On 2010-08-13, at 9:10 PM, SA wrote:
> That's not at all what the article said. Your summary totally garbled the account…
Anyone still interested in this dispute can decide for themselves. The link to the article is included:
http://mailman.lbo-talk.org/pipermail/lbo-talk/Week-of-Mon-20100809/010730.html
> Well, power concedes nothing without a demand.
That's true only within limits. No system concedes demands for its own dissolution, or even for a radical redistribution of power and property. Within such limits, popular demands for reforms in health, education, social insurance, workplace regulation and bargaining rights, the universal franchise, equal rights for women and minorities, etc. were only implemented when the governing party was satisfied they were consistent with the evolving needs of the system and was able to shape them to conform to that end.
> But if "power" ends up conceding a demand, then that means it lost.
None of the reforms mentioned in the preceding paragraph was regarded as a "loss" by the dominant class but as a necessary "rationalization" of the system contributing to its continued expansion. If they had been seen otherwise, the capitalist state would have ignored the demands or, if necessary, resorted to repression to quell the agitation surrounding them.
> It seems wrongheaded to say in retrospect that power "chose" to make the concession because it decided it was in its "interests" to do so, proving once again that power is always in control.
I didn't think it was particularly controversial to point out that the New Deal reforms were, above all, designed to resuscitate the depressed capitalist economy by reviving purchasing power, as Keynes was famously proposing at the time, with the related political objective of encouraging the ascendency of the social democrats and liberals over the Communists in the unions and allied organizations. There's nothing "wrongheaded", it seems to me, in asserting that "power" - consistently conscious of its class interests in a way the masses are often not - did "choose" to introduce these reforms for these reasons; many commentators have previously come to the same conclusion in retrospect.