[lbo-talk] Passive Revolution (was new spirit of capitalism)

[Yoshie Furuhashi]

On 10/15/07, wrobert at uci.edu <wrobert at uci.edu> wrote:
>
> > In both Iran and Venezuela, the capitalist class have not been
> > liquidated, and in both countries new elements entered into upper
> > classes though the very processes of social revolution.  Passive
> > revolution, therefore, is a useful concept for me to grasp
> > contradictory aspects of populism.
>
> But this doesn't deal with the more fundamental question if the
> concept of a passive revolution and the war of position can be
> collapsed.  I think that the concept of the war of position is
> useful, but the concept of passive revolution, which is primarily
> used to explain the ability of Mussolini to unify the Italian
> nation-state is not as useful.  Once again, Gramsci insists on
> understanding the passive revolution as a combination of
> restoration/revolution.

In Venezuela, the Bolivarian process has embraced both restoration
(the rich getting richer than ever even while the poor get richer and
the emergence of "a would-be new Bolivarian oligarchy" [Michael A.
Lebowitz, "Venezuela: A Good Example of the Bad Left of Latin
America," Monthly Review 59.3, July 2007
<http://www.monthlyreview.org/0707lebowitz.htm>]) and revolution
(protagonism of self-organized working people).

In addition to passive revolution, there are certain other old
concepts, some Marxist and others Weberian, that we can reexamine and
refurbish:

Caesarism

Bonapartism

dual power

intellectuals ("organic" and "traditional")

charisma

bureaucracy

Those are among key concepts that interest me.
-- 
Yoshie
<http://montages.blogspot.com/>