: You know, Lark, that procapitalist fanatic Gee frequently taunted me with the same claim that revolution in America was impossible.Did he suggest a violent revolution to wipe you of the face of the planet for disagreeing with him?
:And I always responded by asking him: where did I EVER say that I thought revolution would happen in America as things currently stand?
OK we can agree that the circumstances at present and in the foreseeable future make the chances of revolution remote, perhaps we could discuss what socialists could do at present then IE cultural coups.
:All I have said is that the majority of the American working class sees no reason to vote anymore.
And you think as a consequence they want an intolerant and violent dictatorship lording it over them like a capitalist boss?
I think that's called taking 2+2 and getting 5.
:For today, that's satisfying enough (plus I read the news about Mexico to keep my spirits up).
Surely not the libertarian socialist and anarchist Zapatista Movement?
: It's all about the MAJORITY OF THE WORKING CLASS. What I (personally) am 'ready for' is immaterial.
Well your putschist movement then, which is not synominous with the working class, never mind the working people of the modern world, is not prepared.
What do think the working class is going to do as a whole? Are still applying the nineteenth century qualifications to revolution? It's not all strength in numbers or hammers and sickles to the ready anymore.
: : One is a bit wise to the feebleness of a state trying to bring about socialism...
: Your libertarian paranoia about 'the state' blinds you to the fact that 'the state' (historically speaking) is nothing but an instrument for one class to oppress another. As long as there are classes, 'the state' will exist. The proletariat, after a successful revolution, will need 'the state' to prevent the capitalists from... doing what capitalists do best. Once---and only once---all classes are resolved into WORKERS, then 'the state' will begin to disappear. (That will take some time, as the diehard procapitalists on this debate forum regularly evince.)
The idea that the state will voluntarily 'disappear' is as utopian as the view that the Market will not make competition disappear left to it's own devices.
If what you say is the case and the state disappears on the second day of the revolution then who where the Workers and sailors at Kronstadt fighting? Why should I defend the state against the workers? It's not a great 'workers' state if it needs defending against the workers now does it?
:My contribution to this classic Marxist observation is simply to emphasize how job rotation will prevent many of the bureaucratic abuses of Stalinist regimes.
Job rotation will need stalinistic enforcement if it is to be successful, it wont resolve alienation one of the key causes of statism and anti-social behaviour, so it will be another example of the state in action.
: Have you missed most of what I've said about the Bolsheviks? What is worth studying is their mistakes and their successes---unless we just want to construct personal utopias, each different each time we post, that is...
Which is worse the 'personal Utopia' which is subject to revision through trial and error and is consequently capable of improvement or the fixed and 'personal Utopia' of someone with a nineteenth century blue print.
None.
