[lbo-talk] I hope you all vote(d) for Obama LOL LOL

Eric rayrena at realtime.net
Tue Feb 5 14:45:40 PST 2008



>On Feb 5, 2008, at 12:19 PM, shag at cleandraws.com wrote:
>> ....another aspect of Doug's inchoate theory about social
>> change is that it takes place while the economy is doing fairly
>> well...
>
>Just a thought: It seems that working-class upsurges historically tend
>to take place during the recovery phase of the capitalist economic cycle
>(1934-1939, for example).

While maybe empirically occasionally correct, this is practically and politically stupid. It's hard to think of anything more cynical and defeatist than tying one's hopes for social change to the business cycle or to who's in the White House. Besides reminding of a Leninist ripening of conditions--and all the vanguardist implications about who gets to decide when they are actually ripe enough--it places politics completely outside the control and use of the "working class." The scene of and time for politics is named only at the whim of constituted power, while the opposition waits to be called. There's more than a little theology in this kind of theory: we must remain faithful while we wait for the Democrat/boom (savior)...



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