From: Jerry Levy (Gerald_A_Levy@MSN.COM)
Date: Mon May 08 2006 - 16:25:26 EDT
> But just about all the theoretical > variants are represented. However, Cockshott & Cottrell's theory isn't > there, i.e. the Western Marxist variant that believes the Soviet Union was > some kind of "state socialism", and Marcel doesn't really recognise the > possibility that there might be *different kinds* of socialisms, some of > which deserve support and others not, i.e. you might have a socialism, but > it is not one you would support even if you were a socialist. But this is > not entirely his fault, since most Marxists argued you either have > socialism or you haven't (Marx himself of course explicitly argued > contrary to the Marxists in this sense - i.e. he was well aware that > there > were all kinds of socialisms, propagated by different individuals and > social classes, and he > liked some, but vigorously opposed others - > see e.g. Vol. 4 of Hal Draper's magnum opus). Hi Jurriaan, I don't have V 4 of Draper. I've been trying to think of socialisms which socialists should not support. The three that came to mind are hypothetical: 1) predatory socialism Suppose for the sake of argument that it is possible to have socialism in a single country. Now, suppose there is a socialist social formation in which all of the characteristics of a socialist society are in place, but where -- as a consequence of popular political will and workers' democracy -- many of the resources for 'socialist accumulation' are secured from an external source (another social formation) by brute military force and plunder. If socialism is identified with nationalism (i.e. what's good for the nation is good for socialism) and if nationalist rivalries and racism persist, one could envision (at least hypothetically) such a possibility. (A science fiction variant: Suppose you have _world-wide_ socialism _but_ we come into contact with civilizations beyond the Earth which people on Earth decide democratically -- influenced by their human chauvinism -- to exploit and plunder.) 2) genocidal socialism This could be a form of 'predatory socialism' but, for the sake of discussion, I'll create a different situation. Suppose in this case that there is an isolated 'socialist' social formation in which all have (certain) rights but all decisions are made on the basis of majority vote. Now, suppose that the majority group decides that a minority (e.g. ethnic) group should be sent to death camps. Assume, as before, that in all other respects there is a 'socialist' society. 3) religious cult socialism Suppose there is a popular 'socialist' who claims that s/he has a divine mandate and is the one True interpreter of God's Will. Yet suppose that there is socialism in every other respect and that there is workers' democracy. However, if the cult extends over the entire society or at least the majority, then the cult leader could get the majority to do whatever s/he willed. This type of 'socialism' (a sort of religious commune on a grand scale) could fold into predatory or genocidal socialism or move in other directions which socialists should not support, e.g. gender occupational segregation (and, in other ways, the reinforcement of patriarchy) homophobic repression, mass suicide pacts, etc. I would hope that irrespective of whether we agree or disagree that the above societies are 'socialist' we could agree that they should be opposed, i.e. they we would call for opposition to the current system and revolutionary transformation. What _other_ 'socialist' societies should we oppose? In solidarity, Jerry
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.5 : Wed May 31 2006 - 00:00:03 EDT