>I'm not
>going to try to convince anyone that Marxism is "true" or that they
>_should_ go out and overthrow capitalism. No one _ever_ tried to
>persuade me of either of those things, they flowed from, were an
>emergent property of, activities which I first joined mostly as a lark
and Doug wrote:
>Back in the day when we had mass socialist and
>communist parties, don't you think that the rank
>and file came to them with some moral/ ethical
>notions? They nonetheless produced anti-bourgeois collectivities.
The Mike Davis interview that Chuck posted can help here I think, especially a couple bits excerpted below, one on the current role of the Left and one on how he got involved in the first place. Sometimes everybody's right: ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
BILL MOYERS: ...I mean, I cannot find anyone in this country advocating the abolition of private markets and the wage systems or nationalizing all the major industries, I mean, no one's arguing for supplanting capitalism, are they?
MIKE DAVIS: I am.
BILL MOYERS: You are?
MIKE DAVIS: No, I mean, I must admit I'm a kind of old-school socialist in the way that Billy Graham's an old-school Baptist. I do genuinely believe in the democratic social ownership of the means to production. But that's religion. That's the religious principle. The role
BILL MOYERS: And in practice?
MIKE DAVIS: Well, I mean, the role of the Left or the Left that needs to exist in this country is not to be to come up with a utopian blueprints and how we're going to run an entirely alternative society, much less to express nostalgia about authoritative bureaucratic societies, you know, like the Soviet Union or China. It's really to try and articulate the common sense of the labor movement and social struggles on the ground. So, for instance, you know, where you have the complete collapse of the financial system and where the remedies proposed are above all privileged the creditors and the very people responsible for that, it's a straightforward enough proposition to say, "Hey, you know, if we're going to own the banking system, why not make the decisions and make them in alliance with social policy that ensures that housing's affordable, that school loans are affordable, that small business gets credit?" You know, why not turn the banking system into a public utility? Now, that doesn't have to be in any sense an anti-capitalist demand. But it's a radical demand that asks fundamental question about the institution and who holds the economic power.
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BILL MOYERS: People with ideas like yours in the last 30 years have been marginalized. No coverage in the press. No participation in the public debates. Why did you become a Radical? What made you what made you so radical?
MIKE DAVIS: Well, in my case, there really was a burning bush. And that was the Civil Rights movement in San Diego where I grew up in the '50s and '60s. And at 16 years old my father had a heart attack. And I had to leave school for a while to work. And the black side of my family by marriage, they got me to come to a demonstration of the Congress of Racial Equality in front of the Bank of America in downtown San Diego. And I mean, it literally transformed my life, just the sheer beauty of it and the sheer righteousness of it. And I won't claim that every decision or political stance or political group I joined as a result of the Civil Rights movement was the right one. But it permanently shaped my life. And then I think it was a friend of yours, this great Texas populist newspaper editor, Archer Fullingham. I was in Texas in '67. And most of my friends were becoming Marxists. And I didn't want become a Marxist. And I heard him give a great speech. So I made a pilgrimage. He's sitting on his porch, carving a gourd out of Koontz, Texas, Hardin County. And I said, "Archer, can we revive the Populist Party? You know, can you be the leader of the Populist Party?" And he looked at me. And he said, "Son," he says, "you're one of the dumbest piss-ants I've ever met." He says, "The Populist Party is history. Corporations run this country. And they run the Democratic Party. And you better figure out this stuff for yourself." And it's what I've been you know, trying to do since.
I mean, to be a Socialist in the United States is not to be an orphan, okay? It is really it's to stand in the shadow and a you know, immense history of American radicalism and labor, but with the responsibility to ensure its regeneration. And I actually think the American Left is about to receive a huge blood transfusion in the next year or two. It has to because the existence of the Left, the existence of radical social economic critiques, the existence of imagination that goes beyond selfishness and principles of competition is necessary to have any kind of serious debate in this country.