[Reader-list] Fwd: "Socialism's Come Back"- (fwded)

[Venugopalan K M]

Dear Rohit,

It occurs to  me that problematizing the very definition of 'working class'
though useful, it need not always lead to the kind of understanding you were
mentioning.
Understanding of the politics of peace and environmental concerns are
already part of the Marxist paradigms of dialectis and hisoricity.
Even in the earlier theories, it is possible to find categorical rejection
of economic and militaristic determinism. Actually, it is not a matter of
choice between peace and war, or between the economic growth and
sustainability for that matter.
Institutionalized forms of private ownership of the means of production are
already in an antagonistic relation with the very process of (capitalistic)
production and the real producers of wealth. War machines can be seen as
just a manifestation  of this fundamental contradiction.
Without these concepts of 'working class' and internationalism, how will you
go about any meaningful agenda of restructuring the world order? How will
you define 'freedom' in the context of individuals and the entire humanity?

I would say that limiting the meaning of 'working class' as people working
in the monstrous factories and assembly lines need certainly be challenged
in favour of a more realistic concern for the entire humanity. But the idea
of 'dictatorship of the proletariat'  should continue as a motivating factor
in reversing the shameless exhibition of 'commonsensical'  preferences for
war and destruction through 'development' at the cost of the majority. This
should certainly be replaced by a concern for durable structures of peace
and sustainability, but probaly will never be accomplished in the absence of
most powerful mobilization of wills of people across the globe. Unless the
existing order of things is decicively challenged by a kind of dictatorship
imposed by the fraternity of working class world wide, the  mendacities
about unlimited growth, need of  more weapons for protecting the sovereign
and national interests,etc,etc.  will continue to be propagated and imposed
against the will of the real producers of wealth. The end result of all
these as we can see, is tolerance and meek submission to senseless violence,
legitimation for greed , giving assent for looting and deprivation of fellow
humans in the name of patriotic approval of the exercising of the sovereign
power by the state,etc.

On Fri, May 8, 2009 at 9:34 AM, Rohit Shetti <rohitism at gmail.com> wrote:

> Hi Venu,
>
> One of the problems that I find with the earlier theories about governance
> is that the classes of people are categorized too simplistically. Lets take
> for example the term 'working class'. Presumably it refers to the people
> working in the monstrous factories and line assemblies.. which presumably
> are agreed upon as the pillars of 'development'.
>
> Doesn't this amount to accosting certain legitimacy to the notion of
> development based on having a thriving military-industry complex? True,
> there is a lot of context that exists even while organising labourers
> against being exploited, but I'm not sure if we are applying new contexts
> and the present-day dynamics rigorously enough in understanding older
> theories.
>
> I would be happy to stand corrected if I'm wrong in my assumptions.
>
> Rgds,
>
> Rohit
>
> On Thu, May 7, 2009 at 9:40 AM, Venugopalan K M <kmvenuannur at gmail.com>wrote:
>
>> "..Marx's closest collaborator, Frederick Engels, argued back in the 1890s
>> that state ownership isn't equivalent to socialism. After the conservative
>> German leader Otto von Bismarck "went in for state ownership of industrial
>> establishments, a kind of spurious Socialism has arisen," Engels
>> complained,
>> "degenerating, now and again, into something of flunkyism, that without
>> more
>> ado declares all state ownership, even of the Bismarckian sort, to be
>> socialistic."
>>
>> Marx, Engels and the revolutionary socialists who followed them also
>> argued
>> that socialism can't be achieved by voting a socialist party into office.
>> The workers themselves must take the lead in transforming society by
>> exerting their power in the workplace and taking control of production.
>>
>> That's why socialists can't be satisfied with a critique of capitalism.
>> They
>> have to organize and fight for an alternative, by rooting socialist
>> organization in working-class struggles against the ravages of capitalism.
>>
>> Eugene Debs, the great American socialist who got nearly a million votes
>> for
>> president in 1912, made this point. "I would not lead you into the
>> promised
>> land if I could," he said, "because if I led you in, some one else would
>> lead you out. You must use your heads as well as your hands, and get
>> yourself out of your present condition."
>> http://socialistworker.org/2009/05/06/socialisms-comeback
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> --
>> http://venukm.blogspot.com/
>>
>>
>>
>> --
>> http://venukm.blogspot.com/
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>
>


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