[Marxism] Lula - one more

["Jurriaan Bendien" <adsl675281@xxxxxxxxxx>]

Louis wrote:

Too bad he [i.e. Lula] lost sight of this in his headlong drive to become a
conventional social democratic politician.

I don't think snide comments like this cut any ice at all. What is the point
of this? You can sort of hang out as a Leninist rhetorician who is "Left of
the Left" or to the left of social reformism, but meantime Lenin was quite
happy with the label social democrat for many years and, after the civil
war, introduced a "social democratic" New Economic Policy. He died just when
things really came to the "crunch".

Question is, if Lula could follow a more "socialist" policy, and if yes, how
you would implement it under the circumstances. I mean, we can all go and
stand in market square and wave red banners, stuff like that, but that
doesn't really solve very much does it? It takes a lot of skill to keep a
very large party together, and it takes a lot of skill to manage resources
*better* then the previous regime. Verities about the intricacies of
Marxist-Leninist doctrine are a fat lot of use there.

If Brazil can have a wellfunctioning social democratic government, that
would already be a helluva lot better than what they had before. If you
point to Cuba, and say there's a model to aim for, then really you're saying
that you know better what they ought to aim for. I am not trying to knock
Cuba here, but it occurs to me that this is hardly a "Marxist" approach.

At least since 1917, the Marxists have been in the habit of discovering a
"socialist beacon" (if not the workers' paradise) in some other country than
their own, and I think those sorts of strategems are really suspect; it just
means you cannot come to terms with the politics in your own land.

Probably a critique of Lula could be made, but as I said, I wouldn't know
precisely what it was, and I don't think it is my prerogative to do it. And
calling people nasty names is not my idea of a viable politics. The
challenge is to find a leftwing policy that *works* effectively, that is
what people really want.

In my little corner of the world, I get to observe a lot of these problems
"in miniature", but frankly I cannot say I identify with the leftist
rhetoric because it doesn't actually solve any real problems. I think the
honest approach is that either you opt to take on political
responsibilities, and really try to solve problems of resource allocation
without undue rhetoric, or you decide not to take on positions of political
responsibility (perhaps because it would commit you to a "reformism", to
mention the dreaded word). But in the latter case, you ought to work on
another kind of alternative, and you've got to be a bit careful about how
you criticise those who take the responsibility, especially because you
don't know all the factors that have to be reconciled.

Personally I don't really identify with traditional ways of dividing the
political spectrum into Left and Right, but I am especially suspicious of
people who just "know" in advance how to slot any person or idea into the
political spectrum without doing any serious investigation whatever.

Got to go, have to take care of other stuff.

Jurriaan


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