[lbo-talk] lbo-talk Digest, Vol 1618, Issue 1

[Bhaskar Sunkara]

This is an odd formulation.  Leftists can't simple "move their money" to
"liberate" it.  To attempt to do so would be to mimic the worst of lifestyle
anarchists and liberals who think they can "vote with their dollars" and act
politically by buying free-trade coffee, etc.  The system is too large for
that and imposes its own logic.

But you're right to admire the programs intimation by the pre-1914 SPD.  But
that was a *political party* and an opposition movement of the working
class.  They provided services that the state could not or would not provide
and were important in building class consciousness.  Comparing the
disjointed, voluntaristic efforts of a few hundred or thousand or whatever
Marxists to "enter the 'arena' of the market" to this is silly.

On Sun, Jul 3, 2011 at 7:47 PM, John Glastonbury <jglastonbury at gmail.com>wrote:


>
> Or, perhaps, the pre-1914 SPD in Germany; it had services like gymns and
> cinemas that charged money, but not just to make money, not just for the
> sake of profit.
>
> More broadly, I think that we need to take our economic fate into our hands
> in ways that unions and political reformism haven't done for us in a long
> long time. If that means marxists small business people or bankers, then so
> be it.
>