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As Rosa Luxemburg explained in "Reform or Revolution," if revolutionary socialists did not work for reforms they would have nothing to do in the public political arena. Except maybe walk the streets with a "socialist revolution is the only solution" sign _a la_ the cartoon characters with "the end is near" signs. Does that mean that revolutionary socialists should work for any "reform"? I don't think so. I call some reforms, "capitalist reforms." I'm not particularly interested in working to make the capitalist system work better or provide some special benefit for a particular corporate sector. I think we need criteria to use to prioritize reforms that are worth working for - from a revolutionary socialist standpoint. A quick list: which reforms are in workers interests, will qualitatively improve workers well-being and economic security, and may increase working class consciousness, class political strength, unity and willingness/ability to fight for more "working class reforms." I think that a universal, "single-payer" healthcare system is definitely a reform that revolutionary socialists should support, using the criteria above. A new law that requires individuals to purchase private profit health insurance does not make the grade, in my opinion. When thinking about this issue, i think it is useful to understand that early in the Clinton administration there was a public debate about a reform to ensure that everyone had needed healthcare. By the time of the recent presidential election when 'change we can believe in' was clearly going to be a winning political slogan, the ruling class had used their two-party capitalist political system to change the issue from healthcare for everyone, to *health insurance* for everyone. Private profit health insurance is, of course, just a capitalist racket - entirely comparable to a mafia protection racket. We must pay 20 - 25% off the top to the health insurance mafia in order to be allowed in the healthcare door. The private profit health insurance system is being 'reformed' so that millions more poor and working people will be required to throw hundreds of millions more dollars down that corporate waste drain. And hey, if you 'qualify' you can beg the capitalist government to use some of our tax dollars to give you some assistance in forking over more dough to the corporate health insurance mafia. Dayne On Sun, Dec 27, 2009 at 1:14 PM, hari kumar <[email protected]> wrote: > > I am a bit confused: > The issues on education that were put by the opposing sections seemed both > respectful and mindful on both sides, of the distinction between reformist > steps and reovelutionary steps. While accepting that reformist measures are > at times, to be accepted by the revolutionary movement. Yet I see no > semblance of that un-emotive (and open-minded) tone in the current > discussion on the patently inadequate health bills. > > Would someone (preferably at least one of the more dogmatic people here who > insist that there is no value *at all* in the bill) explain to me what > reforms are "acceptable" and what ones are not? > > Hari Kuamr > ________________________________________________ Send list submissions to: [email protected] Set your options at: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
