> Marv wrote:
>
>> It is Power which decides - power which overwhelmingly
>> derives from the ownership and control of property. Morality,
>> alas, does not confer much power on the poor and powerless.
>> On the rare occasions when the poor are roused to exercise
>> power, they are driven by Necessity, with morality in the back
>> seat providing inspiration.
>
> I wouldn't disagree with this in the big scheme of things. But it
> requires qualification.
>
[...]
> power contains a moral element. Or, to
> use terms widely used in the debates on socialism, labor is driven by
> a shifting combination of "material" and *moral* incentives..it's
> impossible to explain how Cuba resisted so many decades
> of blockade and hostility by the U.S. without the ethical and
> emotional, raw and visceral appeal of the revolution. ...if my
> casual observations of U.S. political culture, commercial advertising,
> and other products of U.S. mass culture are not entirely misguided, it
> seems entirely possible (and necessary!) for the left make the case
> for health care reform and other reforms using the strongest moral and
> emotional components that it can marshal...As Carrol himself often
> notices, the
> first thing is action, with whichever people have in their heads at
> the time. We need motion first. Clarity will follow, if we do the
> right thing and are lucky...Power flows not only from guns and cash and
> intellectual clarity.
> Power also flows from high moral values, moral indignation, raw
> emotion, sex appeal, etc. It's not about succumbing to them and
> reproducing them, but about recognizing them as facts of our political
> life.
====================================
Well put, as usual, and I can accept these qualifications without any
hesitation. My comments weren't aimed at Marxists like yourself who have a
materialist appreciation of the relationship between morality and power but
at liberal idealists like the well-intentioned Ezra Klein who see moral and
intellectual "argument" as driving change with little or no appreciation of
the realities of power and the constraints it places on popular
mobilization. Not to recognize those constraints leads to voluntarism, so
while you are absolutely correct - "we need motion first" - the question
still remains what kind of action is most likely to accomplish this. And on
that question, there have always been deep divisions on the left, as we as
we and Carrol readily acknowledge.