Re: European Union

[James Devine <jdevine@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

In addition to the below, I want to reiterate that a one-dimensional
"strength/weakness" continuum is too simple.

At 01:28 PM 6/2/98 -0400, Andrew Wayne Austin wrote:
>Before the depression, the socialist and communist movements and parties
>were strong, the worker movement vibrant. There was a strong intellectual
>culture, with socialist thought widely read and appreciated. The
>underlying economic conditions of the capitalist economy in the 20s were
>teetering, inequality of wealth was about at the point it is today.

The latter growth in inequality before 1929 is partly due to the weakening
of the former strength of the workers' organizations, at least in the U.S.
That is, the Left was in decline _before_ the New Deal, due to attacks by
the Right.

in the 1920s: >The
>ability of workers to purchase the products they produced was falling
>farther behind. People were angry, alienated, and in many quarters
>revolutionary. This unsound economy unraveled during the world economic
>crisis.

The power of the workers' organizations revived after 1929, as the system
lost legitimacy for many.

In the 1930s: >The ruling class was in one of their weakest positions in US
>history and they faced a serious threat from the left for the first and
>last time (at least to this point). Elites were conscious of this, and
>with heavy funding by business and government interests, they began
>developing means for mass thought control and political and economic
>programs and theories that would save the capitalist system, imperialism,
>and strengthen the emerging international bourgeois over against the rest
>of the world.

I think they've been doing this for a long time. But it's important to
remember that there are big differences between competing segments of the
ruling class, competing elites. The FDR elite got a hell of a lot of flack
from the anti-FDR people. The "free enterprisers" were campaigning to
manipulate public opinion just as much as the New Dealers.

>During the Depression, the ruling class faced a real
>bifurcation point, and the capitalism way of life was in real jeopardy.

Yes, but it's important to remember that the threat wasn't simply from the
left. The capitalist elites also feared the Nazis. The latter were seen as
extremely unpleasant (declasse'), employing tactics that were to be avoided
unless all else failed.

>With the New Deal in place, and the institutionalization of class
>struggle, capitalism was not only restored, but it flourished.
>Unprecedented stability and growth followed World War II. Socialist and
>communist organizations were devastated, marginalized, communists and
>socialists were purged from the labor movement. The labor movement, under
>the governance of a conservative, patriotic, and reactionary leadership,
>became an arm of capitalist mode of production.

This is true in the US, but it wasn't simply New Deal co-optation that did
the trick. The Truman-McCarthy era scared the commies out of the labor
movement, allowing the rise of the "conservative, patriotic, and
reactionary" labor-union bureaucrats.

On the other hand, the New Deal should be seen as reflecting labor's power.
Labor's power was able to get our rulers to grant some beneficial reforms.
The reforms typically as good as the socialists and communists wanted
(Norman Thomas said that FDR carried out his proposals "on a stretcher"),
but they were partial and short-term victories.

In Europe, on the other hand, the commies did pretty well, helping to
create social democracy rather than mere New Deal reforms, since they had
been so active in the underground against the Nazis.

>The ideology of the Cold
>War and consumerism, and the new means of mass indoctrination spurred in
>the Twenties and perfected in the second World War, sapped the majority of
>their capacity for critical reason: the art of the manufacture of
>consensus reached its pinnacle.

Did the majority ever have the capacity for critical reason? I do agree
that socialist and communist organizations did encourage the use critical
reason, but they didn't represent/organize the majority.

>The military-industrial complex emerged
>and became a dominant feature in our society. The ruling class
>orchestrated a shift from apartheid to racial hegemony to strengthen the
>position of the historical bloc.

This is too much of a conspiracy theory for me. The "shift from apartheid
to racial hegemony" was partly a victory by the Civil Rights movement. The
reforms weren't typically as good as the movement wanted, but they were
partial and short-term victories. The fact that racial hegemony prevailed
represents (1) the strength of the resistance to the movement's efforts and
(2) the weakness of the movement. It also reflected the way in which the
movement's victories were bureaucratized, which weakened grass-roots support.

>By the end of the 1960s, a police state
>had emerged with a vastly expanded prison-industrial complex. The position
>of the ruling class was far and away superior in this time than during the
>1920s.

Right, the civil rights, labor, and other anti-establismentarian movements
have largely faded, unable to win reforms or even to defend old ones.

[snip]

Jim Devine jdevine@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx &
http://clawww.lmu.edu/Departments/ECON/jdevine.html