> I don't think any serous leftist would believe such
> glop as the automatic dissolution of capitalism. (I believe in the
> first
> quarter of the 20th c. there were some serious arguments along this
> line, but not since then.)
And before that, it was firmly believed in by those "serious leftists," Marx and Engels (at least on alternate Tuesdays, Thursdays, and new moons).
This apocalyptic religious belief was a powerful motivator of many of the foot soldiers in the Marxist movement for a long time, but that "Old-Time Religion" is indeed losing strength. The trouble is that, if the proposition that capitalism is on the road to suicide is ruled out, there are basically only two alternatives: a) the left must overthrow capitalism by its own efforts, or b) capitalism will stick around for the indefinite future, and we have to make our peace with it and derive whatever good we can from within it. The first alternative doesn't look very promising at this point, given the extreme weakness of the left, and the second means that radical anti-capitalism is impossible, which most if not all radicals would certainly hate to admit.
This may explain why the "automatic dissolution of capitalism" keep creeping back into left discourse, in one form or another. It's a very useful fantasy. (For good old Friedrich's take on this, see below.)
Jon Johanning // jjohanning at igc.org __________________________________ After the Buddha died, people still kept pointing to his shadow in a cave for centuries -- an enormous, dreadful shadow. God is dead: but the way people are, there may be, for millennia, caves in which his shadow is still pointed to. -- And we -- we must still overcome his shadow! —Friedrich Nietzsche