revolutionary party/whatever?

[Nancybrumback@xxxxxx]

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>Because we are not in a period of intense radicalization. When one begins to
occur, >there will be a possibility for such a party but only a possibility.

You're right, we are not in a period of intense
radicalization. However, segments of anti-capitalist thinkers are all
over the place. Probably the conditions of daily life for the majority
of the us working class will have to deteriorate quite a bit more,
because at the moment, because of "globalization," working classes are
being fed privileges and wealth at the expense of the "globalized"
countries. In his book "Imperialism, the highest form of capitalism,"
lenin described the situation a hundred years ago ...

"The receipt of high monopoly profits by the capitalists in one of the
numerous branches of industry, in one of the numerous countries, etc.,
makes it economically possible for them to bribe certain sections of
the workers, and for a time a fairly considerable minority of them,
and win them to the side of the bourgeoisie of a given industry or
given nation against all the others. The intensification of
antagonisms between imperialist nations for the division of the world
increases this urge (ch 10)

"Imperialism has the tendency to create privileged sections also among
the workers, and to detach them from the broad masses of the
proletariat.  It must be observed that in Great Britain the tendency
of imperialism to split the workers, to strengthen opportunism among
them and to cause temporary decay in the working-class movement,
revealed itself much earlier than the end of the nineteenth and the
beginning of the twentieth centuries; for two important distinguishing
features of imperialism were already observed in Great Britain in the
middle of the nineteenth century: vast colonial possessions and a
monopolist position in the world market.. . . on October 7, 1858,
Engels wrote to Marx: "The English proletariat is actually becoming
more and more bourgeois, so that this most bourgeois of all nations is
apparently aiming ultimately at the possession of a bourgeois
aristocracy and a bourgeois proletariat alongside the
bourgeoisie. ...The causes are: (1) exploitation of the whole world by
this country; (2) its monopolist position in the world market; (3) its
colonial monopoly. The effects are: (1) a section of the British
proletariat becomes bourgeois; (2) a section of the proletariat allows
itself to be led by men bought by, or at least paid by, the
bourgeoisie. (ch 8)"

In fact, i ran across a reading on the web by Immanuel Wallerstein
predicting that entire globe will be deruralized within 25 years
("Globalization or The Age of Transition? A Long-Term View of the
Trajectory of the World-System," by Immanuel Wallerstein, 1999) and
that having no more free or cheap natural or human resources to
exploit, world capitalism will begin to fall apart in a serious
way. Following that will be another 25 years of opportunities for
progressive social change . . .

I hope i will be still alive when all this happens, but it isn't
likely since i'm 65 now. but i have one 4-year granddaughter who will
come to full maturity in the midst of it. between now and that time,
however, i think that anti-capitalists (as in louis' list) could talk
together and define some points on which a majority can agree, as well
as some points which upon which they can't -- i certainly would be
willing to participate in such a discussion..

nancy brumback
professor of integrated ecological studies
new college of california
766 valencia st., san francisco, CA 94110
415-437-3405
nancybrumback@xxxxxx


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