> Are we to conclude that all
> communist parties that achieve a degree of electoral success are bound to
> become rent-seeking political machines?
What exactly is communist or Marxist about the CPIM? That's a serious, not a rhetorical, question. Whatever their slogans may or may not be, the CPIM has been in continuous control of a federal state of around 80 million people for nearly three decades, but aside from some limited reforms, I see no signs of anything even close to a regional developmental state. West Bengal's economic and social indicators today look pretty much like any other Indian state -- a little better than Uttar Pradesh, a little worse than Kerala, a position which hasn't changed for 30 years.
> Get back to me when you're part of a left that has
> something to degenerate from.
All the social movements and parties in history have been -- and continue to be -- deeply problematic. That's not a reason to give up struggling, nor a reason to boycott parties and politics altogether (that would be the political equivalent of fantasies of self-reliance, where we all grow our own wheat and learn Wisdom From The Land). I think we need to broaden the mandate of electoral politics, though, and start thinking through the possibilities of developmental states in the periphery and semi-periphery, and eco-developmental states in the core economies.
-- DRR