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John Edmundson wrote
Yes, but perhaps part of the problem was the Left's faith in the Labour
Party. Have we still not figured that out. It's disappointing to see
that Richard Seymour, who used to get this, has dived deep into such a
failed project. When your only mass movement is to the ballot box, a la
Bernie Sanders' campaign, why should anyone expect a deep commitment
from the voters?
Cheers,
John
[https://novaramedia.com/2019/12/13/no-false-consolations/]
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This is the sort of sensible comment I haven't seen much of. Yes,
apparently from these results and others elsewhere, much of the working
class, with insecurity of life chances and resentment at its status in
the system and at the other, either votes on nationalist grounds for the
rightwing misleader or stays at home. For now - but it's inevitable that
the failure of the right is going to become palpable to workers
everywhere as the system grinds to a halt for most, and that's already
happening, especially if the protests breaking out are any indication.
And with the failing ecosystem and the debt-infested stagnant economy,
there is no fallback to growth for the system anymore; nor will
no-growth panaceas of any sort work under capitalism, including
especially those that only benefit the richer nations.
How long will it take before the working class and left leadership of
the world accept, despite the interim right-populist upsurge and its
reasons, that declared social democratic parties, with no credible,
viable socialist program, will never be able to manage or change the
capitalist state? Will never be able to mobilize a base of power in the
working class?
Too many contradictions, especially that to simply manage capitalism, to
ensure the profitability of a capitalist regime on which its survival
depends, any social democrat apparition must accede to the imperatives
of accumulation and profitability, and to accomplish that, to pretend,
equivocate and evade; ultimately, to retain power, workers be damned. Or
war.
Tony Blair is one poster child among many. An array of populist
Bonapartists in the poorer countries. Bernie's prospects apply here as
well. This is certainly not 1933 and no New New Deal or faux Green New
Deal will do it. If workers now seem unreceptive to the message from the
left, to the imperative that we take charge of our destiny - I
nevertheless look to us sooner or later to come to the conclusion that
there really is no other way. If that does not happen, or does not
happen in time, before chaos sets in, there's not much anyone can do,
except stick to the message, counsel people to start by reading Capital
and take it from there, as my older socialist friends once counseled me,
and think and act to help fellow workers to devise, from the objective
conditions and mounting contradictions, the alternative objective and
the route to it.
It is to the contradiction between capital and labor that we should
adhere, and never forget or forego.
I immediately think of that knight in the Monty Python skit who keeps
taunting and tilting against the giant until, where arms or legs were,
only bloody stubs are left, and who declares he will prevail with his
lance in his teeth. But that's just my bad monster in there. After all,
it's Friday the thirteenth.
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