An additional point. Those who have been active in attempting to build any sort of mass struggle over the last 10 years will be familiar with the set-back to such efforts brought about by the election of Obama. Locally, there was a sharp drop in active participation here in central Illinois after the 2008 election. Attendance at the monthly meetings of t he Bloomington/Normal Citizens for Peace & Justice dropped by over75%. That probably is an index to overall participation in such activity throughout the U.S.
Carrol -----Original Message----- From: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Carrol Cox Sent: Monday, August 13, 2012 10:25 AM To: 'Progressive Economics' Subject: Re: [Pen-l] Breaking News: seems like electoral suicide Michael Smith On Sun, 12 Aug 2012 14:51:07 -0500 "Carrol Cox" wrote: [Romney's] victory would also perhaps save Social Security and Medicare. MS] I *think* I follow your drift here, Carrol, and if so, I think you're onto something. But it would be interesting to hear your reasoning laid out in more detail. ----------- Jim D: "The US could get a welfare state, complete with decent pensions, aid to the poor, decent medical care, and help for the unemployed if we all joined the Mormon Church." I think Jim's sarcasm misses fire, since it's clear that 'things' are going to get considerably worse over the next 4 years under either Romney or Obama. As far as policy goes, the struggle revolves around how many remaining fragments of the former "welfare state" can 'we' preserve. I think not many but at least a Romney Administration would inject a superficial energy into the mildly "left liberal" elements of the DP, with the result of relatively little new legislation getting through Congress. The Austerity Drive would not cease but its momentum would be slowed. And limiting damage to Social Security and Medicare would be useful not only for the obvious reasons (more comfort for some) but because serious damage to those programs would impact on the entire working class, since the care of elders would fall more heavily on their children and grandchildren. And this in turn would limit the margin of freedom needed for serious (i.e., non-electoral) political activity. I append a passage from Chapter 14 of Wages, Price and Profit. Incidentally, if one were to substitute "Chicago Teachers Union" for "Mormon Church" Jim's sentence would open up interesting possibilities. Carrol >From Wages, Price & Profit, Ch. 14: These few hints will suffice to show that the very development of modern industry must progressively turn the scale in favour of the capitalist against the working man, and that consequently the general tendency of capitalistic production is not to raise, but to sink the average standard of wages, or to push the value of labour more or less to its minimum limit. Such being the tendency of things in this system, is this saying that the working class ought to renounce their resistance against the encroachments of capital, and abandon their attempts at making the best of the occasional chances for their temporary improvement? If they did, they would be degraded to one level mass of broken wretches past salvation. I think I have shown that their struggles for the standard of wages are incidents inseparable from the whole wages system, that in 99 cases out of 100 their efforts at raising wages are only efforts at maintaining the given value of labour, and that the necessity of debating their price with the capitalist is inherent to their condition of having to sell themselves as commodities. By cowardly giving way in their everyday conflict with capital, they would certainly disqualify themselves for the initiating of any larger movement. _______________________________________________ pen-l mailing list [email protected] https://lists.csuchico.edu/mailman/listinfo/pen-l _______________________________________________ pen-l mailing list [email protected] https://lists.csuchico.edu/mailman/listinfo/pen-l
