Yoshie:
Classical Marxist revolutionaries consolidated their power into one party -- such consolidation is probably a prerequisite for a dictatorship of the proletariat that expropriates all the expropriators. In Nepal and Venezuela, revolutionaries have chosen to promote processes in which multiple parties participate and determine national agendas through constituent assemblies first. Today's revolutionaries emphasize democracy and participation, appear to favor a mixed economy even more than the Sandinistas, and favor foreign investment provided it is in their nation's interest.
Odd. I opened this email up expecting a rebuttal of my points about nationalization, but found none. Well, that's okay. Let me respond. With all due respect to the Nepalese CP, so favored by John Mage and others at MR, and to Hugo Chavez, I have my own ideas about things whatever "today's revolutionaries" believe. I am a stiff-necked, stubborn old man set in my ways, I suppose. My understanding of socialism is very much conditioned by historical experience and by the writings of Karl Marx and V.I. Lenin on the state. The concept of a dictatorship of the proletariat seems fairly central to Marxism, doesn't it? There can be all sorts of advances in countries led by leftists, but eventually the big questions of who controls the economy and how it will be organized have to be confronted. If Yoshie does not think that works like "State and Revolution" are relevant to today's world, she should say that. (Based on her enthusiasm for capitalist Iran, I imagine that this is the case.) However, it does not impress me to hear that Chavez has kind things to say about the Grameen Bank. He also thinks that the CIA organized 9/11 but I am under no obligation to agree with him on that. Venezuela in some ways is a Rorschach test. People impose their own ideology on it since it is a work in progress. Stiglitz sees it as a confirmation of Keynesian welfare state wisdom, while market socialists hail it as a working out as their own blueprint. I spent 11 years in an organization that practically defined group-think. Now that I am rapidly approaching retirement age, the last think I will give up is my intellectual independence. Revolutions are made by the masses, but revolutionary theory arises out of the sharp debate of individuals. Let's never forget that. In my own view, Venezuela is in the first act of its social drama. Taking a snapshot right now and saying "This is Venezuela" would be a mistake. There is a long way to go and let's let history draw the final conclusions.
