----- Original Message ---- From: Marvin Gandall <marvgandall at videotron.ca>
History having unfortunately shown that the masses are not always or even mostly able to link their economic interests to their political ones, it's also likely that in their disappointment with the administration, they would return to the Republicans, who would be seconding their complaints against the Democrats while keeping their own plans to reduce or eliminate government spending programs under wraps until after the election.
This is particularly so given the absence of any mass party to the left or sizeable and coherent left opposition within the DP articulating the need of the population for higher levels of public spending.
[WS:] Very true. However, institutional presence of left wing parties does not seem to help much during the times of crisis. EU countries and Israel are a case in point. They tend to support center-right parties more than left-wing parties during crises (albeit what is center-right in EU would be center-left in the US.)
This is indeed puzzling, given the mass-support the left used to receive in crisis situations (in the first half of the 20th century.) Why does not history repeat itself, even as farce? My explanation is that mass left wing/communist movement had its roots in rural societies, which made such form of mass mobilization possible (a view held by social historians like Barrington Moore, Jeffrey Paige, Chalmers Johnson, and Alexander Gerschenkron) - and those social conditions do not exist anymore.
To make a long story short - communism as political ideology had a strong appeal to rural masses turned industrial proletariat, because it provided them with a sense of solidarity that they lost in the process of becoming proletariat as a class rather than individually of course.) That longing for rural-type solidarity was evidenced by popularity of utopian socialism or the kibbutz movement around the turn of the century. Communism (which as Kolakowski argues had well pronounced elements of x-tian eschatology) was yet another millenary movement that emerged in the rural societies during the times of crises and social change. Gerschenkron argues that Soviet leaders used a watered-down version of communist ideology to appeal to Russian peasant communalism in order to mobilize popular support (in other words, their tru goal was modernization and industrialization rather than building a "communist" society, whatever that was, and a "communist" ideology
they adopted played a function similar to Obama's "hope" schtick.)
However, ideals of social solidarity entailed by the 20th century communism had rather limited appeal to modern, predominantly urban working class. This can be evidenced, inter alia, by the visible decline of the kibbutz movement. I would also argue that this is the cause of waning popular support for communist parties. To urban working classes, a far more appealing was the idea of welfare state grounded in Keynesianism and social-democracy.
EU communist and socialist parties sensed that and tried to reinvent themselves by adopting liberal (i.e. libertarian) elements. This turned away a big chunk of thr working class, which found the appeal of right-wing populism and its notion of Gemuetlichkeit, hence the popularity of the right wing populist parties (cf. the latest scandal involving Schweizerische Volkspartei http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/7887241.stm )
So under current social conditions, any talk about a "mass socialist or communist" movement is tripping on a memory lane to an idyllic past that never was. Such a movement is unlikely to materialize today, because social conditions that created it do not exist anymore. Today, the only left-of-center political ideology that has a chance of attracting wide popular support is social democracy, rooted in welfare state and Keynesian approach to the economy. Of course, we all know that social democracies have not been creatd equal, and some of them may contain reactionary undelinings - but that can be said of *any* political system, including socialism. This is like having holes in the pavement - the point is to fix the holes, not to get rid of the road.
So from that point of view, the current administration seems to be moving in the right direction. However, given the unholy alliance of monopoly capital and right wing populism in this country, any movement toward social democracy is likely to meet fierce opposition, hence shoring up as much political support from every corner as possible seems like a a right strategy.
PS. I think that those on the left who still insist on fighting the battles of the past and oppose social democracy with a hope that mass socialism movement is in the waiting are not only dreaming, but actually play into the hands of the enemy (that is, businessmen and their right wing populist allies.)
Wojtek