libertarianism & left/right

Dddddd0814 at aol.com Dddddd0814 at aol.com
Tue Aug 13 18:20:30 PDT 2002


I wrote:
> Tahir, this is a good point. The point is that, given the global dominance
of
> the capitalist economic system, there is no "third way" out of all of this.
> We can either be with the capitalists or against them. Any "third way"--
from
> fascism on one extreme, all the way to individualist anarchism on the
other--
> will simply lead back to support of the class in power. This has been
bourne
> out time and time again throughout history.

In a message dated 8/13/2 9:50:18 PM, you wrote:


>It seems to me that what history bears out is that most of
>the parties who defined themselves very specifically against
>capitalism, the Communist Parties of the Soviet Union and
>China (among others), _became_ capitalists, precisely through
>support of the class in power -- the supposed revolutionaries,
>who, having State power and thus a class position to defend
>and maintain, found they had a lot in common with their
>supposed capitalist opponents.

The point is that attempts to undermine the historical/material ideological basis of struggle, whether manifested in Anarchism, Stalinism, or Fascism, have opened the way to further collaboration with capitalism. All three of these streams are moralistic, nationalist, quasi-humanist approaches to liberation-- i.e., Stalin's manufactured notion of "socialism in one country". (Remember that the majority of even Bakunin's life work consisted of promotion of the objectives of pan-Slavic nationalism....) Liberation cannot be achieved independently of the global economic forces that enforce continual enslavement.

The assumption still seems to be that "leftism" necessarily equates with Stalinism, i.e. state capitalism. The Soviet Union and China were economically underdeveloped countries, which were isolated due to the absence of a larger, international revolution in the developed countries. Due to the lack of economic development in Russia and China, capitalist practices were inevitable from the beginning. But, anyone who thinks that a revolution in the 21st century U.S. will even remotely resemble a revolution in early-20th century Russia-- or mid-century China-- is out of their minds. There are no "peasants" to speak of in the U.S., Germany, France, or England, and there is a high level of industrial and economic development.

The collapse of the 2nd International politics (i.e. "social democracy") and then 3rd International politics (i.e. "Stalinism"), led to renewed interests in fascism and anarchism, respectively.

Best, David



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