On 12/11/06, Jim Devine <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
me:
> > yes, they are more united when it comes to issues like maintaining
> > public order, protecting their property rights and their right to
> > accumulate without end, avoiding unions if possible, etc. But there's
> > a big split among the competing US elites about social/cultural things
> > like abortion rights.
Yoshie:
> Even there differences have gotten smaller. E.g., it is the 1996
> welfare reform bill signed into law by President Clinton that relaxed
> restrictions for religious social service agencies.
yes, we live in the midst of a moral plague (to use Wilhelm Reich's
apt phrase).
Neoliberal capitalism, by diminishing the state' and unions' roles,
creating more harder-to-unionize service jobs than manufacturing jobs
(in both developed and developing nations), and expanding the informal
sector (mainly in developing nations), creates more room for religion,
for people turn to religious institutions to satisfy unmet needs.
Secular leftists in most nations have yet to come up with a viable
approach to this neoliberal reality.
> Whether in the USA or Iran, waging the main battle on social/cultural
> things rather than economics and foreign policy is a sure loser for
> the working class.
Maybe. Why not try to unite these? the old communist and
social-democratic parties (RIP) used to try to fight on all three
fronts.
There is much more consensus -- which is closer to the standard
leftist view -- on economics like the minimum wage and foreign policy
like the withdrawal from Iraq among American workers than on abortion,
gay marriage, and other issues like them. In my view, the way to go,
whether in the USA or Iran, is to create a solid faction on the Left
first on economics and foreign policy and then try to pull workers
within that faction to the Left on more controversial issues like
abortion.
--
Yoshie
<http://montages.blogspot.com/>
<http://mrzine.org>
<http://monthlyreview.org/>
