[lbo-talk] March 4

[Bhaskar Sunkara]

The last part sounds like Hobsbawm's arguments in "Age of Extremes". The
threat of the USSR might have played* some *role in the concessions of the
20th century, but that shouldn't be overstated, as you do grossly.  The 8
hour work day and other fundamental victories were *won* by the working
class well before the specter of state 'socialism' and the dynamics that
pushed these movements arose from the contradictions of the capitalist mode
of production, not from the prestige of the USSR or other external forces
(however emboldening the Bolshevik Revolution was).  You're asserting that
without October there is no Swedish social democracy?  Or the Keynesian
attempt to stabilize capital markets and absorb surplus domestically?

On Sun, Mar 7, 2010 at 3:19 PM, Carrol Cox <cbcox at ilstu.edu> wrote:


> These arguments have too much of a textbook quality, assuming an
> identity between intentions and results. The revolu6tons of the 20th-c
> utterly transformed the world, and though the aims for which the
> revolutionaries struggled were not (and I think could not have) been
> fulfilled, the actual achievements of those revolutions depended on
> those aims! A "liberal-democratic" regime in either Russia or China
> would have left those nations mired in the past. Moreover, without the
> threat represented by first the *Doviet Union and then the PRC, the
> gains made by reformers in Europe and the U.S. would never have been
> achieved. In other words, the REvolutions were successful, and probably
> theonly route to that success, though they failed schoolbook texts of
> success. But of course the Democratic Revolutions of th 19th century
> equally failed to achieve their intended aims.
>
> Carrol
>
> Bhaskar Sunkara wrote:
> >
> > Awkward phrasing (typo) on my part: the point is the the British LP isn't
> a
> > social liberal party... not yet at least.  Also, there hasn't been a
> single
> > "workers' state" since at least 1923, much less 'states'.
> >
> > On Sun, Mar 7, 2010 at 1:43 PM, Somebody Somebody <philos_case at yahoo.com
> >wrote:
> >
> > >
> > > Bhaskar: Have parties like British Labour have become indistinguishable
> > > from social
> > > liberal parties?  I'm with Macnair's analysis here:
> > > http://www.cpgb.org.uk/worker2/780/making.php
> > >
> > > Somebody: The problem here is that the reforms initiated by social
> > > democratic parties have been proven to be more durable than the
> > > revolutionary changes initiated by worker's states. Not only that, but
> the
> > > neo-liberal rollback of of reformism has been very much a partial
> reversal,
> > > whereas the changes in the socialist countries have been more thorough.
> So,
> > > why shouldn't workers support the traditional social democratic (now
> social
> > > liberal, if you like) parties and institutions?
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > >
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