Re: [Marxism] In response to Alex Callinicos

[n.fredman.11@xxxxxxxxxx]

Louis Proyect is right about the schematism of the IST on parties, but seems to 
have a bit of a schema of his own:

>>To make sure that the party does not slide 
back into hell, the French Trotskyists have insisted that the party be 
against capitalism and not just neoliberalism. Apparently making this 
distinction is essential to saving your soul<<.

This might sense in the US but surely less so in much of the world, and surely 
surely much less so in France.

Liberal bourgeois all over the place are finding it easy to say something like 
"we are all anti-neoliberals now". Gordon Brown is seemingly nationalising 
banks and here in Australia Kevin Rudd is denouncing "extreme capitalism", and 
pouring billions into what might seem like the "massive program of public 
works" you get in any Trot action program. I think in many national contexts 
something sharper than general anti-neoliberalism is needed to effectively 
present socialist ideas. 

For example I don't think  the Greens here have much to say of any effect about 
the financial crisis. Not that a broad class struggle and environmentalist 
party couldn't do this and wouldn't be a very handy thing to have right now - 
there's just several barriers in the way of the Greens becoming this (on the 
class struggle side) in the near future. Which suggests that quietly joining 
the Greens and doing a bit of cheerleading at election time, like Solidarity 
(IST group here) is doing, isn't particularly useful for revolutionaries right 
now (not that it's a disastrous thing to do and might even teach the comrades 
something - some of us realised the Greens were going to be important nearly 20 
years ago while the same comrades scoffed). 

In France there's millions of followers of socialism and massive discontent 
with the PS, Greens and PCF. Suggesting that a new cohering of the truly 
radical left rather than another variety of actually existing and discredited 
broad anti-neoliberalism would be a useful thing for a relatively large and 
successful revolutionary group to try (I'm not so sure about their plans for 
dissolution though). 
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