Charles Brown wrote:
>
> Marxism is a science
>
> Cian O'Conner:
> How would you set out to disprove Marx's maxim about
> the inevitability of revolution? Maybe you can, but
> noone has managed it, or tried really.
>
> %%%%%
>
> CB: Hasn't this maxim been _proved_ a dozen times since Marx ?
Charles, the phrase "inevitability of revolution," is rhetoric rather than core marxist analysis. (In some situations it's good rhetoric; in others it's more or less irrelevant.)
What marxism has established, and what is more or less evident in the empirical record to anyone not religiously tied to an individualist metaphysic, is the anarchy of capitalism, what Rosa Luxemburge sloganized as "socialism or barbarianism." Clearly, within this overall anarchy & mass destruction, various and endlessly recurrent acts (collective and individual) of resistance, rebellion, etc are highly likely. Those actions, of course, may well be reactionary rather than progressive. But I think when we speak of revolution we should mean a whole (successful) process of transforming the basic social relations of capitalism: and that is by no means inevitable, nor would Marx ever have seriously made that claim.
That effort is, given Marx's analysis of capitalism an _intelligible_ effort, to which millions have devoted and will devote their lives. But intelligibility is not inevitability.
If you don't hit it, it won't fall, Mao observed. He also observed that a correct policy does not guarantee victory. The enemy may simply be stronger. Carrol