Class struggle is also about which fights don't get picked. Wilhelmine Germany invested in social security retirement funding to undercut the socialists. It was the parallel legislation that went with their banning. Bismarck was willing to take the hit of workers losing the sting of poverty in old age in return for mooting the political challenge from the SPD. It was a smart move. Health insurance would be a similarly smart move for our homegrown Bismarckians, too, at least in terms of dollars and cents. And they will take it when there's a movement that demands it, and so much more. But maybe the answer--to answer my own question-- is that our rulers don't have to be as sophisticated as was the wily Prussian. Even if they're setting themselves up for a fall in the long run (and yes, I know: Keynes said in the long run we're all dead) they'll resort to their mulish yacht-club ways of braying about entitlements, and damn the long run--unless they're pushed,
Mike Hirsch
-----Original Message----- From: Doug Henwood <dhenwood at panix.com> Sent: Sep 29, 2005 4:12 PM To: lbo-talk at lbo-talk.org Subject: Re: [lbo-talk] corps & single-payer
Michael Hirsch wrote:
>I'm not persuaded--his places too much emphasis on consciousness and
>not enough on real history and real class struggles
I'd say that fear of creating a new "entitlement" is all about class struggle: universal health insurance would increase the power of the working class - to paraphrase Kalecki, fear of the sack would lose some of its sting, since workers wouldn't be dependent on employers for health insurance. And it might embolden the working class to ask for more. The low level of expectations among American workers is one of the great victories of the bourgeoisie - it took more than a century to get here, and they're not going to risk any retreat.
Doug ___________________________________ http://mailman.lbo-talk.org/mailman/listinfo/lbo-talk
________________________________________ `And these words shall then become Like oppression's thundered doom Ringing through each heart and brain, Heard again -- again -- again-- `Rise like Lions after slumber In unvanquishable number-- Shake your chains to earth like dew Which in sleep had fallen on you-- Ye are many -- they are few.' --------Shelley, "The Mask of Anarchy: Written on the Occasion of the Massacre at Manchester" [1819]