Re: Waiting for Godot bis

[Carrol Cox <cbcox@xxxxxxxxx>]

Aldo Matteucci wrote:
> 
> 
> 
> On the specifics of the current political situation I feel a bit like
> Cicero at the end of the Roman Republic. I see Caesarism coming, and
> I?d like to stop it. Well, poor guy, he failed miserably.

Cicero was defending the right of the Roman ruling class to be free of
any limitations whatever on their exploitation of the populace. Julius
felt that one shouldn't kill the proverbial goose that was laying the
golden eggs. In other words Cicero's story reflects the tendency of some
ruling classes to self-destruct unless either some sector of the class
succeeds in imposing some limits or the laboring classes (in capitalism
the working class) accumulate enough power to defend themselves. In
Europe the working class has such power; and as Jim says, only through a
movement _outside_ the DP -- a mass (reform) movement not an electoral
movement -- can that defensive power be accumulated.

If Caesarism comes in the U.S. in the near future it will be from a
ruling-class sector that thinks the sector represented by Bush has gone
insane and needs to be brought under control. But whether the threat
comes from Bush or his opponents in the ruling class, the defense has to
take the form of a mass working-class movement that is not tied to the
DP.

The DP is not the SPD of 1930. It is that sector of the ruling class
that keeps urging the workers to be moderate in their demands (i.e., to
be "sensible.")

Carrol