Re: [Marxism] Re: Should socialists call for democraticstructuralchange?

["Carlos A. Rivera" <cerejota@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

----- Original Message -----
From: "Jon Flanders" <jonflanders@xxxxxxxxx>

> Is it possible at all for you to consider that some basic democratic
> reforms of the hideously deformed electoral system in the US might
> actually facilitate and encourage the development of a working class
> labor party?????

On the other hand, do we think the Repocrats are so dumb as to allow these
changes if this is so?

And, based on the experience in Europe etc, this demands have not really
created a large vital "mainstream" revolutionary movement, but rather wave
upon wave of social-democratic liquidation.

Not to mention that a top-down formulation (changes in law leading to social
change) is somewhat problematic from a historical perspective: most laws are
a reflection of social changes, a result of struggles waged, not initiators
of such changes.

A bottom-up formulation is more historically coherent

In this specific case this means that the struggle for a working class labor
party in the USA must include the demand for a radical re-orientation of the
electoral process, but this process can only be a result of a struggle waged
by such a party or by a large third party movement that forces a real social
change (for example, the Greens).

For RR's left deviation, we have the right deviation of thinking that
somehow that the Reprocrat dictatorship will grant the space for third
parties and coalition governments out of the goodness of their hearts. RR is
correct in raising more or less the same point. We are thinking out of
context if we only analize what is "best" for the working classes, and
forget that any action on the part of the working classes will have a
reaction from the ruling class that is not compatible with our plans.

In other words, the demands themselves are good democratic demands, but if
we visualize them as *the* way to create a mass labor party, we are doomed
to failure. Yet if we see them as some of the range of demands an emerging
third partyist movement (labor or otherwise) would rally around, they
adquire the flavor of major, central political demands. (I do agree with Jon
Flanders that the Senate demand is a pipe dream, but the other two are
actually quite popular among people of all persuasions).

To try to substitute (class) struggle for top-down formulations are the
first slip on the road towards liberalism (understood as a view that denies
in practice and/or theory the class struggle as the motor of history). The
bottom line is that regardless of the political environment, laws, and any
superstructure, any party or organization requires hard, long and unthankful
organizing work.

sks




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