>
>If success inevitably leads a group to bourgoisification, then
>bourgeosification is the inevitable destiny of society. Only successful
>movements can change society and this view means that success is fatal.
Robert Michel's Iron Law of Oligarchy, as I recall (in his Political Parties, discussing the prewar German SDP).
>
>But then, this isn't that odd a statement. There is a whole wing of the
>left that prefers the purity of failure, since it avoids the actual
>strategic choices required by any moderately successful movement for social
>change. There is a perpetual utopianism allowed by failure.
Quite. But then there is another wing of the --left?-- that prefers moderate short term success (or the prospect of it) at the expense of any long term aims. Thus the people, if there were any around here, who adhere to the Democratic Party as the only possible source of policy change and heap scorn on those who regard it as hopless--a course which inevitably means (since there is no reasonable prospect of capturing the DP or transforming it into a radical organization) chaining ourselves to an organization whose aims are antithetical to ours on all the big things. But I speak merely hypothetically.
jks
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