> 1. Organizational asymmtery - the state is highly organized and public
> is not. Thus the state can selectively apply large resources against
> isolated pocket of resistence. This strategy works particularly well
> when society is atomized and compartmentalized and th eonly organized
> collectivity they know is the state. However, as Gramsci (and Trotsky)
> aptly observed, and organized "civil society" can provide alternative to
> state forms of organizations - but the danger is that even civil society
> can be hijacked and "switched off" by the state (as the fascit movement
> in Italky and germany illustrates).
It's amazing to me that when Marxists lag along 20+ years after anarchist analysis and activity, it's nevertheless Marxists that get the credit for the "breakthrough." In this case, it's Gramsci and Trotsky in the 1920's - 1930's we have to thank for telling us that the power of the state can be countered by grassroots organizations and labor groups. Wow, thank you Marxist Intellectuals.
People on the shop floor had figured this one out decades before Trotsky and Gramsci came along.
Brian