[lbo-talk] Re: What the Ruling Class Want to Get: A Green Light

andie nachgeborenen andie_nachgeborenen at yahoo.com
Mon Jul 19 07:38:55 PDT 2004


And whatever our long term aspirations, what is the practical alternative to practical reformism? We can stand on the sidelines and kvetch, or preach total revolution to deaf ears, or both. But don't we want ti actually make a positive difference in people's lives? Wouldn't it be good to stop logging in national forests or save overtime protections for salaried workers under the FLSA or (big jump) get national health insurance or (almost inconceivably big jump) win for Americans the sort of [ackage of social democratic rights that Western Europeans and Canadians take for granted?

It is true that each victory in a way makes the system more tolerable and reduces, in ordinary times, which are most of them, the likelihood of actuially overcoming class divisions. What could motivate Swedish workers to revolt? What could you offer them that would make it seem worth risking what they have already won? That is the paradox of the left, but I don't see how it escapable. "The worse the better," a slogan I don't attribute to you, is not acceptable. Neither is doing nothing, merely carping, or preaching to the choir -- the five thousand people or so in the country who in a broad way agree that more radical change than even social democracy would be desirable.

So, I put this as an honest question to Chucko, Shane, Melvin, Yoshie, and all the intransigents, and I guess I used to be one too -- if not practical reformism in the context of keeping longer range goals alive as aspirations, then what?

jks

--- Doug Henwood <dhenwood at panix.com> wrote:
> Chuck0 wrote:
>
> >History. I recommend reading up on the subject,
> especially the part
> >about how the ruling class uses reformism to stave
> off the rabble.
>
> Yeah, they did that in the 30s, when capitalism
> looked to be
> imploding, the USSR was a mighty rival and the CP
> was organizing from
> Harlem to Alabama. Now, where's the crisis? Where's
> the troublesome
> rabble?
>
> Doug
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>
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