> On Thu, 26 Jan 2006 19:54:07 -0500 turbulo at aol.com writes:
>> Jim F. wrote:
>>
>> Not too many now a days. But if we look back to
>> the 1930s there were many people in the Democrats
>> who were, at least rhetorically, committed to ending
>> capitalism. The CPUSA threw its support behind
>> FDR in his second term and lots of genuine radicals
>> were staffing the New Deal agencies. Both Paul
>> Sweezy and Harry Magdoff were examples of the
>> kinds of people who attempted to make the New Deal
>> work.
>>
>> _______________
>>
>> Just because socialiats supported the New Deal doesn't mean that
>> Roosevelt and the people who ran the New Deal supported socialism.
>
> I never said they did. Roosevelt was always very frank about
> how he was doing what he was doing to save capitalism.
> However, back then he did have lots of supporters who were
> more or less socialists. But at that time there were some
> top ranking Democrats who were willing to accept more
> radical measures than what FDR was willing to contemplate.
------------------------------------
True, but I think you'd agree the differences among the Democrats were
matters of degree, and there was broad agreement, including FDR's, on the
essential point - the need to restore mass purchasing power as the means of
reviving production and profit.
There's very little ideology and a lot of pragmatism involved in state-sponsored measures to initiate job-creating public works programs and to supplement income during a downturn through improved social benefits and labour laws - and to undertake nationalizations, as necessary, to rescue inefficient companies and industries. The deeper the crisis, the more sweeping the measures. It doesn't really matter if you're a socialist or a liberal or anything other than the most hidebound and short-sighted reactionary if you have power in these circumstances. You can probably even make an argument that Hoover had the misfortune to be President before the depth of the crisis and the state being the only institution capable of resolving it became apparent, and that he and his party would have evolved much like Roosevelt and the Democrats and vice-versa had the situation been reversed. They shared a common interest in preserving private ownership by any means necessary.
The CP and its supporters like Sweezy and Magdoff and other socialist intellectuals inside the New Deal were something quite different. They fought for reforms not with a view to resuscitating capitalism, but as a means of building working-class institutions and self-confidence in order to overthrow it. They faced an inherent dilemma socialists have always faced: fight for reforms and you may end up strengthening the system you're trying to destroy; take your distance from that fight and risk isolation from the masses you're trying to influence.
(I don't know whether it was the world war rather than these peacetime measures which saved Western capitalism, as many on the left believe, because we can't know for certain how things would have turned out without that stimulus.)