Date: 	Wed, 16 Sep 1998 10:21:39 -0400 (EDT)
Subject: Re: AUT: re: grundrisse etc discussion


I think this can be read as a reply to Harry. 

I think the focus on the subjective can become solipsistic. No person
can decide on her own to engage in revolutionary action. Martrydom is of
course an individual choice; the subjective decision to make revolutionary
pronouncements or to support at the cost of personal ridicule failed
or doomed resistance is also not objectively revolutionary. 

 Ultimately  no group of workers at a single site can
make such a decision either. Only if objective crisis conditions are such
that workers everywhere can *trust* that other workers are willing to
create a cooperative society will any group of workers be the first 
to attempt factory and property seizures. Workers must trust that other
workers deem the situation bad enough to attempt the most dangerous of
acts--revolutionary overthrow of the bourgeoisie. No group of workers can
or will  risk such action unless they think other workers are so
predisposed and their action will inspire like action. And this confidence
cannot be had unless not only there has been a certain objective breakdown
in the reproduction of capitalist social relations but also workers can
see for themselves  that the bourgeoisie is objectively weakened enough
that it can be overthrown. 

Moreover unless we are confident that capitalism will create such
objective breakdown conditions in which groups of workers have a great
chance of being able  inspire each other to undertake revolutionary
actions, we will--despite our pronouncements--give up on the working class
and start tailing anything that moves, though much of that movement has no
objective possibility of actually overthrowing capitalism. 

What theory can clarify--other than the recurrence of objective crisis
conditions even in the citadels of capitalism-- is the likely consequences
of the working class failing to take advantage of its few opportunities
for revolutionary overthrow. And that consequence is of course unimagined
barbarities. 

objectivistically yours, rakesh



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