>>Sorry, the sentence was fucked up. The difference between the
>>effort it takes to reclaim what the working class have lost and
>>the effort it takes to obtain what we should have is negligible.
>
>I still don't quite get it. What is it that the working class has lost?
I've discussed what the working class have lost here and elsewhere. Some indexes of working-class losses:
* Union density peaked in 1953. * The GINI index was at its lowest in 1968. * The real hourly earning peaked in 1973. * The real value of the average AFDC grant peaked in 1977. <http://www.dissidentvoice.org/May2004/Furuhashi0504.htm>
It would be as difficult to get union density back up to the 1953 level, bring back the GINI index to the 1968 level, etc. as to obtain what we should have.
>>How people vote and how elected politicians translate voter
>>sentiments into their power and work out their policy agenda aren't
>>the same thing. The ruling class have more impacts on the latter
>>than the former, in places where elections are relatively free
>>such as Spain, France, and India. After all, the ruling class
>>need only to control the latter.
>
>So the ruling classes in Spain, France, India, etc., don't have much
>influence on how people vote, but the ruling class in the U.S. has a
>lot more? I somehow doubt it.
The comparison I had in mind was not between Spain, France, and India on one hand and the United States on the other hand but between relatively free elections and relatively unfree elections (where political organizers get murdered, many voters get physically intimidated from voting altogether or to vote for those whom the ruling class support, etc.).
Among the governments that can afford to hold relatively free elections, costlier elections (costlier in terms of working-class means of participation) are more subject to the ruling class influence than cheaper ones.
>But my jaded view of revolutionary movements (and non-revolutionary
>ones, too) is that they usually have to tell a lot of lies, because
>it's very hard to mobilize large masses of people without doing so.
We are looking at what we may make of recent electoral results in Spain, France, India, etc. That the Spanish voters got the pledge never to return the Spanish troops to Iraq is victory. If the Indian government will practice smarter and slower privatization, for instance, as the CPI (M) says it should, it will be a small victory as well. Those are victories within the limits of neoliberalism, though, and we have to be honest about the limits of the victories.
Ulhas says;
>Even Congress ruled governments were defeated in Rajasthan, Madhya
>Pradesh, Chattisgarh in the recent elections. In short, everyone in
>power irrespective of the party in power was removed. (West Bengal
>being an exception.)
In other words, an expression of anti-incumbent sentiments, as K Gajendra Singh says: "In India, Weapons of Mass Rejection," May 18, 2004, Asia Times, <http://www.atimes.com/atimes/South_Asia/FE18Df03.html>).
>>And while around 300 million Indians still live on less than $1 a day,
>
>150 million chinese suffer from malnutrition after 55 years marxism -leninism.
<snip>
>>This still developing nation is indeed being transformed in many
>>ways, but the transformation has yet to reach most of the
>>population. The entire information technology industry here still
>>employs fewer than one million people, compared with 40 million
>>registered unemployed.
>
>This is equally true of China and Vietnam.
Maybe, one of these days, you'll admit that what they got in China and Vietnam is capitalism pure and simple in one-party states, the political rhetoric of their respective party leaders notwithstanding.
>There were 78 million phones (fixed lines +mobile) in India on
>30-4-04. But there were only 15 million phones in 1998. (And only
>86,000 in 1950). So it's pace of growth that's relevant, not the
>absolute number.
Relevant in the sense that the pace of technological growth probably raised the expectations of the Indian people, without delivering the fruits of economic growth to all of them to their satisfaction. We may say that it is the sense of relative deprivation, combined with oppositions to communalism, that in addition to the strong anti-incumbent sentiments, can account for the narrow defeat of the BJP. -- Yoshie
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