Doug Henwood wrote, "the bourgeoisie only have Brad & Max here!", and subsequently Enzo added himself to the short list. Clearly Doug meant that these are the only LBO-list participants who profess fealty to capitalism. But that was not how I interpreted Henry Liu's concern.
I abstain from the debate over electronic mailing list moderation, which I simply accept as an owner's natural right, right or not as it may be politically. As Doug knows, I have bowed to his rulings, and on one occasion sought his opinion of an item's pertinence before posting it.
But the issue of class struggle among professed Marxists and other currents of socialism does not stand or fall there, and it is profoundly important on this list, both as a matter of style (the snobbery of some otherwise radical posters, a posture inimical to proletarian politics; also the elitist dismissal and ridicule of views which, right or wrong, merit serious answers or rebuttals; and third, closely related to those toxic attitudes, the view that angry and indignant words are or ought to be sufficient to prevail in debate) and of substance (political content).
Substance is abstractly more important than style, naturally, particularly among intellectuals, but when one's political style is such that it impedes political development, it is reactionary as such, regardless of the purveyor's subjective revolutionary stance. When SNCC's male leaders -- true radicals to a man -- attempted to dismiss Ruby Doris Smith's protest that women's views were being slighted and their participation diminished by rating it a matter of less than overriding importance, they brought forth a political eruption from within, by and on behalf of women, that quickly became a new radical movement in its own right.
However, let us take this one step at a time. The essential text on the class struggle within Marxism is Lenin's Imperialism. Recall the context: When Lenin first read that the Socialist (Social Democratic) deputies had voted war credits, he believed that the report had been forged. Eventually satisfied that it was true, he next regarded it as a class betrayal by the Socialists. But his study of imperialism led him eventually to conclude that imperialism had created a new objective reality, in which the workers' political leadership and the upper layers of the class ("labor aristocracy') had acquired a material stake in capitalism. This insight superseded Rosa Luxemburg's understanding of Eduard Bernstein's revisionism, and called forth a new political outlook.
That is one way in which bourgeois currents thrive within Marxism and within the proletariat. Antonio Gramsci's theory of hegemony, which I summarized in an earlier thread, showed how the bourgeoisie rules in normal times through the pervasiveness of its culture and world view within the oppressed and exploited masses; the self-conscious Marxist leaders are by no means immune to that problem, and must struggle against it. That is the specific content of the anti-racist struggle within Marxism which Charles Brown has advocated.
Finally, although the Marxist movement does include Gramsci's "organic intellectuals" -- those who rise from the masses to articulate their aspirations directly -- the typical Marxist intellectual -- certainly on this list -- is one whose training and attitudes are thoroughly bourgeois, and whose lifestyles rarely include the collective discipline of proletarian life. They chafe at political demands that in any respect would restrict their personal freedoms, let alone those that require adherence to a political line, or to menial duties of organizing and agitation.
The tendency of intellectuals of this type to create a bourgeois ideological center within Marxism was explored with characteristic vigor by Leon Trotsky in his book In Defense of Marxism (Against the Petty-Bourgeois Opposition), and in James P. Cannon's companion volume, The Struggle for a Proletarian Party. Neither book reflects my outlook, but the realities they opposed are not imaginary, and are more widespread than just one current within 1940's Trotskyism.
In truth, they pose a discouraging obstacle to the political potential of this list. These are not sectarian points of doctrine that mimic theology; they are concerns about the true inclusiveness of political dialogue among leftists which, if cut off, will silence some of our most creative and perceptive participants. (I have not explored LP's list, but I trust Charles Brown's sensitivity to these problems, and I believe they parallel Henry Liu's concerns.)
Doug, I agree that you paid for this microphone. An airing of these issues will in every respect honor your service to us all, for which I express gratitude.
Ken Lawrence