Andrew's point is very well taken --- Even in the era when communism was not popular at all in the US (the 1950s and 60s) the US version of "social democracy" -- pale and anemic as it always was -- was strongly supported across the political spectrum because the example of the Soviet Union (especially the fact that they rode out the depression better than the capitalists --- and were able to "plausibly deny" the crimes of Stalin) SCARED the ruling class in the US --- (or course the W. Europeans were even more scared, hence they got a more robust set of welfare states) --- scared them into accepting organized labor and the New Deal social structure of accumulation -- which they didn't decide to overthrow until the late 1970s when the Soviet example became very tarnished --- (and the US had just withdrawn from its most failed imperial overreach). EVEN as late as 1975, the Gerald Ford Administration responded to the recession of 1974-5 with the most dramatic "Keynesian" expansion of government spending since WW II --- in a delicious irony, Alan Greenspan (yes, THAT Ayn Rand worshipping Alan Greenspan) was Ford's head of the Council of Economic Advisers and he had to DEFEND those tax cuts and increased spending --- including sending a rebate to every taxpayer --- in the Economic Report of the PResident for 1976 -- "you can look it up!".
The China example (and of course the South Korean and other examples as well) might very well create an opening where the American system of capitalism will be badly tarnished --- the problem of course is that TRumpist style fascism already has a head start on recruiting mass support --- which is why I ALWAYS (here comes that goddam broken record again) say the first step for even the left is to fight fascism --- which does NOT preclude our attempting to tell the truth about the need for socialism ... On Wed, Dec 9, 2020 at 6:51 PM Andrew Stewart <[email protected]> wrote: > > I think we need to begin talking seriously about COVID-19 in world > historic terms and understand what has just taken place. I'm up in > Providence, RI just got declared the "Most Infected Place in the World." > Meanwhile the remnants of the Socialist Camp really did something extremely > different. > > Look, I'm not going to make believe everything is hunky-dory, China has > problem. But between the trends around poverty reduction, literacy, and > public health response to COVID, the CCP just got a real shot in the arm > that is might be able to ride for a decade. If we end up going into a long > depression as fallout from the various material conditions manifest in the > past year, China's position in the passing lane as the largest economy on > earth might be hyper-accelerated. Is that necessarily aligning with the > Marxist schematic? Undeniably a debatable topic. But we aren't looking so > hot over here either... > > _._,_._,_ > > -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- Groups.io Links: You receive all messages sent to this group. View/Reply Online (#4322): https://groups.io/g/marxmail/message/4322 Mute This Topic: https://groups.io/mt/78827907/21656 -=-=- POSTING RULES & NOTES #1 YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. #2 This mail-list, like most, is publicly & permanently archived. #3 Subscribe and post under an alias if #2 is a concern. -=-=- Group Owner: [email protected] Unsubscribe: https://groups.io/g/marxmail/leave/8674936/1316126222/xyzzy [[email protected]] -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
