Good...
< My main point, I guess, is the
> presentation of the material - as something radically new
> rather than "history repeating itself, as it were, twice."
> As the Old Man aptly observed in the opening to the "18th
> brummaire of Louis Bonaparte" - any radical social change
> needs costumes borrowed from the past - and for a good
> reason. A bird in hand is better than two on a bush, as they
> say. People tend to price higher what they already have than
> what they might get, and they tend to be afraid of anything
> they are unfamiliar with. From that point of view, the
> social democratic project of mending the existing
> institutions (which can get us very far, as the Scandinavian
> countries show) is a better sell than a radical change, let
> alone a revolution.
By this argument someone who said they thought we should mend slavery rather than abolish it would be right -- someone who said we should mend stalinism rather than replacing it, would be right, ditto apartheid, and so on.
You could be right -- you could be wrong. History is the only possible ulitmate arbiter.
The poolish experience would be interesting to discuss sometime. I spent a little time there myself, too, though very little. But I think not now...given other pressures.