Re: how to lead the revolution
Michael Perelman wrote: I have a sense that we tend to discuss radical economic strategy for other countries -- and probably for our own -- with a tone that sounds like books that tell people how to raise children or win the affection of others. Aren't radical economists supposed to have the expertise to do that? People look to us, man. I don't have a lot of answers, and it often embarrasses me. We can affect a certain modesty - it's not for us to prescribe, we should listen to the people - and while there's a certain truth to that, it's also a lot of buck-passing. Doug
Re: how to lead the revolution
In a message dated 8/11/03 6:53:20 PM Pacific Daylight Time, [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: I have a sense that we tend to discuss radical economic strategy for other countries -- and probably for our own -- with a tone that sounds like books that tell people how to raise children or win the affection of others. To discuss vigorously -- and suggest, strategy for others is in itself a certain morality, ideological outlook and body politic. "We" -- in the imperial countries and the most imperial of all countries, that is the dominant world power, tend to "know" what is best for others. Everyone brings something different to the world of politics: different moral standards, different political concepts and different modes of thinking concerning the meaning of democracy and even the meaning of revolution itself. Revolution or rather social revolution has at its axis changes in the material power of the productive forces, at least on a history making world scale. In America the past era of intense moral struggle and economic and political realignment on a societal scale was the Civil Rights movement. Although the African American peoples and millions of plain decent citizens have waged an unrelenting struggle against the violence, terror and isolation of this people, changes in the means of production altered the content of the social process by creating the need to realign the economic and political structures of the country or in Marxist jargon "maintain the unity of the productive forces and the underlying property relations." Specifically, the changes in the material power of production was the historic process of the mechanization of agriculture, which set roughly eleven million people in motion -- five million black and six million white. It was this revolution in production which opened a new vista and created a different framework for social struggles that erupted with the freeing of the slaves. No one led this revolution although various political grouping with different economic and political interest engaged the social process. Social movement always starts with changes in how people or organized to survive or in Marxist jargon, changes in the means of production. The social revolution from manufacture to industrial production proper was an authentic revolution in human history that realigned society on a world scale. The industrial revolution also was the context for the emergence of industrial modes of thinking or industrial forms of democracy and organization. One of the political forms of the industrial mode of conception, democracy and organization was political syndicalism that basically viewed society from the standpoint of a huge factory -- by definition driven on the cooperative principle, without bourgeois property relations, or as it is called workers control and ownership of the factors of production. One big factory! I shutter at the thought and salute the new technology that makes non industrial forms of organization possible. Indeed, the hammer and sickle is obsolete as a material force of production or rather has been revolutionized repeatedly since the day of the mythical John Henry. Here is the last great legend of the manufacturing era. Here is a real hammer driving -- driving railroad spikes, man. As the story goes, he drove so hard that he broke his poor heart and he laid down his hammer and he died, lord. He of course was replaced by the steam driven hammer, then the industrial stamping machines and so on. Industrial democracy and the industrial conception -- even of time itself, dies hard but in the end is destined for that big factory in the sky. Without question the visionaries fight for a society ever for equitable for the multitudes - more peaceful and more happy. The masses can only be lead where they are already going. Melvin P.
Re: how to lead the revolution
My assumption is that a socialist revolution will have to be made by the workers themselves--to paraphrase the principles of the First International. As most wage-slaves are not revolutionary, leadership would come from those workers who are class conscious. In short, communist workers lead non-revolutionary workers in a process whereby the soical revolution gathers momentum and finally reaches critical mass. In the field of political-economy, this would involve critiquing the system of wage-slavery and how that system turns producers of wealth (capital) into employees of their bosses (capitalists). This critique would not only focus on the real marketplace of commodities and the struggle to wrench more and more wealth (and therefore power) out of the hands of the ruling class and into the hands/control of the producing class, but also turn its attention to the reified notions which are ideologically legitimated within the society's social, cultural, political, familial and psychological character structures. This list is a concrete example of that praxis and might potentially contribute toward the creation of that long dreamed of association, 'where the freedom of each is the condition for the freedom of all'. Best, Mike B) --- Michael Perelman [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: I think that there are different levels of specificity in answers. It is easy to say that a more equitable tax system or less military spending would make the economy work better. It is less easy to say what Jamaica, to use your example, should do, when its options are far less open. Clinton knew what to do as well as anybody, but he didn't follow through with much of anything. We would have chosen more grassroots mobilization and less reliance on corporate funding, but to make that choice would require great courage for a conventional politician. On Mon, Aug 11, 2003 at 10:10:30PM -0400, Doug Henwood wrote: Michael Perelman wrote: I have a sense that we tend to discuss radical economic strategy for other countries -- and probably for our own -- with a tone that sounds like books that tell people how to raise children or win the affection of others. Aren't radical economists supposed to have the expertise to do that? People look to us, man. I don't have a lot of answers, and it often embarrasses me. We can affect a certain modesty - it's not for us to prescribe, we should listen to the people - and while there's a certain truth to that, it's also a lot of buck-passing. Doug -- Michael Perelman Economics Department California State University Chico, CA 95929 Tel. 530-898-5321 E-Mail [EMAIL PROTECTED] = * Cognitive dissonance is the inner conflict produced when long-standing beliefs are contradicted by new evidence. http://profiles.yahoo.com/swillsqueal __ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! SiteBuilder - Free, easy-to-use web site design software http://sitebuilder.yahoo.com
Re: how to lead the revolution
I think that there are different levels of specificity in answers. It is easy to say that a more equitable tax system or less military spending would make the economy work better. It is less easy to say what Jamaica, to use your example, should do, when its options are far less open. Clinton knew what to do as well as anybody, but he didn't follow through with much of anything. We would have chosen more grassroots mobilization and less reliance on corporate funding, but to make that choice would require great courage for a conventional politician. On Mon, Aug 11, 2003 at 10:10:30PM -0400, Doug Henwood wrote: Michael Perelman wrote: I have a sense that we tend to discuss radical economic strategy for other countries -- and probably for our own -- with a tone that sounds like books that tell people how to raise children or win the affection of others. Aren't radical economists supposed to have the expertise to do that? People look to us, man. I don't have a lot of answers, and it often embarrasses me. We can affect a certain modesty - it's not for us to prescribe, we should listen to the people - and while there's a certain truth to that, it's also a lot of buck-passing. Doug -- Michael Perelman Economics Department California State University Chico, CA 95929 Tel. 530-898-5321 E-Mail [EMAIL PROTECTED]
