[lbo-talk] Chavez's socialist world vision

[Bhaskar Sunkara]

CB asks: "Could anyone in the real world live up to your standards and lead
a state."  No.  There is something hyper-idealist about doing the same thing
over and over again and expecting different results; namely attempting to
govern the capitalist state to bring about socialism (if the extent of your
goals are social democratic, never mind, but even that is suspect with
capital flight, globalization, etc).  I'd like to think it's realistic to
say that the goal of socialists is to form an opposition movement *outside
of government* in order to build toward majoritarian support.  This means
rejecting Luxemburgist "mass strike" schemes, the Trotskyist "transitional
program" to the left and social democratic coalitionist strategists to the
right, which are all basically "get rich quick schemes." Socialists would
form the opposition in parliament, build organs of the class struggle and a
counter-hegemonic movement from below, but would never assume that they can
take hold and use the existing state (Lenin's *State and Revolution* was
quite good on this point).  To govern the capitalist state is to serve
capital, whatever your intentions.  The goal is to smash the capitalist
state machinery and do it in a somewhat coordinated, synchronized basis in
the advanced capitalist countries.  Mike Macnair's *Revolutionary
Strategy *forms
the outline for these points, subtract some of the nationalism from it and
Kautsky's 1909 *Road to Power* does too.  But this strategy, that of not
being able to wield the capitalist state to bring about socialism is pretty
much the mainstay of the Lenin-derived left and they are quite right on that
basic point.  It is quite utopian, but that's why now is the time to lay the
groundwork for this "strategy of patience."  The NPA in France, perhaps Die
Linke in Germany if the left-wing elements win the power struggle, are the
shells for the type of socialist opposition we need.

On Wed, Jun 16, 2010 at 1:11 PM, c b <cb31450 at gmail.com> wrote:


> Bhaskar Sunkara
>
> What Chavez had to say in that trailer was a pretty damn agreeable and
> articulate. I'm higher on Evo, but that's as good as left Bonapartism
> gets.
>
> ^^^^^
>  CB:
> Your criticism of Iran has some cogency, but, unless it's a joke,  to
> claim Chavez is a Bonapartist implies some hyper-idealistic democratic
> socialist elements in your underlying political theory; i.e. could
> anybody in the real world live up to your standards and lead a state ?
>
> What do you mean by democratic ?
>
>