[lbo-talk] A highly critical take on Fitch

tfast tfast at yorku.ca
Wed Mar 15 22:55:29 PST 2006


Marvin Gandall wrote:


> Travis Fast wrote:
>
>> It would be hard to argue that the cdn bourgeoisie was weak.
>
>
> Comment: Not in relative terms - compared to the American bourgeoisie
> and,
> earlier,
> the British.

How would you measure this? Canada got universal suffrage much later (ie, no property qualification but of course excluding blacks in the us and Aboriginals in Canada). And scholars such as R.T. Naylor would argue that the problem of cdn development was precisely the strength of its cap class. Others such as Innis would argue they were strong but addicted to staples production which was lucrative for them but bad for development. So, their strength could paradoxically be measured by their dependence on staples and US branch plants. But again how would you measure this?


> ==============================
>
>> More importantly however health care is a provincial responsibility and
>> provincial elites including the doctors wanted nothing to do with
>> universal
>> health care.
>
>
> Comment: A provincial responsibility, but jointly funded by the feds. The
> elites were divided, as they have always been between a liberal and
> conservative wing disputing the matter of state intervention in the
> economy.
> The more directly self-interested doctors savagely fought medicare in
> Saskatchewan where it was first introduced by Tommy Douglas' CCF
> government,
> but overt time their opposition softened, especially those with a large
> working class patient base, when they realized it represented a
> government
> guarantee their bills would be paid.

The feds did not jointly fund it until later once the socialists proved it could be done. And yes the knee jerk petite bourgeoisie doctors backed off. But the point is, and this where your argument erred, the cdn constitution has a very strong division of powers between the feds and the provinces. So any excuse for the failure or success of SD or socialism in Canada as opposed to the US must look elsewhere or find additional mitigating factors.


>
> ===============================
>
>> When socialists were elected in Sask they were faced with massive
>> opposition from the capitalist class and the petite bourgeoisie. Had it
>> not been for those god damned determined socialists in Saskatchewan
>> health
>> care would have never hit the national agenda. And when they (CCF) did
>> bring it in they were faced with a massive doctors strike and they
>> had to
>> bring doctors in from all over the empire to break the doctors strike.
>> Eventually the feds got into the game when (a) they saw how popular
>> it was
>> (b) and how popular it was making the socialists (CCF/NDP). So the key
>> here is not the relative strength or weakness of the bourgeoisie but
>> the
>> dialectic of region, class, electoral politics and timing.
>
>
> Comment: All true, but as noted above, mass pressure for reform is
> only one
> part of the equation. The other part is that social reforms also have
> to be
> consistent with capitalist interests if they're to have any chance of
> being
> accepted peacefully within the framework of the electoral system. The
> dominant liberal wing of the capitalist class everywhere favoured raising
> the health and education standards of the masses to improve
> productivity. I
> focused on this dimension of the health care reform to illustrate that,
> unlike in the US until recently, the Canadian bourgeoisie could not
> afford
> to provide health coverage for its workers, and relied on state
> intervention.
> ====================================

This is just a counter factual assertion on your part. There is no evidence in hansert or otherwise that the cdn cap class was clamoring for universal health care. They were forced into it and perhaps realized the upside later but they were dragged into it. If this were simply an argument about efficiency the US would have had universal health care long ago and it would not have taken the socialists to put it on the national agenda.


>>> Otherwise, the Canadian labour movement resembled that of the US, sans
>>> the corrosive effect of racism and imperialism.
>>
>>
>> This is over simplified. The cdn labour movement was perhaps equally
>> racist.
>
>
> Comment: I don't want to minimize that Canada has a history of racism
> towards the indigenous population and blacks who came north from the
> US and
> the West Indies, and that racism has grown with increased immigration,
> as it
> has in Europe. But you ignore the central place racism has had in US
> history
> from slavery if you suggest it did not differ in degree from that in
> Canada,
> including with respect to the labour movements in both countries.
>
Not at all. The point is that Canada never had a slave mode of production and as such never had a substantial freed slave pop as a percent of the working class pop. So even if there was an equally amount of racism its effects would be much different. Please re-read the original paragraph. There is no difference of opinion here.


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