On 2010-09-01, at 1:43 PM, c b wrote:
> Marv Gandall
>
> So long as the system is able to contain dissident factions within the
> liberal and conservative parties who alternate in administering it, it
> is unlikely to come under serious threat. Its stability seems to be
> shaken only by catastrophic economic collapse or war.
>
> ^^^
> CB: In the "sixties/seventies", the civil rights movement and urban
> riots ( and war) "shook stability" in a period of economic boom.
>
> Isn't the above a description for all advanced capitalist countries
> and their containment of dissidence, but with more than two parties in
> some countries ?
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See my latest reply to SA, which I think in part addresses your question.
Popular dissent, often violent dissent, is as much a feature of capitalism as wage labour and profit. It has accompanied the system throughout its history. It's not anomolous to it.
The black, antiwar, womens' and gay movements took to the streets but primarily sought redress of their grievances through the Democratic Party, except for revolutionary minorities within these movements which sought to advance these struggles for reform into a more generalized assault on the system as a whole.
Of course, the bourgeosie doesn't like any kind of civil unrest, which is bad for business and can potentially progress beyond its control, but the kind of instability I was alluding to is of the extreme pre-revolutionary kind which threatens the existence of the capitalist system in depression and war.
Except perhaps for Carrol, I don't think there's anyone on the list who thinks the Sixties movements posed that kind of threat to American capitalism, although they caused the civic authorities and the politicians of both parties no end of headaches while winning the necessary reforms.