> CB: Why don't you think Marxist ideology will ever be the sort of force it
was once ?
> andie: Do you really want to get into this?
> CB: You mean because we have more important things to talk about on this
list ?
andie: Yes. I don't see the point of this sort of very long tewrm prognostication or guessing what the shape of resistance movements will be in a century (or three). ^^^^^^^^
CB: I haven't said it so far, but my response to you is that it won't be a century before Marxism's revival. So, this isn't talking long term prognostication, from my point of view on this. Could be ten years. It may be as in Venezuela, Marxist in content , but not in explicit form as yet. The U.S. has a tradition of youth rebellion against the previous generation. There could a big rebellion against everything Reaganite, in the next ten to fifteen years, and they might take up Marxism just to spite their 80's-90's money focussed elders.
^^^^^
>
> > CB: There historical ebb and flow. I think since Marxism is basically a
> true assessment of the reality of capitalism,
>
> Yes
>
> CB: > it has lots of potential to revive in generations that have not been
> propagandized and involved in anti-communist, anti-Soviet, anti-China,
> Korea, Viet Namese, Cuban crusades.
>
> Perhaps, But I don't think truth is enough. In the meantime, Marxism asa
> movement is dead or dormant.
>
> > Liberal democracy doesn't have much appeal among working masses, given
> they have extensive experience that it is a monumental sham. I wouldn't be
> holding out much hope that it is going to catch on more readily than some
> Next-Marxism.
>
> Well, LD has never been popular in America, at least the extensive civil
> and political rights part. But the fact is that the institutions of LD
> exist and are pretty strongly entrenched,a nd it's not politically popular
> to oppose it.
CB: Bush has high popularity ratings and he is opposing it.
^^^^^
>
>
> > CB: Wait until the next round of economic failures of capitalism really
> kick in. Look at Argentina, Venezuela. The masses there are brainwashed
> about the economic "failures" of Communism. Of course, an objective look at
> the whole history of Communism would show gigantic economic successes and
> the impact of capitalist military aggression of a world historic hugeness.
> Sober thinkers in the future will be able to weigh this out accurately.
>
> andie: Maybe, but I am not a catastrophist, and I don't think that a
> capialist collapse will lead to a revival of Marxism without strong Marxist
> parties,w hich right now we have not got.
^^^^^^
CB: Doesn't have to be a catastrophe, just a depression. If the U.S.standard of living drops for some years, there will be resentment because of the memory of SUVism, resentment at a palpable drop. This will be fertile ground for socialist ideas.
^^^^^^
>
>
> > CB: Of course, the U.S. had anti-socialist, anti-anarcho-syndicalist,
> anti-union laws. Nor was there actual freedom of speech, etc. When one
> looks honestly at U.S. history , legal reality even in 20th Century, it's
> not very much of a liberal democracy either.
>
> It's still an aspiration.
^^^^^
>
> > CB: I didn't say the LD caused wars. I said capitalism caused the wars,
> and liberal democracy was profoundly corrupted by the capitalism that is
> concommitant with it in actual history, so corrupted that basically there
> is no actually existing liberal democracy in history.
>
> andie: Not fully existing, but these things are all ideal types.
>
> I can't think of a case in the last 150 years where an LD made war on
> another. Can you?
CB: Wait I read this wrong. I thought you had 50 years. Yes, WWI. Franco-Prussian war. But then , on the other hand ,when has there been a real LD ? Anywhere. Ideal type. Hmmm.
>
> > CB: No. How does that cut in what we are talking about ? Basically that
> means that these fake ass LD's have been waging wars on colonies. That
> merely corroborates what I am trying to say here - not that the abstract
> "LD-ness" causes war, but that whatever "LD-ness" there is has been
> substantially and increasingly negated by the capitalism that is ALWAYS
> with the "LD-ness".
>
> andie: Limited LDs are not "fake," jsut partial. And it matters, because if
> LDs, however limited, don't make war on each other, it reduced the
> likelihood of war if we can spread even limited LD-hood. i mean, by example
> and persuasion, not by force.
>
> jks
>
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