Kristol: conservative era waning

[Nathan Newman]

----- Original Message -----
From: "Ian Murray" <seamus2001 at home.com>
> If you treat working class forces as actually having agency and not
>just  being victims, you can reverse this formulation and note that
>progressive working class forces have achieved some degree of power and
>concessions from capital by exploiting tensions and competition between
different
>business sectors.  The reverse can also be said of socially and racially
>conservative working class forces as well.  Of course, business elites
themselves
>exploit the divisions between working class forces, but that is the
>challenge of
> radical politics in a formally democratic system - maximizing working
class
> electoral unity while maneuvering to pit business sectors against one
> another to blunt their unified economic power.
>
> -- Nathan Newman
==============
-Didn't Adam Przeworski point out the problems with this approach?

Probably, although the Przeworski I've read generally notes the dillemmas of
radical politics, not a simple solution, something I can fully agree with.

I never would argue that such an approach is sufficient- otherwise we'd have
socialism by now - but that understanding the agency of working class forces
in contemporary politics is less self-deluding by the Left than the idea
that it is only the working class itself is self-deluded in its allegiance
to their political choices.  They face bad choices and make the best of a
bad deal during elections.

To change that reality is to change not the candidates but the context in
which elections occur - working class power in the workplace, international
cooperation to prevent capital flight, community organizing, alternative
media and so on.  As that shifts, the strategies available in elections
improve.

-- Nathan Newman

Ian