Tom Walker: >Even Third Period Stalinist doctrine was "right" to the extent that it took >a 'holocaust' of regression and violence to establish the conditions for a >resurgent capitalist stability. Although that regression and violence may >have been inflamed by capitalism, capital was not able to direct its course >of development nor ensure an outcome favourable to capitalism. I told Jim Devine the other day that the economic crisis is bring out the best in everybody, including him. Some of the most intelligent things I've read on PEN-L and LBO-L seem inspired by the end of the end of history. At the top of the list for deep thought are Tom's posts today which raise the very important question of whether economic misery in itself causes revolutions. In the 1960s, the Trotskyist movement used to have a stock reply to this. It said that complete immiseration is not necessary. Everything is relative. For example, if the average worker feels entitled to a 40 hour week and 3 meals a day, then a 50 hour a week to pay for 2 meals a day might radicalize him or her. Of course, a 50 hour a week job that paid for 2 meals a day would have been an enormous step forward in the 1890s. I suspect that a sharp blow to the standard of living of American workers would definitely lead to a radicalization. The ideas of the 60s and 70s have seeped into general consciousness even if people don't necessarily live by them. Distrust of the government remains at an all-time high. The main problem we face is that the left is stuck in a routinist mode. The academic left and pwogwessives will probably not be able to shift gears, if the tempo of the class struggle increases. I expect that there will be a whole new round of reformist illusions centered on the need for a new "New Deal." What the left has to learn is the sort of militant, uncompromising spirit that the right-wing demonstrates. This was Trotsky's main point when he was writing about Hitler's rise to power in the 1920s. He warned that the tepid reformism of the official left parties would leave the masses frustrated and that some might turn to Hitler because of his revolutionary rhetoric. Louis Proyect (http://www.panix.com/~lnp3/marxism.html)
