[lbo-talk] Change [was: Kees van der Pijl]

[Wojtek Sokolowski]

Grant Lee:
> 
> If I catch your drift, you are saying that social security 
> was introduced in the 1930s mostly in response to demands 
> from the working class(??) That may be true. It doesn't mean 
> that it didn't save capitalism. Where else could the 
> bourgeoisie turn, when --- in some countries --- more than 
> 50% of households were suddenly without a breadwinner, and 
> consumption was at a standstill? Enter that staunch 
> anti-Marxist, Mr Keynes...

The period after WW I was that of the weakening of the laissez faire
capitalism.  Virtually every state started introducing social safety
net.  In some countries, like Sweden, it led to a generaous welfare
state and stoped short of nationalzing key industries (although  such
proposals were entertained).  In the US, it did not go that far.  The
forces behind those changes were labor unions, workers parties,
progressive intellectuals etc.  - and how much they could achive
depended mainly on the strength of the capitalist reaction to those
changes.  Some of those changes were later reversed as the capitalist
class regained strenght and launched a reactionary movement.

That is a historical narrative that gives justice to power struggle.
However, if we take the "system as a whole" approach and start seeing
all what is going as something that feeds into the system - we abandon
the realm of empirical science and enter the realm of teleological
mysticism.  Which is what much of modern Marxism cum  world system are.
Basically, the same genre as Talcott Parsons' social systems and
neo-classical economics, but with with reversed polarities.

Wojtek