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My previous post on reformism and the 2nd law of dialectics has sunk without a trace. Briefly, I was endorsing the notion that the quantitative piling of reform upon reform could produce a qualitative change. I hasten to add that I have not swallowed my missing copy of Bernstein's *Evolutionary Socialism*. The capitalist class will never sit idly by and let reform follow reform. But to talk of concrete reforms is the way to mobilize the apathetic for the inevitable struggle. That for me is the lesson of Syriza's rise and that of Podemos and Sinn Fein and the Scottish Nationalists. Of course, it is much more satisfying to talk of "nationalizing the banks under workers' control" and to call that a "transitional demand" as one of the participants did at the recent Kouvleakis-Callinicos debate. But it is the kind of fast thinking that no longer has any purchase on the people. There was a special irony in the Kouvleakis-Callinicos debate which seems to have been lost on most of the participants. They were there to debate and castigate the mistakes of Syriza in government. Fair enough. I am all for a brutally frank analysis of the Syriza capitulation and sell out as comrades will know. But, when oh when will we ever have a gathering in London to debate and castigate the mistakes of a British leftist government? Let me now try to dip into British history and in doing so attempt to answer some of Callinicos' comments on the British Labor Party. I think there are two crucial periods. First there was the acceptance of the Keynesian compromise and the claiming of this as a kind of end of history. Anthony's Crosland's *The Future of Socialism* (1956) is a convenient date to mark the abandonment of the socialist reform agenda. The debate concentrated on public ownership (Clause 4), but basically Crosland and co thought that the Keynesian welfare state was a necessary and sufficient condition for the construction of socialism. The next stage was Jim Callaghan's abandonment in 1976 of Keynesianism. The British Labor Party ceased to be reformist in every sense. It but needed the advent of New Labour and Tony Blair to complete the logical transformation of the party into a vanguard of neo-liberal modernization. My point here is that one cannot use the history of the British Labour Party as a paradigm for the inevitable failure of reform, because that party had abandoned reform. Of course the Bennites fought a rear guard action and it was significant enough to force the Labour Party Right to split off. But the tragedy is that no mass anti-austerity party has yet emerged our of the crisis of 2008. Corbyn's leadership bid might possibly lead to that eventually. Certainly should he win, the capitalists will do all they can to force a split to the right. But if that is played correctly we could get our broad anti-austerity formation that is so desperately needed. comradely Gary _________________________________________________________ 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
