> Revolutions emerge unexpectably from mass 'reform' actions
> and cannot be planned.
My disagreement here is with the presumption -- okay, *apparent* presumption -- that expectations are binary: You expect something or not. In fact, there may be more possible outcomes or even a continuum of possibilities. Expectations are functions of probabilities, "degrees of belief," or whatever you wish to call them, over those many possibilities. There is some knowledge out there about social processes. Of course we'll never have absolute certainty, but we can always try and have some sense of how ignorant we are likely to be. That's why -- like Engels once said -- socialism should be treated like a science -- which, please, should not be interpreted as saying that what socialists say is science, just because it's socialists who say it; but that the theoretical work of socialists should try and meet scientific standards. It puts the onus on us. But that's what the empirical methods available to the social sciences are all about, and that's in spite of the grip or heavy influence that vested interests have on the development of social sciences. And, by the way, we should thank Soviet mathematicians like Markov, Kolmogorov, and Smirnov for at least part of that work that gives scientists most everywhere today a more disciplined approach to corralling human ignorance. Social processes are complex, but social complexity is not completely impermeable to human understanding. Some of us may not have the training required and it may be a bit late for us to acquire it, but we should actively encourage new generations of social fighters to appropriate that culture and deploy it.
> The alternative to capitalism is democracy, not some plan
> specified in advance by "theorists."
No qualm here, except to say that there's nothing that Carrol can do to prevent people (himself included) from planning. Planning, anticipation of outcome, forethought -- whichever term you wish to use, is an attribute inherent to human labor. That is the way our species deals with the world. And it's better to do it knowingly and adopting best practices, than not. The results that human history has to show are a mixed bag, but -- banning a cataclysm -- I don't envision us reverting to pre-rational behavior.
> Representative government (capitalist democracy) is not
> democracy but a form of tyranny.
It depends what the benchmark is. Compared to prior historical experience, it may be an advance. Compared to what we can accomplish, it falls short. I guess, unless we are doing historical analysis, it's best to emphasize the shortcomings of the existing political system.
> It is impossible to predict who will make a rvolution or how it
> will be made.
See my note above about forethought and purposeful human behavior (= labor).
> That is why I call Dean & Zizek garbage in their call for a disciplined
> party: they are ignorant of the history of that form of party and under
> what conditions it is either possible or desirable.
I disagree. The context in which Dean makes her presentation is one in which the scope of social movements is political only in the thinnest, most fragmentary way. The actually existing left (e.g. Move On, the unions, etc.) cannot envision itself as anything other than an appendix to the Democratic Party. It's a mentality of subordination, fully internalized. Radical activists, in and out of the DP, are widely dispersed and most activism is very loose and undisciplined (basically, people pursue their political hobbies), even if some people understand in the abstract the importance of discipline and unity.
There's a very pitiful yet strong cultural resistance to others "telling me what to do," others "making me do things I do not like to do," as if the system didn't circumscribe our lives very narrowly, as if economic conditions and our culture didn't keep us on a very short leash, and as if our likes and dislikes were granted to us by the providence rather than socially conditioned. It's this whole mental paradigm that needs to shift, and talking about building a political party is part of that shift. I think Dean is expressing, perhaps not in the clearest and most articulate manner, but she's expressing a need that many people are feeling. And, most importantly, it's a need of our times. Without working people becoming a coherent political force, this society is doomed. And, with all the military hardware available here, great global damage can be inflicted. Nobody is going to come and get us out of this, if not ourselves.
Because right now there is no significant, serious social movement or movement of movements oriented towards taking political power and re-building U.S. society from the ground up. And we need it badly. I know it sounds to many of us like a very long shot, but if these times of capitalist crisis and disarray are not an opportunity for people to expand their political imagination, then when? What is required is to convince ourselves that we can stretch and match up the size of our needs, which we need to do collectively. The objections raised, that a political party is of necessity bureaucratic and sectarian, that a small cabal of little control freaks will be enabled to make the lives of rank-and-file activists miserable, are all akin to your arguing that people should stop cooking, because you once burned down your house while cooking. No. People should try and build better kitchens. Fires will never be entirely precluded, but people can certainly build safeguards, have the extinguishers handy, be mindful, etc. (Okay, you didn't make that argument. I'm using "you" in the rhetorical sense.)
We don't have pristine models of socialism to exhibit Macy's-like in some window for people doing their political shopping to fantasize about. But so what? The fears of a Soviet-like future or of an upcoming Maoist cultural revolution are, if not baseless, not very relevant in a political culture like ours, in which we guard our little (and often completely useless) individuality as a two year old protects his toys. It is as if we worried about squandering our wealth while homeless and hungry. Scaremongering about Stalinism or Maoism in the U.S., i.e. in the absence of the very social grounds that formed a Stalin or a Mao is, for the most part, sheer anachronistic reactionary crap. Sure, let's keep the historical lessons fresh in our minds (duly balanced, with an understanding of context), but let's not be kept from crossing the actual bridges that we have before us. Because the main historical lesson here is that -- landmines, booby-traps, and all -- organized fighting is all we really have.
> They are also ignorant of how activist groups grow. The Russian
> industrial workers created the RSDLP. Read Lih. Social movements
> have their own independent validity.
I didn't hear Dean say that social movements in the U.S. would play no part in building the party. I think she wasn't very clear about the process by which the party would emerge. But that part of the plan is for us to flesh out.
And Lih doesn't argue against the historical fact that intellectuals, Marxist intellectuals or people under serious Populist influence (who, by the way, were so disconnected from the industrial workers that, when they tried to "go to the people," the people rejected them and turned them over to the czar's police), were among the main promoters and founders of the RSDLP. Where do you think Vera Zasulich grew up politically? Do you think Axelrod, Plekhanov, Lenin, or Martov were industrial workers?
Aleve is making me drowsy, so I should let this go as is.