<HTML><HTML>In a message dated 5/2/05 8:18:43 PM Eastern Daylight Time, lbo-talk-request@lbo-talk.org writes: <BLOCKQUOTE TYPE=CITE style="BORDER-LEFT: #0000ff 2px solid; MARGIN-LEFT: 5px; MARGIN-RIGHT: 0px; PADDING-LEFT: 5px">WS: I think you are mistaking our own weakness for our enemy's strength.  What you call "the ruling class" is by no means united - it is amorphous, internally divided, and willing to compromise because deal making is its modus operandi and its raison d'etre. The fact that it gets pretty much what it wants is owed not as much to its own power, albeit this power is non trivial, but the incredible weakness of its class enemies. </BLOCKQUOTE> Deal making is most definitely not the ruling class's raison d'etre. Profits are. Its members can't exist without making deals with each other, and have competing and opposing interests, but unite very quickly against the interests of  people outside the class, i.e. the majority, with whom they won't make any deals unless convinced they have to. Seventy-some years ago, the ruling class, threatened with economic collapse and a revolutionary challenge, made a few compromises with the larger population in order to save their skins. A few more compromises were made 35-some years ago, during the next big wave of discontent. But they have spent the past 25 years trying to undo these compromises, and their efforts now have more momentum than ever. Where have you been all this time?  </HTML>