> I meant that I find it hard to agree with that kind of comment ("I am
> the
> Way, the Truth, and the Light"), based on what Carrol actually said.
I admit that I was trying to prod Carrol into giving a rational defense of his opinion of the Democratic Party, but I grant that the likelihood of his doing this is small. It always gets my goat when I see folks calling themselves Marxists who issue dogmatic proclamations and refuse to defend them by rational argument. They are forever proclaiming how scientific Marxism is, but don't seem to have any notion of what science really is. That's why I tend to infuriate them by pointing out that they are really using Marxism as a religion, which demands faith in dogmas. Hence my biblical quotation.
> Can we be so sure that Nader, or the other left candidates, will spoil
> Kerry? From this long distance it looks to me like Kerry will win by a
> landslide and Nader will not do as well as he did last time.
Apparently Australia is not getting a clear picture of the U.S. situation. It is not clear by any means how the election will turn out; of course it is much too early for polls to mean much, but most of them show that no landslide for anyone is in the offing. I also think that Nader will not do as well as in 2000, but who knows at this point? A lot depends on how many states he can get on the ballot in, and which ones (this state-controlled ballot thing is a peculiarity of U.S. presidential elections that may not have an analogue in Australia). And it is not clear just how close the Bush-Kerry contest will be, but hardly anyone thinks it won't be very close.
> I think _some_ kind of class consciousness is a given. Based on my
> experience of living and working in London for two years, in the early
> 90s,
> it may not be the consciousness of a class-for-itself, but it's
> qualitatively different from class consciousness that one finds here in
> Australia, which --- it seems to me -- has some similarities to the US
> in
> these respects. (Although there are important differences too.) e.g.
> The
> cultures of the different classes are not as distinct as in Europe.
It always used to be argued that the U.S. working class didn't have a European-style class consciousness because it didn't have the feudal background, and immigrants from Europe felt liberated from the class system they grew up in when they reached these shores, trading in their old inferiority complex for a new feeling of superiority vis-a-vis blacks and Native Americans. By now, of course, we are talking about the 2nd, 3rd, or even 4th generation after those immigrants, so what we have is probably a family tradition handed down through those generations. There may well be a similarity with Australia here, but I don't know enough about Oz to say.
As for class culture, there is basically one mass culture in the U.S. at this point, from which one can dissent as an individual (as most of us on this list probably do), but there is little evidence of a class-based alternative culture developing. Since the '60s, the "alternative culture" has not been class-based, but basically just an "alternative life style," which is just another a consumer brand one can buy as an individual. (Very schematic description, but basically true, I think.)
> I think the late 19th/early 20th C. statist, intra-national
> insitutional
> models are finished. They emerged as a compromise in the face of strong
> organised labour, and they faded as that faded in the 1980s. I think
> we can
> do better, although if there is another major rupture in the global
> system
> (as in 1929), capital may once again adopt Keynesian solutions (i.e.
> forgoing some accumulation in the interests of stabilising the system).
I think I agree pretty much with this, and I hope we can do better <g>. I'm sure that by now, Keynesianism is a permanent feature of capitalism (was it Nixon or some such who said "We are all Keynesians now"?), but of course the big question is whether Keynesian solutions will work forever.
> The danger here is that we concentrate on strategies for situations
> which
> will probably never arise. No-one really knows what the results of a
> continuing decline (relative e.g. to Asia) for the US will be, but it's
> important to keep an open mind on this.
Definitely.
> Kissinger was already saying 30 years ago, that the US had been in
> long-term
> _relative_ decline since the 1950s (with his own agenda, of course).
> There
> are different/shifting kinds of economic decline; but it seems to me
> that
> the pattern/direction of US capital _at the moment_ is similar to
> Britain
> in the late 19th/early 20th C. --- e.g. finance capital is preserving
> itself
> by increasingly investing in "colonies" and "competitors" (e.g. China),
> where the rate of return is higher. This is similar to the kind of
> intra-capitalist struggle which played out in Britain, where "the City"
> survived at the expense of Manchester, Birmingham and the other
> industrial
> centres and subordinate strata of capital.
Interesting comparison; looks like I'll have to spend some time researching British economic history some more -- after I finish researching everything else I'm wasting time on, of course <g>.
Jon Johanning // jjohanning at igc.org __________________________________ When I was a little boy, I had but a little wit, 'Tis a long time ago, and I have no more yet; Nor ever ever shall, until that I die, For the longer I live the more fool am I. -- Wit and Mirth, an Antidote against Melancholy (1684)