise the
>market, in the phrase Doug Henwood has recently used. Perhaps Louis would
>like to start being abusive to Doug on his own list, for promoting
>illusions in the possibility of the reform of capitalism.
I am never abusive to Doug. Although I do get sharp with him from time to time. Your problem is that you keep running a bunch of "Marxish" jive to support disgusting right-wing positions. Couldn't you find another ideological sponsor, like Oswald Spengler, Unamuno or Madame Blavatsky?
> *How* would you
>punish the banks? Obviously not firing squad. So what should be done? And
>what if that just drove capital away? Should they be regulated? No that
>cannot be right, because LP would start sounding like a Fabian socialist.
How would I punish the banks? Nationalize them as part of a socialist revolution. Nothing else will do--I am quite firm on this, thank you. I advocate worldwide proletarian revolution. This is really what Marx stood for, not standing in awe of the Hong Kong stock market.
>As for providing an analysis of WHY capitalism is destroying people's
>lives, what is the mystery? Millions can see on their television screens
>the arbitrariness and turmoil of an economic system out of control. The
>question of why the crises of capitalism *disproportionately hit third
>world people* does need much more analysis. But for that LP and others
>would have to join more into the debate on the unequal distribution of
>Value on a global scale. But LP has never shown much interest in value
>theory.
No, I am not interested in the sort of gaseous abstract discussion about value that you think is important. My interest is more in the concrete analysis of how imperialism destroys third world countries and in how to aid anti-imperialist struggles. Value theory is not needed for this.
>
>I am quite content that what I am raising here is well within the range of
>issues covered by the remit of LBO-talk. If LP thinks I am talking to the
>wrong person in addressing correspondence to him, I think he is probably
>right. Why does he not just skip my posts? From his description of myself I
>can hardly be worth it. I will not lose any sleep over that.
Why do you keep talking about losing sleep? Are you perhaps agitated over these debates. I rather enjoy them myself. I find them rather soothing, sort of like Gregorian chants.
Louis Proyect (http://www.panix.com/~lnp3/marxism.html)