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

[Kenneth Campbell <kkc@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Ahhhhh, Carrol, don't give up. As long as there is captialism, there
will be Marx.

Ken.


>-----Original Message-----
>From: PEN-L list [mailto:PEN-L@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx]On Behalf Of Carrol Cox
>Sent: Friday, August 20, 2004 4:21 PM
>To: PEN-L@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
>Subject: [PEN-L] Communism, Social Democracy, Liberalism, was Re: Gary
>Trudeau, Iraq and Nader
>
>
>> "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.")