[lbo-talk] What does "*Trust the People" mean?

[Carrol Cox]

It does NOT men that people are wonderful or that they are even 
"trustworthy," whatever that might mean. In fact, as I will attempt to 
show, it means first of all that it is wrong to ever make either 
positive or negative judgments of the people, such judgments being 
politically paralyzing.

But here is the point.

IF you believe that capitalism must be overthrown, then you have to 
confront the fundamental fact that this is going to be done by the 
people or not done at all. Hence the character or the morals or the 
intelligence of the people are really stupid topics of study. No 
conclusions reached by such study can be other than apolitical, a 
repudiation of anticapitalist struggle, which must be grounded on the 
assumption that at some point "the people" will join the the struggle. 
That has to be the foundation of all anticapitalist strategy. If it 
turns out that the people fail to live up to the strategy, then that is 
it. Luxemburg's barbarism continues. But that is irrelevant, and 
worrying about it is a really silly attempt to use a non-existent 
crystal balll. Prediction on this is impossible and stupid to try. If we 
lose, we lose. Other species have died out. Join the crowd. A strategy 
grounded in "Trust the People" very probably won't work. A strategy NOT 
so ground es absolutely certain not to work.

Carrol

Carrol