Re: Left? Left Politics?

[djones@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx (jones/bhandari)]

I am very open to Mauro's theses against social democracy, parliamentarism,
 the various CPs.  If we are to go to the root, then the following things
need to be explored

1. how through the above forms the emancipation of the working class cannot
be conquered by the working class itself--this is Mattick's emphasis in
Anti-Bolshevik Communism (Armonk, NY: Sharpe, 1977). Rubel's and
Pannekoek's work would be important here as well, I believe.  And Daum's
work today.

2. the myth that capital can be regulated or led to equilibrium through the
political capture of the state--this was Grossmann's emphasis in his
criticism of Hilferding, et al. Whatever mistakes we think are in those
1933 Political Economy Study Pamphlets of the CP of Great Britain, there is
a powerful critique there of political pretensions.

3. at the deepest level, the connection between the commodity-form and the
self-conception of leftist political actors.  This is Postone's
achievement, pp. 316ff.

If I were to pursue Mauro's theses, these are the sort of things which I
would look for.  I am sorry for the refusal to think through the really
important questions; I got burnt today on sectoral disequilibria and
traverses today. At some point, it began to dawn on me that all this had
nothing to do with Marx, much less revolutionary critique.  Mauro's theses
do, however.

rakesh





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