On 8/20/06, Jim Devine <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
The problem with this is that the ideology isn't enough, just as progressive Christianity isn't enough. Liberation theologists with no contact, no direct attachment, with an active popular movement end up like a lot of progressive or even Marxist types without such involvement. It ends up being entirely academic (perhaps even without being in academia).
In the United States, it is Marxists, more often than the religious, who risk ending up becoming liberation theologians without any base communities, so to speak. Almost all religious activists on the Left I know -- Christian, Muslim, Sikh, whatever* -- are active through their own congregations of faith and often ecumenically networked with religious activists of other faiths as well as irreligious activists. In contrast, many Marxists I know tend to be loose cannons, with no institution that they can call their home base.
Social democracy (like Marxist-Leninist groups) unfortunately often shares some characteristics of fascism, such as top-down organization and nationalism. Of course, social democracy (like M-Lism) is NOT fascism. That's partly because social democracy (when it's at its high point) are linked to independent labor unions and similar organizations (independent women's groups, etc.) rather than dealing with organizations that are mere conveyor belts for the party line (the careers of the parliamentary politicians, etc.) SD parties also typically don't have to deal with the kinds of social disintegration that spawn fascism. What this suggests to me is that even the most progressive-sounding Islamic political organization could, like the most progressive-sounding Christian or secular political organization, end up being very top-down and nationalist, leaning heavily in the fascist direction, if the grass roots (the rank and file) do not have the autonomy to keep the party organization honest.
Looking back on the history of state socialism, I'd have to say that the way socialist states have organized civil society institutions can be called "corporatist,"** much like the way the Islamic state of Iran has. Under formerly and actually existing socialist societies, trade unions, women's organizations, ethnic organizations, etc. have never been autonomous.*** I believe that neither Marxism nor any variety of religion should become the official philosophy of a state. Instead, I'd suggest Machiavelli's Discourses on Livy, among other things, as a guiding spirit: "To me those who condemn the tumults between the Nobles and the Plebs seem to be caviling at the very thing that was the primary cause of Rome's retention of liberty. . . . And they do not realize that in every republic there are two different dispositions, that of the people and that of the great men, and that all legislation favoring liberty is brought about by their dissension" (Chapter IV). Replace the "Nobles" by leaders and the "Plebs" by masses, and what he says suggests what we must aim for: to create as much space as possible for conflicts between leaders and masses in socialist society, for such conflicts are essential to retention and expansion of liberty. The difficulty is to figure out how to do so without allowing a foreign power to take advantage of such conflicts to overthrow the socialist state and restore capitalism. As for social democracy today, perhaps with the exception of Scandinavia, nowadays the task of establishing new social democracy or defending existing social democracy mainly falls upon those who are to the left of social democrats (Marxists, syndicalists, religious leftists, etc), as social democrats have become neoliberals. * Jewish leftists appear to me to be an exception here: they tend to be atheists or at least agnostics, and they tend not to participate in even secular Jewish community activities. Perhaps, that is because most Jewish leftists are either anti-Zionist or non-Zionist whereas most major Jewish institutions, religious or secular, are dominated by Zionists. ** IMHO, fascism is a variant of corporatism, though not all corporatist states are fascist states *** Venezuela has been a partial exception, but that may be because the government there has not socialized all means of production there yet -- only a minority of them have come under state control. -- Yoshie <http://montages.blogspot.com/> <http://mrzine.org> <http://monthlyreview.org/>
