Greetings Economists, I think the weekend exchanges represent some sort of break through event in terms of Socialism.
Yoshie's thesis is to take Islamic Revolution as a true parallel to Socialist Revolution and examine the reasons why Islam was able to mount a mass movement where Socialist came to naught. I propose this opens a door for Socialism to evolve in a revolutionary sense. The principle question is how the masses 'attach' themselves together on the large scale. For Socialists in the Developed countries it is not material goodies that matter. It is a profound Socialist social attachment that Capitalism can't do that is the central core question. I think Yoshie raises the question in the right way to approach the problem. If we look at the catastrophists (me being an example) the theory is that an economic downturn would re-awaken the working class to the unfair material arrangements. So that Socialism in an economic sense knows there is going to be a snap of support in the working class because of losing their jobs and insecurity. This is a passive view of what to do. It gives no guidance about how to reach the working class in the mean time. Or control in the snap to achieve mass attachment on the large scale. It is quite true that Socialism has inspired deep commitment of the van guard members in the party. And that when communists break up the social attachments in say Russia or China or Cuba or where ever they re-attach the society without the impediments of religious attachments. What is not clear is the 'work of the attachment process' in the first place. The attachment of Party members is frequently not materially based but the emotional meaning of Socialist material relationships. Yoshie highlighted over the weekend the lack of Female participation in the male dominated left. I say that is an attachment issue of emotional work in which no adequate Socialist theory of emotional knowledge work has arisen. Blocked to some degree by the taboos against Fideism and Psychology, and the reality of what materially does emotion knowledge entail there is no realistic economic theory of emotional attachments that can in Socialist terms work. By highlighting Homosexual relationships, Yoshie highlights not the individual attachments of persons having sex, Yoshie highlights women's work and the Socialist inability to grasp the emotional attachments work that the 'Homosocial' attachment milieu represents. A whole Working Class theory of emotional attachment therefore is what an examination of Islamic revolution would reveal. The process in other words of a Socialist Attachment theory would end up bringing women into the revolutionary process by clarifying what that sort of work does in a Socialist context. Makes clear how religions fail in a Socialist world, and what a Socialist transformation in the developed world points at. I will respond to Yoshie's posts to give some details to the statement above. Doyle
