On Apr 22, 2010, at 10:16 AM, SA wrote:
> Doug Henwood wrote:
>
>> On Apr 21, 2010, at 11:08 PM, Carrol Cox wrote:
>>
>>> The Great Depression lasted long enough, continuously, that
>>> slight improvements in conditions could generate the hope and the
>>> rising
>>> expectations that are so vital to left movements .
>>
>> The recovery from 1933 to 1937 was very powerful. The unemployment
>> rate fell from over 25% to around 11%, and GDP rose by 43% (or over
>> 9% a year), surpassing the 1929 peak in 1936. And, as Bhaskar just
>> pointed out, the politically interesting stuff didn't really start
>> until 1934. That was the year of the Minneapolis general strike. A
>> year later, the UAW was formed in 1935, and the Flint strike was
>> 1936-37. Rising expectations are very dangerous from a bourgeois
>> perspective. Best to keep the working class always a little off
>> guard.
>
> There's something about this argument that always strikes me as off.
> It's true that people will never rebel if they're terrified and at
> the edge of the abyss. They're more likely to rebel if they feel
> some sense of hope. But that doesn't tell you *anything* about
> whether people will rebel against *capitalism* specifically (or
> against "actually existing capitalism," or whatever).
They'll rebel in all kinds of ways. Some to get a bigger piece of the pie, recipe unchanged. Some will want to rewrite the pie recipe from scratch. The former generally do better when the latter are strong, because the bourgeoisie will be more willing to compromise when there's a risk they might lose it all. Either that, or they can kill people.
> If you're a Flint autoworker in 1936, you may well be feeling
> emboldened by the fact that things are starting to look less dark
> for you personally. But you also can't help but note that capitalism
> is discredited, the economy is in shambles, and the whole worldview
> that your boss and the Protestant ministers on the radio used to
> force-feed you, to explain why you should just accept things the way
> they are (that "the American system" is the best system, it
> maximizes the well-being of all, etc.) looks utterly ridiculous.
Why'd that happen in December 1936, when the unemployment rate was 13%, and not 1933, when it was twice as high? A strike wouldn't have meant much if GM hadn't been selling some cars.
> In the 30's, the worse the economy got, the more discredited pure
> capitalism became.
Was capitalism more discredited in 1936, after three years of expansion, than in 1933, after four years of collapse? And how did having a liberal president, who refused to bust the Flint strike, change consciousness and behavior?
> In the late 90's, the better the economy got the more prestigious
> neoliberalism grew - for rich countries. (It was easy for Seattle
> protesters to conclude that the system wasn't working for developing
> countries - especially after an endless series of economic crises
> and depressions - Mexico, Thailand, Korea, Russia, etc.)
Seattle wasn't just about the "developing" countries - there was the Teamster part of Teamsters & turtles too.
Doug