Date: Tue, 12 Mar 2002 17:05:33 -0500
From: Louis Proyect <lnp3-AT-panix.com>
Subject: Re: AUT: What could "proletarian socialism" possibly mean?


Greg Schofield:
>Seriously. Has Harald got socialism and communism mixed up?

Greg, haven't you figured out aut-op-sy yet? These are non-socialist
radicals. Harry Cleaver, the leading autonomist in the USA, wrote: 

>>Beyond this problem, however, I have yet another difficulty with the
continued demand for "socialism" as an alternative to the existing order.
Not with this or that use, but with any use at all. Throughout its history,
even when we strip the concept of its immediately authoritarian variations,
the concept of socialism has been designed to discuss the replacement of
the capitalist social order by the construction of an alternative social
order. Socialism, it has always been said, will replace capitalism. Not
just in terms of ideology but in terms of social systems.<<

full: http://www.eco.utexas.edu/facstaff/Cleaver/socialismessay.html

The term dictatorship of the proletariat makes them break out in hives. If
workers actually take over a country and run production for their own
benefit, they will invariably replicate the class relations of the old
society. Just like Sisyphus. They are much more into social movements that
have no such aspirations, like the EZLN in Mexico. Of course, without the
power to expropriate the Mexican bourgeoisie, the EZLN can do little to
achieve first world health statistics in Chiapas. But no matter, at least
they'll remain pure. Our simple Mayan peasants may go to sleep hungry, but
at least they won't create any gulags.

These autonomists remind me of dogs chasing a car. They run down the street
barking at the bourgeoisie, but wouldn't know what to do if they actually
caught it.

Louis Proyect
Marxism mailing list: http://www.marxmail.org




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