[lbo-talk] Is Nader a Marxist, socialist, capitalist, bourgeoisdemocrat, or just lonely

Michael Dawson MDawson at pdx.edu
Mon Nov 1 15:46:48 PST 2004


"...vulgar democracy, which sees the millennium in the democratic republic and has no suspicion that it is precisely in this last form of state of bourgeois society that the class struggle has to be fought out to a conclusion..."

This is pretty slippery and very unclear, and it's practically all KM ever said about the topic. One presumes he's trying to say that formal democracy (laws, legislatures, courts, rules, votes, human rights codes) must be accompanied by substantive democracy (participation and information), that form alone is not enough. But to call formal democracy "vulgar" is pretty damned dangerous, and to remain so cryptic about the necessary-but-not-sufficient status of voting and formal procedures is also hardly cutting-edge democracy.

This is as close to a central topic as you could get, if you're a Marxist. So, don't we have to make major upgrades here? KM left us little on this, and what he left is barely useful, at best.

-----Original Message----- From: lbo-talk-bounces at lbo-talk.org [mailto:lbo-talk-bounces at lbo-talk.org] On Behalf Of Todd Archer Sent: Monday, November 01, 2004 3:11 PM To: lbo-talk at lbo-talk.org Subject: [lbo-talk] Is Nader a Marxist, socialist, capitalist,bourgeoisdemocrat, or just lonely

Michael Dawson said:


>Marxism's record on democracy is very bad,

<shrug> Nascent capitalist states weren't so shit-hot about it either. Nader's comment says more about himself than communism.


>starting with Marx himself, who was lukewarm about
>it.

Really? Where do you get this about Marx?

Todd

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