On 12/2/2010 1:39 AM, Bhaskar Sunkara wrote:
> I wouldn't blur the line between populist parties (which by their nature
> are inchoate ideologically, multiclass, never pose the question of
> structural transformation) and parties lead by the working class. Isn't
> there a difference between a populist party like Peron's Partido
> Justicialista or the Workers' Party in Brazil. Or between labor parties and
> social liberal ones (like the Democrats)?
On the difference between the Peronists and the Workers' Party, I don't know the answer. What do you think? On the difference between labor parties and social-liberal parties like the Democrats....You linked to a piece on the CPGB website defending the idea that the Labour Party is still a bourgeois workers' party, but I couldn't really make heads or tails of the argument. Is the Labour Party so different from the Democrats? What about the Labour Party of 2010 versus the Democratic Party of 1940? I think the important differences have to do with the vibrancy of the movements (if any) that underlay the parties. Whether the movements in question happen to be made up of industrial workers or not seems secondary. The U.S. People's Party was a radical movement because of the vibrancy of the Farmers' Alliance movement that under-girded it. So what if they were farmers rather than workers?
SA