******************** POSTING RULES & NOTES ********************
#1 YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message.
#2 This mail-list, like most, is publicly & permanently archived.
#3 Subscribe and post under an alias if #2 is a concern.
*****************************************************************
Angelus Novus wrote
Interesting breakdown by social class:
https://twitter.com/formelfriedrich/status/1168402855880994816
In confronting the rise of authoritarian far-right populism, Marxists
should really re-think the old Trotskyist shibboleths about fascism
being a primarily petit-bourgeois or "Bonapartist" phenomenon. It's
pretty clear that the new far-right has a substantial proletarian base.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Oh wow. So many questions. How far do we have to reach to understand a
trend such as this, which becomes general and undeniable in the west, no
matter how you parse class, it seems. Why is the left so weak? Are we in
abject denial about that? There is nothing in the recent history of the
left, as presently perceived, to give the working class any real hope in
a socialist direction. Social democracy, top-down authoritarianism in
left history and experience, euro-communism and the communism of the
USSR and eastern Europe, the experience of Cambodia, Vietnam, Indonesia,
Chile, Portugal, and failed left-Bonapartism in Venezuela, the general
failure of socialism in one country, now approaching in Cuba, as in
North Korea in the face of China's trajectory, China's turn toward
capitalist authoritarian government, and its success for some and for
how long, as AI proceeds and resource wars and chaos kick in. The
absence of a viable vision for the working class among Marxists. And the
effects of nationalism-chauvinism-racism-immigrant-bashing-patriarchy in
a fractured capitalist society and culture. Where the existing shallow
version of capitalist governance is no longer serving the interests of
the majority of workers and supporting their hopes for their life
chances, as that burgeoning, dynamic system has in the recent past, and
the vaguest promise on the right is the only alternative left to so many
- for now. We know we're in deep doodoo, and we can see only faint,
flickering embers in movements of protest around the world right now. We
aren't really reaching effectively for underlying conditions producing
that turn to the authoritarian right. And what we can do once we
understand that. Where there is no vision the people perish., and yet
never more needed, in a time of powerful waning-systemic centrifugal
forces moving us closer to annihilation, and the irreversible effects of
the past 200 years of capitalist surge on climate.
The surprise remaining may be due to the shallow nature of working class
support for capitalism and its very evident lack of direction or
program, and the coming economic (and environmental) collapse, which on
the basis of past periodic recurrence of panic is overdue. Can we
somehow come through the gathering storm without nuclear holocaust? Have
contradictions in the system reached the point of impasse? Can
capitalism find its way through, overcome yet another set of barriers
and find its legs again? If not, socialism has an opening - if theory,
from the working class itself, informs practice with a credible program
and an awakened leadership. The working class appears to have come a
long way on that path so far, in many vital respects, and has much
experience to build on and lessons to be
well-learned from. As communication, coordination and combination have
become global for capitalist production, that is also true, potentially,
for its adversary as well, renewing hope for solidarity. The challenge
and the trend in the wrong direction seem insuperable, if we lose sight
of our already amply demonstrated, potential collective genius and
power, and build on it.
_________________________________________________________
Full posting guidelines at: http://www.marxmail.org/sub.htm
Set your options at:
https://lists.csbs.utah.edu/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com