[lbo-talk] Soros, Volcker, Depression, Nationalization

Carrol Cox cbcox at ilstu.edu
Mon Feb 23 06:37:12 PST 2009


Chris Doss wrote:
>
> Riots in Greece and Latvia (tiny countries) + fall of government in Iceland (and Latvia) (tiny countries) + demonstrations in Paris, Rome, and Dublin = possibility of socialism?
>
> Whatever socialism is. Good luck getting lots of socialists to agreee on a definition.

You have a comic-book conception of how revolutions develop. Almost no one ever makes an abstract decision to Join the Revolution for X. Revolutions (or, more accurately in this context, insurrections) are never planneed in advance. Large active mass movements develop fighting for various reforms. Insurrections are a sort of ab inflection within such a movement, catching nearly everyone by surprise. The goals of the insurrection (and _now_ the insurrection turns into revolution)are worked out in struggle within the revolutionary forces. It's only looking backwards that people are able to see that there had been a revolutionary struggle all the time, unknown for the most part to the participants in it.

Carrol



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