> >a set of equations
>
> I'm very fond of equations.
> (1) > Capitalism = Imperialism
> (2) > No State Power = No Political Power = No Socialism
> (3) > No Spontaneous Mass Militancy on the Rise = No Leninism
> (4) > No Leninism = Innumerable Bureaucratic-Centrist NGOs
> (5) > Anti-Capitalism - Marxism = Asceticism
> (6) > Marxism - Leninism = Economism (& Its Dialectical Twin "Identity
> Politics") and/or Voluntarism = Wishful-Thinking = Loyal Opposition
> to the American Empire
> (7) > Hardt & Negri = Left-Communism = Voluntarism = An Infantile Disorder
> (8) > Leninism = Neither Economism Nor Voluntarism
> (9) > No Socialism in the USA = Barbarism
I'd like to pick on a few of these points, which I have taken the liberty of numbering.
While capitalism is necessarily imperialist, there is no reason why there could not be non-capitalist forms of imperialism, and in fact we see these in history, so '=' is not the right operator for (1). I hesitate to strain my keyboard in an attempt to find one, but what we want is something like "implies" or "is a subset of".
In the case of (2), much depends on the definition of _socialism_. If socialism is "the ownership or control of the means of production by the working class, or by the people in general", then positive State power is unnecessary to it; all that is being called for is that which the petit bourgeois already enjoy, possession of one's tools and more or less unimpeded access to the resources necessary for production.
As with the petit bourgeoisie already, that could be theoretically accomplished by individual, cooperative and communal organizations in an anarchistic or liberal polity, rendering State intervention unnecessary. In fact, State organization of socialism seems to strongly imply the rise of a bureaucratic class which negates its fundamental principle; the bureaucrats form hierarchies of elite governors and transform themselves (as a class) into quasi-capitalists. The implication appears to be borne out by the historical fate of the socialist states constructed in the Soviet Union and China, among others.
On the other hand, anarchistic petit-bourgeois socialism has generally been inhibited and often crushed by states, whether liberal or of some other kind. The problem we are viewing here is an aspect of the more fundamental problem: how do we deal with war, class and slavery without becoming ourselves the same as our opponents? How do we deal with violence non-violently?
I don't pretend to have a simple, concise answer to this question, but I think the belief that we can dip into war, class and slavery and then pop out again, because we have followed some set of rules about it or adhered to the right group of people or principles, is belied by history. I probably don't need to give a demonstration of this for the liberal states; as for the nominally socialist, note in the material you quoted following _The_Critique_of_the_ _Gotha_Program_, Lenin says
Here "quantity turns into quality": such a degree of democracy
implies overstepping the boundaries of bourgeois society and
beginning its socialist reorganization. If really all take
part in the administration of the state, capitalism cannot
retain its hold.
-- and yet it is obvious from the history of the Soviet Union and the condition of its components today, that neither capitalism nor indeed a substantial element of feudalism was eliminated by Lenin and his followers. (It would be the height of elitism, by the way, to say as some do that this was because the revolution was betrayed by its leadership. If we have to trust certain noble fellows to show us the way, we might as well go back to feudalism and stay there.) I think we must conclude that State organizations probably cannot produce socialism and there is not much use trying to make them do it.
This leads us to (3): if there is no spontaneous mass militancy, it is true there will be no Leninism; indeed, there will be no movement of any kind except the hysterical and rather incoherent thrashing-about of advanced capitalism. The only possible path to transformation of an entire society must begin in the instigation or unleashing of revolutionary social forces among the people in general. This is why I'm so interested in praxis, low-level activities like those of Food Not Bombs, communal groups, radical unions and the like, rather than in great leaders or large organizations.
If anything it works, it ought to work on the lowest level, spread horizontally, and eat up the superstructure from below. If it doesn't work this way, it's likely to be more of the same, or worse. Fortunately, _I_ don't know what works on any level, my words are unconvincing, and I lack charisma, so I am in no danger of becoming a great leader of a large organization, and you are all free to discover the magic agitprop on your own. Nature and our cirumstances compel us to virtue, and there is safety and success in failure.
I guess this is long enough and I will leave the other numbers alone.