France: Strikes, Protests Mount vs. Austerity Measures

Yoshie Furuhashi furuhashi.1 at osu.edu
Wed Nov 27 12:15:01 PST 2002



>Wojtek Sokolowski wrote:
>
>>In a word, "free market" espouses the very same ideals that
>>"communism/socialism" did 60-80 years ago. It is a sad commentary on
>>the state of the left and labor politics today - not only did they loose
>>political power, but the battle for the "hearts and minds" as well.
>
>This is related to the point I was making about Reagan recently -
>that he projected optimism and possiblity. But everyone said this
>wasn't true, he was really a prick. He led the right's appropriation
>of traditionally left discourse about revolution, and rendered labor
>and the left looking like tired defenders of the status quo. People
>still don't seem to appreciate how successful this was.
>
>Doug

If you believed the optimistic discourse of the free market, though, you'd think that revolution were happening almost every day, with the marketing of every new product. One inevitable result of the triumph of the free market ideology is trivialization of the word revolution.

That said, it is true that revolution has disappeared as a desirable goal from much of the left-wing public discourse, except from the left edge of anarchism and socialism -- the very sort of organizers and activists to whom those who think of themselves as "sane and sensible" leftists tend to condescend.

One of the slogans we hear often today is, "Another World Is Possible." That's all well and good, but it unfortunately sounds a little Jesse-Jacksonian, as in, "Keep Hope Alive!" Inoffensive, but not the slogan that you would use if you were in fact on the offensive, as Reagan (and the social forces that he represented) really was.

Perhaps, I should urge Dr. Eugene Holland (Associate Professor of French Literature and Comparative Studies -- cf. <http://www.frit.ohio-state.edu/people/Holland1/>) to hurry up and finish his work-in-progress on "free market communism" ASAP. It seems there's a market niche for that on LBO-talk!

Yoshie



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