Hola Paul:
>Yoshie,
>I might be happy to consider it. But first a few changes to make
>living in the US possible.
>
>Introduction of Medicare,
>Gun control legislation
>End to the Death Penalty
>Establishment of a decent public school system
>An adequate unemployment insurance system
>Old age pensions
>
>That would be a start, anyhow.
Ah, you Canadian socialists are a fussy & spoiled lot. You'd have to
accept the invitation as a great challenge (or the Socialist Man's
Burden perhaps)!
Anyhow, on the subject of social democracy, I recently posted the
following on LBO-talk:
***** Date: Sat, 11 Nov 2000 13:21:49 -0500
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
From: Yoshie Furuhashi <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: Challenging the Black & Feminist Talented Tenth (was
economic stats...)
Gordon wrote:
>Yoshie Furuhashi:
>> ...
>> I don't know if Nader & the Greens are up for it, though, for I think
>> that Katha is correct to say that the CP had a lot more "moxie,"
>> partisan discipline, organizational savvy, etc. than Nader/the
>> Greens, David McReynolds/the SP, etc. do.
>
>I don't know about the Socialist Party, but the material
>I've seen from the Greens doesn't challenge the basic
>assumptions of capitalism, liberalism and social democracy,
>so in effect the people they are going to relate to among
>Blacks and women (as political categories) are precisely the
>Talented Tenth, because that's what social democracy is all
>about -- the bourgeoisie with a human face, you might say,
>achieved by replicating bourgeois relations and ideology
>among the lower orders and thus incorporating them into the
>system.
At this point in history, we don't have to worry about the American
Greens becoming part of social democracy, for the USA does not, and
_will never_, have social democracy. Only late industrializers &
second-rate imperialists became social democratic; imperial hegemons
(the UK, and then the USA) never became really social democratic.
Moreover, all countries that are still social democratic now
(Germany, Sweden, etc.) began to become so much, much earlier in
history (during the periods of the Enlightened Despots and/or of
alliance of radical peasant and working-class parties); the working
class & petty producers in those countries are trying to hang onto &
defend what's left of earlier gains, instead of making social
democratic advance. American radicals had several chances to lay the
foundations for social democracy -- Black Reconstruction, Populism, &
then the New Deal -- but they lost each time, due to American racism.
Besides, now that we have no serious Communist challenge to
capitalism, there is no reason why the ruling class in rich nations
should concede to social democratic compromises.
A good number of Greens are technocratic as you say, resembling the
Fabians, but rest assured that wannabe Green technocrats will not be
able to deliver social democracy. Social democracy is dead, and not
just here. Recall what became of the German Greens: the Green
scissors of neoliberalism & the humane face of imperialism. The job
of radicals in/near the Green movements in America is to stop the
American Greens from following the footsteps of their German
counterparts & to help them gain the guts to de-legitimate the
Democratic Party & its supporters -- including the Black & Feminist
Talented Tenth -- instead of promoting Nader-Traders.
>The people around today who do challenge liberalism, etc.,
>are mostly anarchists, so they're not likely to be big on
>electoral organization and conventional politicking. The old
>CP must have had some idea of how they could turn electoral
>victories and government power into fundamental social change.
We should not hope for electoral victories: (1) because we will never
get them, except at municipal levels; and (2) because we should not
aspire to manage the working class for the benefit of capital (that's
what electoral victories of the Left under capitalism amount to).
Electoral campaigns are & should be for the sole purpose of political
education & agitation, while forcing a few progressive reforms on the
ruling class in the meantime, or more likely at present, preventing
reactionary reform initiatives from coming to pass.
>The idea is too sophisticated or too naive for me; I don't
>see it. But it could have given them the moxie we don't see
>today. Suppose they were naive: recall what Nietzsche said
>about the necessity of ignorance.
The false ideas that gave the CPs their "moxie," I believe, are not
hopes for electoral victories but naive beliefs that (A) history is
on their side (teleology sometimes helps!); (B) truth is on their
side (dogmatism sometimes helps!); and (C) the Soviet Union created a
workers' paradise free from racism & sexism (utopianism sometimes
helps!). Even the false belief (D) that Stalin was a fount of
political wisdom helped on a few occasions, for instance by making
the white American Communists believe that anti-racism was the
foremost duty of American Communists, because Stalin said so at the
6th Congress (see Oscar Berland, "The Emergence of the Communist
Perspective on the 'Negro Question' in America: 1919-1931: Part Two,"
_Science & Society_ 64.2, Summer 2000, pp. 194-217; Mark Naison,
_Communists in Harlem during the Depression_, Urbana, IL: U of
Illinois P, 1983)!
At the same time, the same beliefs A, B, C, & D debilitated the
Communists in many ways, by making them defend the indefensible _and_
defend _even_ the defensible (e.g., the Nazi-Soviet Pact) _in an
indefensible fashion_, as Justin might say.
I suppose this may be called dialectical irony; the cunning of
political reason works mysteriously.
Yoshie *****
Yoshie
