I had written: >>sure, but I bet you know about the criticisms that Marxists have had of those revolutions << Charles answers: >Marxists practice criticism/self-criticism, so of course, Marxists would have criticisms, but such criticisms would not have to amount to a conclusion that these revolutions are failures in the overall epochal picture of the transition to socialis ;nor that the current revolutionary downturn is permanent; nor that future revolutions will not draw upon the material and theoretical successes of those listed above.< I never said that the current downturn is permanent. Nor do I think so. In that light, I can skip over replying to a lot of Charles' other contributions. >The Frankfurt school , etc. critiques are scholastic. They do not pass Marx's test of practice. This doesn't mean they are proven wrong, just that they have not proven themselves correct until that make a revolution, like the postmodernist critiques.< I see nothing wrong with scholasticism per se. But if we can't use the scholastics' work at all, if it's written like the stuff I've seen by Judith Butler or deals with totally irrelevant subjects, I can't say I'm especially interested. I would point to the work of Baran & Sweezy, and that of Braverman, which were in the broad Frankfurt-school tradition but were quite useful to leftist activists for a long time (even if their conceptions seem a bit naive in retrospect). I hope you don't see the creation of a revolution as the only criterion of success, since revolutions are few in number. As Charles noted, their success in the 20th century has been almost entirely against paleocolonialism, not against capitalism. And the contributions of the Russian revolution are pretty nil looking at Russia in 1999. I think that most workers would be happy with some reforms. If we can figure out how to win those while setting the stage for more fundamental change, that would be a major victory in this generally dismal period. .... Charles had written: >>>Where are comparable postmodern successes in practice even in liberation struggles other than workers' emancipation struggles ? How, where and when have the postmods' interpretation or understanding of the meaning of the world changed the world ? <<< I answered: >> Has _anyone_ been successful in recent years? The big successes in the US since WW II I can point to are only two: (1) the civil rights movement and (2) the anti-war movement's forcing of the US away from a strategy of using ground troops against Vietnam to one of strategic bombing and more importantly, the general shaking up of US society that the movement produced. Neither of these are recent. Maybe I'm overly pessimistic... But the apparent failure of the US left in recent decades should encourage us to avoid pride ..., so we don't crow about our successes compared to the PoMo failure or the "classical Marxist" failure, etc. << >Again, your use of "recent" does not have a good sense of historical proportion. The transition we are talking about is over multiple generations. Just in 1979 the Sandinistas, Afghanis, Ethiopians and Angolans, had just added to the success of Viet Nam of '75 and Cuba of '59. All of Africa came out of paleocolonialism after 1957 (Ghana). This is very recent in historical terms. Who would have thought Apartheid would fall so soon ?< I was talking about the US only. >Pride ? Confidence , patience and defense of victories from shortsighted pessimissm are critical for revolutionaries in this epochal struggle. Otherwise the bourgeoisie will steal our wins by mental tricks. The struggle continues victory is certain.< I was arguing against dogmatism and sectarianism. However, I like to avoid using the same words and phrases over and over again. >>>How, when and where has the _Beyond Capital_ theory changed the world ?<<< >>It hasn't changed the world at all. Not a smidgen! However, that doesn't say that "rethinking Marxism" isn't something that we shouldn't be doing. Given the general failure of what used to be called "the Movement" in the last couple of decades, isn't it useful to think about theoretical basics? Isn't it sometimes useful to think? << >Yes, rethink we should, but continue to think many of the basic principles too, because they have not been proven failures by "recent" zags, which zags we expect. >In 1908 in Russia , a period of reaction, there was less evidence of the success of Marxist classical ideas than today. Lucky thing Lenin and the Bolshies didn't throw out the baby with the rethinking bathwater. _Imperialism_ was a rethinking, but a sublation, not obliteration of the classics.< Lenin also wrote on Empirico-Criticism and his notebooks on Hegel. Even though these books were sorta obscure and actually contradicted each other in important ways (I am told), they were the type of scholasticism that Lenin thought was necessary to deal with the big issues of his time. If I remember correctly, the notebooks on Hegel are partly a response to the German Social Democrat's decision to back World War I. In other words, we agree. Jim Devine [EMAIL PROTECTED] & http://clawww.lmu.edu/Faculty/JDevine/jdevine.html
