[lbo-talk] Crisis or New Normal

[Carrol Cox]

Those who pretend or attempt to lead the struggle had better have a firm
theoretical grasp of who or what the enemy is. There is huge empirical
evidence overe the last two centuries that the best reformists (most
effective) are those who think in revolutionary terms.

We have a double problem here: anti-theoreticism and dogmatism (the
assumption of a direct relation between theory and practice).

Carrol

-----Original Message-----
From: lbo-talk-bounces at lbo-talk.org [mailto:lbo-talk-bounces at lbo-talk.org]
On Behalf Of Doug Henwood
Sent: Monday, October 21, 2013 4:17 PM
To: lbo-talk at lbo-talk.org
Subject: Re: [lbo-talk] Crisis or New Normal

On Oct 21, 2013, at 9:33 AM, Wojtek S <wsoko52 at gmail.com> wrote:


> Carrol opined: "The problem is not the Republicans, or even the 
> vicious policies of the Obama Administration, but capitalism.:
> 
> [WS:]  That is some winning strategy, indeed.  The enemy is not a real 
> person or group of people but an abstraction.  Let's fight 
> abstractions, the Satan or wind mills if you will, not real people with
real power.

Slavoj Zizke doesn't always make a lot of practical sense, but he said
somewhere recently that if the left can't speak to the actual difficulties
of people's daily lives, it will get nowhere. There's a way to fight
"capitalism" and do that at the same time. But just fighting "capitalism"
will get you nowhere except laughed off the stage.

Doug
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