[Marxism] Suffer us not to mock ourselves with falsehood[was:The'turn to industry'...]

[S. Artesian]

I didn't forget to leave out the May Day demonstrations in the US... I was 
concentrating on Europe.

But no matter, for JB the sum total is-- there is no proletarian struggle 
today, none, zero, nada zip-- and how do we know that-- because there is 
today no PARTY equivalent to the old social democratic parties, left social 
democrat parties, Communist Party, etc. etc. etc.  I don't think the 
existence or lack of existence of a party is the key to revived class 
struggle.

And for JB it's all about EPOCHS.  So let's ask-- what are the epochs? 
There was an epoch to 1917.  Then there was an epoch after 1917, which 
included fragmentary advances and overall defeat of the workers' struggles 
in Europe, Asia, and the Americas-- and then there was the epoch of the 
depression and WW2, and then there's the post WW2 epoch which saw the 
Chinese Revolution, the eventual victory of the Vietnamese revolution, the 
triumph of Cuba-- and incidentally working class upsurges in the US; then 
there's the post 1973 epoch, when the bourgeoisie go on their sustained 
offensive and knock the crap out of workers in France, Italy, the US, then 
there's the Reagan/Thatcher epoch, and the collapse of the USSR epoch, and 
the turn toward capitalism in China, and....

And there are just a whole helluva lot of epochs out there aren't there. 
And the epochs change rather quickly-- just ask the Lehman Brothers.

I have never argued that we are going to pick up where we left off in 1948--  
particularly since I don't think 1948 is a particular high water mark in the 
record of class struggle.  Nor do I think we are going to pick up where we 
left off in 1918,28,38,58,68.

And I sure don't think we're going to pick up where we left off in 1949 in 
China, 1959 in Cuba, 1975 in Vietnam, or 1994 in South Africa.   We aren't 
going to see a resurgence of class struggle subsumed or couched in a 
national liberation struggle.   On the contrary, a "national" struggle that 
doesn't pass over directly to class struggle will worse than collapse.

What JB argues is that there are epochs, and anything that doesn't fit his 
characterization of an epoch is an... incident.  A headline.  An isolated 
event.     His argument is loaded all right, but it's loaded with blanks.


Look, JB can posture all he wants about seriously engaging on this topic vs 
impressionistic recitation.  I put 3 serious engagements to him earlier 
about his notions of imperialist privilege and all that  rot about bribing 
the working classes, and superprofits etc. etc.

If JB wants to seriously engage-- engage that.  Show me a shred of evidence 
for the primary role of imperialist investments in "third world" countries, 
for the "superprofits" that are supposedly extracted and then distributed to 
workers in the advanced countries.


----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Joaquin Bustelo" <jbustelo at gmail.com>
To: <sartesian at earthlink.net>
Sent: Sunday, May 17, 2009 12:58 PM
Subject: Re: [Marxism] Suffer us not to mock ourselves with 
falsehood[was:The'turn to industry'...]