[lbo-talk] clarification

shag carpet bomb shag at cleandraws.com
Sat Feb 13 09:30:58 PST 2010


At 11:51 AM 2/13/2010, Marv Gandall wrote:
>Yesterday he opined that an (undifferentiated) "socialist" movement would
>actively engage "at most" 20% of the adult population which, by my
>calculation, is a very formidable (and improbable) 45 million socialist
>activists, backed by a huge army of the already converted. Be that as it
>may, whatever it's size, at least some in Carrol's army are going to ask
>him what he means by "socialism", and when they do that, he will be
>inescapably required to engage, despite his obvious reluctance to do so,
>the theoretical questions which have split the movement since it's inception.

why would it be carrol's army?

his point is that, once such an army gets off the ground, they are going to start asking the questions themselves. out of those discussions, informed by exigencies on the ground, will come the answers. if they start asking leaders, without thinking of themselves as being full of all kinds of answers and ideas themselves, without the excitement and energy to want to come together and hash it out with others, then we're 'doin' it rong.' Under such conditions, people aren't going to be sitting by passively asking questions of leaders.

usually, the people who ask me what socialism is going to look like are people who aren't seriously looking for an answer. they are looking for ways to say "no" to getting rid of capitalism.

in that case, my answer usually is: "the whole point is not to tell everyone in advance what society is supposed to be like. that's a job for us to do as we fight for a better world. why organize and plan it all out now? we know what's wrong now, let's focus on that. as we focus on getting rid of what's wrong now, we'll come up with the answers. we're the ones who are supposed to make the rules about how we are to live together. it would be inviting tyranny to divine the future, to know in advance how we'll organize food production or anything else. if anything, socialism is about people having control over their lives, not about people following a plan!"

if they dig that, cool. it's a kind of litmus test. if people respond positively to that, then they are the kind of people who are going to join. the rest were never going to join anyway. the former are the kind of people capable of building such a world.

shag



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