"..Marx's closest collaborator, Frederick Engels, argued back in the 1890s that state ownership isn't equivalent to socialism. After the conservative German leader Otto von Bismarck "went in for state ownership of industrial establishments, a kind of spurious Socialism has arisen," Engels complained, "degenerating, now and again, into something of flunkyism, that without more ado declares all state ownership, even of the Bismarckian sort, to be socialistic."
Marx, Engels and the revolutionary socialists who followed them also argued that socialism can't be achieved by voting a socialist party into office. The workers themselves must take the lead in transforming society by exerting their power in the workplace and taking control of production. That's why socialists can't be satisfied with a critique of capitalism. They have to organize and fight for an alternative, by rooting socialist organization in working-class struggles against the ravages of capitalism. Eugene Debs, the great American socialist who got nearly a million votes for president in 1912, made this point. "I would not lead you into the promised land if I could," he said, "because if I led you in, some one else would lead you out. You must use your heads as well as your hands, and get yourself out of your present condition." http://socialistworker.org/2009/05/06/socialisms-comeback -- http://venukm.blogspot.com/ --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Green Youth Movement" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/greenyouth?hl=en-GB -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
