[lbo-talk] Pessimism, Political Import was Sun beams

[Carrol Cox]

We are all agreed, I believe, that for all those on this list at least,
electoral politics are a spectator sport and we are spectators, our only
choices in this realm being to cheer or not to cheer, to boo or not to
boo, from the bleachers. Debate on that issue then is, as Andie says, a
bore -cf. two MLB fans debating the moral credentials of the Boston Red
Sox vs the San Francisco Giants. One fellow dorm resident at WMCE (now
WMU) back in '49 seriously argued that one had a moral obligation to
select one's baseball team on the basis of moral criteria. But no one
would spend much time arguing with him.

But in the course of the recent outburst of cheers and boos the question
of pessimism/optimism in politics came up, and that is the deep source
of almost _all_ debates within the socialist left. Roughly, those with
some tendency to cheer for the DP are highly hopeful about capitalism --
crudely, they believe that in one way or another capitalism will (a)
resolve the issues most threatening to human survival, global warming
and nuclear warfare, and (b) gradually civilize itself to the extent of
allowing a peaceful and legal transformation to socialism. They see
people (defined as working class or otherwise) as sufficiently powerful,
capitalist ideology as sufficiently weak, that legal popular pressure
will succeed in compelling an internal transformation of capitalism.
These generally optimistic (I think insanely optimistic) views of
capitalist strength also characterize those who regard the present rump
labor movement as a worthwhile arena of progressive energy. (This
perspective also assumes the non-necessity of "revolutionising practice"
for the transformation of a humanity shaped by capitalism to make of it
a humanity fit to build socialism. But that is not an immediate focus of
dispute on the left.)

I myself see these perspectives as complete fantasies. Global warming
will not be stopped (or probably even slowed) under capitalism. Nor will
capitalism be able to deal in even a remotely rational way with the
terrible upheavals which global warming will bring about.  Those are
premises -- not propositions to argue. And above all, capitalist regimes
will crush in blood in the future, as they have in the past, any mass
movement (peaceful or violent) that even _seems_ to threaten the rule of
capital. And finally, sooner or later nuclear weapons _will_ be used. 

That is the future under capitalism.

It is pessimism, not optimism, which grounds the necessity of revolution
(and the irrelevance of whether revolution is possible).

Of course neither mass movements nor revolution can be willed by
leftists, however committed and however correct in their ideas. The
conditions under which a mass movement becomes possible are contingent,
not conditions that can be willed into existence. Hence the silliness
(too silly to designate with a more careful label) of those who want a
scenario for future action.

Left thought must primarily concern itself with what is the most useful
political activity for leftists under the conditions that (regardless of
what they do) they will have no immediate impact on public affairs.

I said this in reference to the anti-war movement in 2003 and was mocked
for not being concerned with getting the water and electricity turned on
in Iraq. More sensible leftists were marvelously successful it seems in
obtaining these improvements in Iraq.

Carrol