[lbo-talk] Michael Heinrich on Capitalism and the State

Mark Wain wtkh at comcast.net
Fri Sep 3 11:22:17 PDT 2010


On Thursday, September 02, 2010 12:24 PM Angelus Novus wrote:


>
>
> DIE LINKE's draft party program reads like a Keynesian wish list addressed
> to Santa Claus: as if by means of regulation and a nationalized financial
> sector (under "democratic control") a capitalism can be created that
> reconciles all contradictions.
>
> Full: http://mrzine.monthlyreview.org/2010/heinrich020910.html
>

There was a long article by Ingar Solty discussing Germany's Left Party (Die LINKE) in "Socialism and Democracy," Vol. 22, No.1, March 2008. http://www.sdonline.org/46/solty.htm

The article stated "With the sharpening of capitalist contradictions and the need for alternatives to neoliberalism, the rise of Die LINKE has taken place within a remarkably short span of time.

"A right-wing populist response to neoliberalism has been averted in Germany for the time being because Germany, alone among core capitalist countries, has generated - in the form of Die LINKE - a left party articulation sufficiently powerful to contain and marginalize it. This gives Die LINKE an historic role which goes far beyond the German context. In Europe and North America, people should eagerly watch Die LINKE to see if it can put forward concrete alternatives, through credible politics and a sustainable strategy toward socialism for the 21st century, capable of resisting and then overcoming neoliberalism and its imperial global enforcement. Precisely because this development is unique so far in the core capitalist countries, Die LINKE has to be conscious of its responsibility and live up to it."

Thus, Die LINKE is a post- neoliberalism product, which participates in parliamentary elections. Its political program, as described by Michael Heinrich in his article, reflects the constraints of such a first stage party rather than a second or third stage socialist party. Nationalized monopoly-finance capital belongs to a national capitalist program. One may consider national capitalism as a first step towards the far socialism aims. When the revolutionary high tide remains elusive for very long time, it is conceivable that the first stage parties maintain somewhat contradictory positions such as "on the one hand [it] rejects all authoritarian socialisms while on the other hand clearly declaring: "we struggle for a system change, because capitalism . . . is based upon inequality, exploitation, expansion, and competition.""

One should not take the position of rejection of violent revolution to be a rigid principle that should hold true at all the times, in all the places and under all conditions. No, that is not correct. It depends on concrete conditions. In the first stage of transformation of a system that is dying yet struggling to live on with all its energy and vitality left over a long time ago, and that the subjective conditions of the revolutionary class fall behind objective conditions, such as that Die LINKE faces, its contradictions are not permanent and can be overcome by stage-advancement as conditions are either favorable or made favorable by the revolutionary class.

Mark



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