Whatta riot! Over on the DSA listserv, Doug is castigated as a "left
authoritarian", here by Hugh Snodwell, as not a Bolshevik.
The more I hang out in left cyberspace, the more I think, the left has so
much more sloughing off the dogmatic formulaic, wanna be Party apparatchiks
ala Hugh et. al.
Any answer Hugh, to the questions the other day, on the multilayered,
hyperrationalized AND chaotic
21st century capitalist realities? Can your forces even take over a
vegetarian health food cooperative, let alone a subcontractor for General
Motors? Sure Echelon is there, but your sector of the left, is declining in
strength. Can't say I'm a very happy left social democrat, but in the
absence, of a mass, radical democratic left, I'll take working in the less
reality impaired precincts of the social democratic swamp. At least they
have read and thought and organized, more successfully in bourgeois
democracies than your crew has. The 57 varieties of Trotskyists, the Maoists
and the Stalinists. All 50,000 of you worldwide- and that's being generous.
Michael Pugliese, Running Dog
----- Original Message -----
From: Hugh Rodwell <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Sent: Wednesday, March 29, 2000 7:35 AM
Subject: M-TH: Re: Market socialism & the 90s
> >Hugh Rodwell wrote:
> >
> >>If market socialism is such an attractive alternative, and vastly to be
> >>preferred to party dicatatorships, and capable of arising more or less
> >>spontaneously in periods of mass mobilization, then why
> >>
> >>a) did it not arise spontaneously in the wake of the collapse of the
Soviet
> >>Union, either there or in any of the other ex-workers states?
> >>
> >>b) this in spite of the convictions of such political leaders as Havel
in
> >>ex-Czechoslovakia that it was realistic and that they could actually
create
> >>a third way similar to but better than the Swedish model?
> >>
> >>Could it just be that it's an impossible illusion?
> >>
> >>Or is it that the real world is just too rough and polarized a place,
and
> >>needs to be civilized to resemble the neatness of Karl Kautsky's desk
> >>before humanity will be able to make any progress worth the name?
> >>
> >>In that case, how long will we have to wait?
>
>
> And Doug Henwood responded:
>
> >If you want to make an argument from spontaneous evolution, which it
> >seems you are,
>
> Wonder what gave him that idea? That's precisely the view I was arguing
> against. Those who are able to conceive of a system of market socialism
> coming of its own accord in a period of weak or disputed class power -- a
> period of dual power so to speak, although this was hardly the case except
> potentially during the early 90s.
>
> >then socialism everywhere is off the agenda,
>
> Well I didn't want to make the spontaneous evolution argument, but Doug
> just wants to repeat the socialism off the agenda argument. Mechanical
> stuff. He can't see it's being kept off the agenda by extreme measures of
> surveillance, repression and misinformation.
>
> >and not just the market kind.
>
> My question, which Doug missed, was why market socialism, as such an
> attractive and powerful alternative in the eyes of some, didn't force
> itself on the world in the early 90s when conditions were at their most
> propitious for this kind of development -- if you believe in spontaneous
> developments and fight till your dying breath against organized,
> consciously led political change of the kind the Bolsheviks demonstrated
in
> 1917.
>
> >Yes, the world is a rough and polarized place,
>
> Polarized between which forces? Doug only sees triumphant imperialism
> everywhere.
>
> >but I don't see any hint that your view of the world acknowledges
> >that.
>
> He's blind. Polarized for us between the forces of the imperialist
> bourgeoisie and the international working class, acting in its various
> national frameworks.
>
> >It's as if you expect everyone to wake up one day and sign on
> >to the vanguard's agenda, and then all contradictions are resolved
> >and heaven will have come to earth.
>
> This is just Doug's tired old straw man being raised yet again. Look at
> 1917 for the most telling historical refutation of this crap.
>
> >After a few bourgies are shot, of course.
>
>
> Nice to know who Doug cares about.
>
> Cheers,
>
> Hugh
>
>
>
>
> --- from list [EMAIL PROTECTED] ---
--- from list [EMAIL PROTECTED] ---
