________________________________ From: Wojtek S <wsoko52 at gmail.com> To: lbo-talk at lbo-talk.org Sent: Tue, September 7, 2010 8:26:24 AM Subject: Re: [lbo-talk] Austerity In The Face Of Weakness
[WS:] One more point - I think that the American left, and Americans in general, tend to believe that everything can be manufactured - from historical landmarks (theme parks) to a revolution. This, no doubt, is grounded in the American experience, where about everything - including social relations- has been manufactured, engineered or otherwise manipulated and messed with by planners of one sort or another. (Norman Klein makes that point rather effectively in his _History of Forgetting_).
Europeans, otoh, (and I suspect Asians and Africans too) pay a far greater attention to what is being given to them, and how it can affect what they can or cannot do. That is perhaps one factor explaining why the European left achieved some visible political successes, whereas the American left has always stayed in the doghouse. One cannot manufacture everything at will - and certainly not revolutions.
Wojtek
On Sun, Sep 5, 2010 at 10:30 AM, Marv Gandall <marvgandall at videotron.ca>wrote:
>
> On 2010-09-04, at 11:07 PM, Wojtek S wrote:
>
> > Carrol: "On the contrary, those who rose in revolt were typically
> inspired
> > by the belief that they were bringing into birth a new world from the
> ashes
> > of the old"
>
> Actually, my quote replying to Carrol. See the exchange between the two of
> us which you reproduced at the bottom of this post.
>
> > [WS:] But that implies that people must believe that a radical change is
> a
> > realistic possibility, no? And such a belief implies a perception that
> > there is a realistic alternative to the status quo exists. If there is
> no
> > alternative in sight, any rebellion - if it ever materializes - will be
> > nothing more than a riot.
>
> True.
>
> > That is why there were many peasant rebellions in
> > pre-capitalist times, but none of them led to any systemic change - even
> if
> > the rebellion was not suppressed by force.
>
> The peasantry did not produce systemic change on its own, but its
> particular interest in land reform and the unrest (riots, land seizures)
> which flowed from it decisively contributed to the overall crisis and
> overthrow of the ancien regime in the French, Russian, and Chinese
> Revolutions, those which first come immediately to mind. Peasant volunteers
> and recruits comprised the bulk of the revolutionary armies. Rebellions
> failed when the peasantry did not break with tradition and peasant
> conscripts crushed the insurrections of the urban classes. The peasantry,
> like the intelligensia, has never been considered an "independent" social
> class, and why it sided in some cases with the bourgeoisie and/or the
> working class and why in others with the landed aristocracy would require
> examination of each historical context.
>
> > Only under capitalism -which
> > revolutionized the old economic order - the idea of radical systemic
> change
> > "trickled down" to the masses.
>
> Once capitalism introduced the notion of political democracy, radical
> intellectuals and artisans began to supply it with a social content, which
> corrresponded to the needs of the urban and agricultural workers being
> ferociously exploited by the new system.
>
> > And one more thing - I am not aware of any instance of an institutional
> > order being abolished and replaced with a radically new order by a
> > rebellion. What seems like successful revolutions (e.g. Russia, China or
> > Cuba) was really instances of systems that were so rotten internally that
> > they have no capacity to counter a revolutionary challenge. In other
> words,
> > revolutionaries succeeded only because the ruling classes were no longer
> > capable of effectively defending their rule. If the elite, even if
> > weakened, still retained that capacity, the challenges to its rule were
> > suppressed (cf. Iraq under Saddam.)
>
> Well, sure. Revolutions have always been understood, certainly by Marxists,
> as events which result from the ruling class no longer being able to govern,
> ie. to maintain tolerable economic conditions and social order. But you seem
> to be suggesting they fall of their own accord. Here I'm with Carrol: "If
> you don't hit, it won't fall". Even the most corrupt and isolated Romanov,
> Kuomintang, and Batista regimes did not abdicate without a prior lengthy
> struggle to repress the revolutionary forces arrayed against them. They fell
> when the revolutionary tremours in the society fractured their armies.
>
> >
> > On Fri, Sep 3, 2010 at 4:36 PM, Marv Gandall <marvgandall at videotron.ca
> >wrote:
> >
> >>
> >> On 2010-09-03, at 2:08 PM, Carrol Cox wrote:
> >>
> >>>
> >>>
> >>> Marv Gandall wrote:
> >>>>
> >>>>
> >>>> Right. "History suggests the masses won't consider overthrowing the
> >> existing system and experimenting with a new one unless and until a)
> their
> >> personal circumstances deteriorate to the point that they consider them
> life
> >> threatening and b) it has become abundantly clear that neither of the
> >> established parties has proved able to arrest the slide and c) their
> >> desperation for change has finally overcome their fear of repression."
> >>>
> >>> This is terribly, even tragically, wrong. What Marvin describes here is
> >>> the very opposite of the truth: he describesd a world that is perfectly
> >>> caught up in a few words from Old Man River: "Tired of living, and
> >>> feared of dying." No one will revolt in the world Marvin describes, for
> >>> it is a world without hope.
> >> ===============================
> >> Nonsense. No ruling class was ever overthrown without the masses
> >> considering their conditions of life were worsening and there was no
> longer
> >> any hope of peaceful redress of their grievances within the existing
> system.
> >> But this did not mean they were tired of living and devoid of all hope.
> >>
> >> On the contrary, those who rose in revolt were typically inspired by the
> >> belief that they were bringing into birth a new world from the ashes of
> the
> >> old, frequently demonstrating an extraordinary capacity for personal
> >> sacrifice in pursuit of the common goal. "O workers' Revolution,” Mike
> Gold
> >> once wrote, “you brought hope to me, a lonely, suicidal boy" - an
> ecstatic
> >> paean to the struggle for revolutionary change which has been expressed
> in
> >> different ways and different languages by those who were individually
> and
> >> collectively liberated by them at every stage of human history.
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> >>
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>
>
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