> Rakesh wrote:
>
> > At one level, FROP is a theory of qualitative leaps forward in the
> > intensity
> > of the class struggle.
> Is the class struggle more intense than it was in 1969? Or 1939?
> Seth
Of course if the general and protracted crisis in social reproduction that forces capital to employ novel means other than ole' 'economic' ones by which it usually extricates it from normal troughs (bankruptcy, centralisation, higher exploitation) is not taken advantage of by the working class to commence a revolutionary assault on class society, a general crisis then allows the victorious capitals to restructure, regain profitability and resume accumulation.
In this century, war has served to extricate (surviving) capital from structural crisis. Yet this has not remained a possibility after the horrors of world war 2. That has been believed not to matter: Marcuse for example thought that the crisis cycle had been abolished due to various possibilities opened up by (capital-saving) technology and keynesian macro management techniques. The working class was widely thought to have been integrated in a one dimensional society (which lead to leftists championing third world peasant revolutions [do you know a comrade named Kim Il Sung?], [snotty] students, [delusional] black belt and aztlan secession movements, and nihilistic terror a la the Weatherman).
Mattick alone preserved the core of Marxism [the self emancipation of the proleriat] at the level of theory during the days of the New Left from what I have read. I consider his 1972 Critique of Marcuse (expanded from an article in the Marcuse festschrift in 1967) to be a historic document.
While there have been seven recessions since 1970, the ones in the mid 70s and the early 80s revealed how profound a crisis in social reproduction capital was still capable of inflicting on society. My argument here is that even more severe contradictions are silently building underneath this boom, which will make even these past recessions seem quite bearable. This is quite plain to see if we look at the world theater.
Most importantly from the argument of Mattick's I am advancing here: With the limits on the mixed economy already reached (fiscal impotence in Japan and fiscal austerity in the EU and the US), there will be no easy way out of a general crisis in social reproduction. The fiscal card has simply already been played. This means the next depression won't simply be a cold douche. It will scald the working class. Or the working class will overthrow bourgeois society. The only real options remain: barbarism or socialism.
Yet to our great advantage, the resort to inter-imperialist war is no longer possible: such is the dialectic of history. This has immeasurably greatened our chances in the 21st century.
Yours, Rakesh