Jurriaan Bendien wrote: >> As a sociological generalisation, what is called the "New Left" became part >> of the renewal of the elite, giving rise to new classes of bureaucrats >> funded by taxes, profits and philantrophy.
jmp <[email protected]> wrote: > ....and this is true of all social movements (that are not simply > destroyed), and what you are describing is really just a feature of > capital interests' ability to recuperate social movements - and the > tendency in so many people to seek influence (and power) rather than > stay with their ideals, is it not? This is absolutely right. There are people from all sorts of social movements who have been (1) separated from their movement, their "roots"; and then (2) absorbed into state and/or capitalist bureaucracies. This (3) leads them to embrace top-down solutions to every problem (environmental, social, economic) rather than relying on the collective and democratic mobilization of workers, ethnic minorities, women, students, or whoever it was that had been their base. This applies not just to many "Greens" but to many "Marxists," "laborites," etc. And it doesn't have to be the state and/or capitalist bureaucracies. Some militant laborites have been absorbed into the trade-union bureaucracy and begin to see themselves as the embodiment of the labor movement, rather than the rank and file. Some Marxists become apparatchiks in their minuscule "vanguard" political parties, somehow absorbing the bureaucratic mentality and style of practice without actually running a bureaucracy with significant size. And of course there are self-styled "libertarian" bureaucrats who impose their "liberty" by force. Of course, not all Greens, Marxists, laborites, feminists, ethnic-rights activists, etc. are absorbed into bureaucracies and the bureaucratic mentality and its style of practice. These are usually ones who maintain an organic connection with their base. Which is of course hard to do during a period in which such movements are largely moribund or in retreat. -- Jim Devine / "Segui il tuo corso, e lascia dir le genti." (Go your own way and let people talk.) -- Karl, paraphrasing Dante. _______________________________________________ pen-l mailing list [email protected] https://lists.csuchico.edu/mailman/listinfo/pen-l
