Michael Perelman writes:
>Someone whom I respected a great deal asked me earlier today what all of this
>discussion has to do with real world struggles. Tom Kruse, in his note to me,
>was describing the heroic struggles of the people of Bolivia. Suppose one of
>these Bolivians were to stumble on to the list and ask how all of
>this would be
>useful in the struggles at home.
>
>I responded to the person who asked me about the discussion on the
>list by saying
>that I think that an understanding of history is important. Even
>so, how can we
>take this historical debate -- which is far superior to the trashing of
>individual personalities -- and make it of use to our hypothetical Bolivian?
One way in which history undeniably matters in political struggles is
that an accurate grasp of capitalism as a _historically specific_
mode of production takes away from the ideological power of TINA.
Marx's criticism of political economy was intended to counter the
naturalization of capitalism: the ideology that capitalism always
already existed, in incipient forms, in any rise of commerce, towns,
markets, divisions of labor, etc.; that there is no alternative to
capitalism because the tendency toward capitalism is part of human
nature, and any effort to abolish capitalism produces tyranny; and so
on.
The grip of TINA on the proletariat in rich nations has to be broken,
in that unless they win, any hard-earned victory won by those in poor
nations will be taken away from them (as it has happened to the
victories of Soviets, Cubans, Vietnamese, North Koreans, Chinese,
etc.).
Moreover, a better understanding of what capitalism & imperialism is
probably clarifies who are your allies, who are your enemies, who may
be your fellow travellers. Correct understanding may help limit the
number & intensity of fights among leftists, on e-lists or in the
real world, thus helping build the socialist movement back up.
Yoshie
