[lbo-talk] Thoughts on the Tea Party (and why the Left is Dead)

[Eric Beck]

The problem with the catastrophists isn't that they are wrong about
immiseration leading to revolution. It's that they think you can draw
a straight, consistent, ahistoric line between "objective" economic
conditions and "subjective" revolutionary transformation. As if
history is ruled by necessity and progress. Most counterarguments,
however, do nothing but reverse the polarity, thinking that high
levels of prosperity and equality are the requisites for socialism. As
far as I know, neither side can predict the future, but both seem to
insist that the "objective" is determinative.