[lbo-talk] the worse (was Fwd: Ralph Nader)

[kelley at pulpculture.org]

At 10:55 AM 2/23/2004, Jon Johanning wrote:
>On Sunday, February 22, 2004, at 08:13  PM, John Thornton wrote:
>
>>Perhaps I'm being dense but what do you mean specifically by "the better 
>>the worse" position?
>
>Well, "the better the worse" would be an interesting position to take, for 
>sure. I'm having a little trouble fleshing it out, but I'll think about it 
>some more.
>
>In any case, "the worse the better" is the idea that it is preferable for 
>the worst possible regime to get into power, because that will 
>"radicalize" a lot of folks who were middle-of-the-road or on the right 
>side of the road before.
>
>Generally, it is an argument made by people who have become desperate 
>about their own lack of power and their own ability to persuade and 
>organize any significant part of the public, so they are reduced to hoping 
>for a miracle. Some radical left Germans took that position as the Nazi 
>Party rose, but seriously underestimated how bad the "worse" would be, of 
>course. I don't seriously believe that a re-elected Bush/Republican Party 
>would emulate Hitler/the Nazis, but I don't think they would become any 
>less of a disaster for U.S. workers and the rest of the world than they 
>are now. On the contrary, they would feel that they had a mandate to do 
>whatever they pleased.

I thought it derived from a core idea in some interpretations of Marx's 
work: when workers have nothing but their chains to lose, they'll finally 
throw off the chains and finish digging capital's grave. Unlike us they 
can't see the light without living through the worst times possible. We, of 
course, are magically special and figured it all out without having to live 
under conditions in which we had nothing to lose but our chains.

feh.

Kelley