>Is reform, selling out your principles?
>
>
>
>Did Marx sell out his revolutionary principles when he celebrated the
>victory of the 10 hour bill?
The difference was, Marx did not campaign for the reform. It is one thing to welcome a reform which was the result if in-fighting between sections of the ruling class (the 10 Hour Act and many others), it is another thing entirely to campaign for those reforms in the belief you can make the slaughterhouse work in the interest of the cattle.
In article <3.0.2.32.19990616100805.00b6c9bc at pop.gn.apc.org>, Chris Burford <cburford at gn.apc.org> writes
>Perhaps I will quote the wider passage from his inaugural address to the
>First International 1964.
>"The struggle about the legal restriction of the hours of labour raged the
>more fiercely since, apart from frightened avarice, it told indeed upon the
>great contest between the blind rule of supply and demand laws which form
>the political economy of the middle class, and social production controlled
>by social foresight, which from the political economy of the working class.
>Hence the Ten Hours' Bill was not only a great practical success; it was
>the victory of the middle class succumbed to the political economy of the
>working class."
Marx was clearly overjoyed at this reform (one for which the working class had absolutely no involvement in bringing it about), and in the context of mid-nineteenth century Britain this is understandable. It was a gain for a section of the working class and a dent in free market hegemony. But there is no suggestion that pursuing reforms will lead to the victory of "social production controlled by social foresight".
-- Lew