Communism, Social Democracy, Liberalism, was Re: Gary Trudeau, Iraq and Nader

[Carrol Cox <cbcox@xxxxxxxxx>]

> "Devine, James" wrote:

> I'd bet that both of you guys would agree on the non-existence of mass socialist movement as a serious political force in the US at this point in history. But the issue concerns the future. A "liberal" would say that "socialism is _forever_ dead as a serious political force, so we have to figure out how to improve capitalism. A socialist would quote the Cubs fan in November "wait 'til next year" -- and then try to figure out how contradictions of capitalism could be used to form the basis for _future_ socialist strength.
-----

This post (adapted from one on lbo-talk) is at least obliquely related
to Jim's points.

In the last 15 years many have argued, somewhat persuasively, that the
Communist (self-labelled Marxist) Movement is dead, and that when the
left arises again it will be with different slogans and different
banners.

Let's assume that is accurate. (I don't think it is, but accepting it is
the framework for this post.)

But The Communist Movement was only _one_ of three major leftist
movements of the last 150 years.

The Second was Social Democracy (when it still aimed, at least in
principle, at Socialism).

The Third was, for lack of a better description, The Liberal Movement
(which I will define here as social democracy minus the aim at
socialism).

And it seems clear to me that the argument that Communism failed applies
with equal force to Liberalism and Social Democracy.

[Certainly, of the three Communism contributed the most to positive gain
around the world in the last century (and was even  indirectly
responsible for most or all the gains made by liberal or
social-democratic movements).]

Social Democracy has one and only one victory to its credit, so far as I
know, in an area as peripheral as Laos -- i.e. in Sweden; and that has
pretty much degenerated into nothing more than a pleasant liberal
regime.) The New Deal is dead and the Great Society never really got
started. Atlee's England is as dead as Stalin's USSR.

If the empirical defeat of Communism is evidence for the impossiblity of
Communism, then surely the defeats of Social Democracy and Liberalism
are equal evidence for the impossibility of either of those routes.

Carrol

P.S. It seems to me that the death toll of the 20th century is pretty
good evidence for what I would see as the core of any marxism: the
absolute incompatibility of capitalism and human survival. The belief
that Socialism is possible is strictly secondary. Given that fact of
capitalism, the current weakness of the left is insignificant, for what
counts is not what we would like to do or what looks possible to do, but
what we must do to survive. (My version of Rosa Luxemburg's "socialism
or barbarianism" or of M&E's "mutual ruin of the contending classes.")