From: Carrol Cox
Justin has argued, somewhat persuasively, that the Communist (self-labelled Marxist) Movement is dead, and that when the left arises again it will be with different slogans and different banners. (This isn't quite accurate, but I think it is true to the general thrust of Justin's position.)
Let's assume that is accurate.
But The Communist Movement was only _one_ of three major movements of the last 150 years.
The Second was Social Democracy (when it still aimed, at least in principle, at Socialism).
The Third was, for lack of a better description, The Liberal Movement (which I will define here as social democracy minus the aim at socialism).
And it seems clear to me that Justin's argument that Communism failed applies with equal force to Liberalism and Social Democracy.
[Certainly, of the three Communism contributed the most to positive gain around the world in the last century (and was even indirectly responsible for most or all the gains made by liberal or social-democratic movements).]
And surely, if we go just by the empirical facts of the last 30 years -- what Justin offers as the core of Liberalism ("You have to be procedurally correct too, and in fact, procedural correctness trumps.")
(((((((
CB: Sort of like the Due Process clauses of the Fifth and 14th Amendments are the most fundamental part of the U.S. Constitution. Fundamental Fairness is the Queen of Democracy.
(((((((
has suffered defeats at least as deep as has Communism. (Social Democracy has one and only one victory to its credit, so far as I know, in an area as peripheral as Laos -- i.e. in Sweden; and that has pretty much degenerated into nothing more than a pleasant liberal regime.) The New Deal is dead and the Great Society never really got started. Atlee's England is as dead as Stalin's USSR.
If the empirical defeat of Communism is evidence for the impossiblity of Communism, then surely the defeats of Social Democracy and Liberalism are equal evidence for the impossibility of either of those routes.
^^^^^^ CB: Yes, it's still Communism or barbarism. Don't forget Liberalism has been trying for 500 years. Communism has only been trying for 75. The failure of Liberalism after all these centuries is much more a sign of obsolescence than that of the earliest efforts at Communism. Communism's failures are those of a teenager. Liberalism are of old age.
^^^^^
Carrol
P.S. It seems to me that the death toll of the 20th century is pretty good evidence for what I would see as the core of any marxism: the absolute incompatibility of capitalism and human survival. (The belief that Socialism is possible is strictly secondary.)