[lbo-talk] The Poverty of Criticism - Preliminary Note

[Carrol Cox]

What is a writer or speaker in 2011 (or in 1990 or 1980...) saying when 
she makes a statement of the form, "The left should do such and such"? 
Those who write such sentences obviously are out of touch with reality. 
The material content of such a statement, if anyone took it seriously, 
would have to be something like the following:

***Somewhere between 30 thousand and 40 thousand (mostly isolated) 
individuals should decide,  independently of each other, to begin acting 
in concert to carry out the following complex plan, as described in the 
following pages of this paper -- and, moreover, they should do so even 
if they never see this paper.****

A statement that "the left," or for that matter, "we," should do 
something, is simply absurd. And it follows that a statement that such 
and such has been the wrong strategy is equally empty.

Carrol