war and the state (was milton, etc.)

billbartlett at dodo.com.au billbartlett at dodo.com.au
Sun Aug 25 10:10:02 PDT 2002


Joe R. Golowka wrote:


>>. Socialism fails and becomes degraded in the less advanced countries because the material conditions for socialism, along with a larger international revolutionary movement, do not exist. Socialist revolution can only become successful when it reaches the economically most advanced countries, where capital is concentrated.
>
>Considering that the vast majority of real-life socialist societies have been pre-industrial I think it's pretty absurd to claim that you must have industrialization before you can have socialism.

You must be very gullible to swallow the idea that the USSR was socialist?


>Needless to say, this applies to the class struggle as well. Is, for example, a picket line really authoritarian because it tries to impose its will on the boss, police or scabs?

It depends how it tries to do that. If the picketers simply ask other workers not to cross their line and rely on their sense of solidarity to come to the right decision, it is not authoritarian. If they try to use physical force to prevent other workers crossing the line, it is obviously authoritarian. In the same sense that all thuggery and organised crime are forms of authoritarianism.


> Rather, is it not defending the workers' freedom against the authoritarian power of the boss and their lackeys (the police and scabs)?

Who are "the workers" in this context?



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