brad wrote:
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> SA wrote: [clip]
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> Huh??
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> "This is the theory of our so-called liberal thinker. . . .
I admire Engels this side of idolatry, and he was a shrewder political observer in many ways that Marx. But in the claim that it was only a matter of time before capitalism fell he was clearly wrong.
Even in that error, however, there is a kernel to be grasped: Capitalism is history, not nature; its historicity is inscribed in its essential featuresd. But history, like art, is long (as Engels also frequently recognized and noted). The inevitable end of capitalism is not quite the same as the "inevitable" arrival of socialism, which is _necessary_ only in the sense that the alternative to it is growing barbarism.
If we don't hit it, it won't fall.
Kautsky and Bernstein were both, in their ways, true to a potential in the thought of Engels as here expressed, the element in it that suggested socialism necessarily (in a positivist sense) progressed from capitalism. If that is so, what need is there for revolution? Keeping movment going is sufficient.
Carrol