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I thought Schlozman's was a brilliant article: indeed one of the best written pieces on politics I have seen for a long time. Much of the information in it was new to me and that was all to the good. I place the Sanders phenomenon in the same category as the Corbyn campaign. Both are old lefties who are left over from the time before neoliberal ascendancy that is pre-1973/1979. Sanders is a latter day New Dealer, and Corbyn is straight out of the era of Clement Attlee. They speak magic words to the educated working class youth who have known only Reagan and Thatcher and the shabby capitulations of Clinton and Obama and the Blair and the Brown governments. To say that Sanders is not a true Socialist and that Corbyn represents an un-electable distraction is to miss the point entirely. They have a mass following, and in these dark days of defeat after defeat that is almost unbelievable. Ben Okri put very well the longing that drives those who have flocked to Sanders and Corbyn: Can we still seek the lost angels Of our better natures? Can we still wish and will For poverty’s death and a newer way To undo war, and find peace in the labyrinth Of the Middle East, and prosperity In Africa as the true way To end the feared tide of immigration? For many Sanders and Corbyn represent the only possibility of a new world. Though I share that hope and certainly I welcome without major reservations the Corbyn and Sanders phenomena, I would like to essay not a note of caution, but one which endeavors to explain when Corbyn and why Sanders and why not the Leninist Left. Drawing upon Bhaskar's analysis of Hegel's master slave dialectic, in his great book Dialectic: the Pulse of Freedom, I would say that what Corbyn and Sanders represent is the dialectics of reconciliation between the classes. What they offer to the elites is mutual love and forgiveness. They offer a world where the bosses and the worker are friends. That, for me, is the source of their strength. That, for me, explains their appeal to those who are new to politics. Now we revolutionaries,such as Bhaskar, seek a world without master-slave relationships. We would abolish wage slavery and therefore abolish all masters. But it is reconciliation that holds the appeal for youth. By contrast with us and the following of Sanders and Corbyn, the Clintons,Obama, the Blairites, and Shorten the Labor leader in Australia all offer capitulation and that is why the youth have spat them out. To sum up, we offer Revolution. Corbyn and Sanders offer Reconciliation. Obama etc offer Capitulation. The big question: do we "Play the long game" and wait until the Sanders and Corby phenomena founder? My feeling that is that would be a tragic mistake. We must work along side those who seek reconciliation. This is no time for lofty abstentionism. My final comment is something of a disclaimer. I so wish we were faced with the contradictions of a Sanders or a Corbyn here in Australia. comradely Gary On Wed, Oct 14, 2015 at 12:31 PM, Gary MacLennan <gary.maclenn...@gmail.com> wrote: > Below is the link to the article on Bernie Sanders. It comes highly > recommended. > > ae > > Gary > > Most profiles of Bernie Sanders describe him as something like a > “1930s-style radical.” They are correct, but underspecified. Sanders is > neither strictly a New Dealer, in the lineage of those public-spirited men > whom Felix Frankfurter sent down from Harvard to build the administrative > state, nor a Popular Fronter. Instead Sanders still grapples, as we have > not since, with the question of how much power the economic elite should > hold in a democratic society. Sanders has spent his years in public life > pushing against both the New Deal’s political settlement and its policy > settlement. The former ardor has cooled. Sanders, like the right wing of > the Socialist Party in 1936, has finally bowed to the inexorable logic of > the electoral college and subordinated the third-party dream to the > Democratic Party. > > full: > https://nplusonemag.com/online-only/online-only/the-sanders-phenomenon/ > > _________________________________________________________ Full posting guidelines at: http://www.marxmail.org/sub.htm Set your options at: http://lists.csbs.utah.edu/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
