Date: 16 Feb 97 00:08:20 EST
From: neil <74742.1651-AT-CompuServe.COM>
Subject: M-I: welfare state & capitals crisis


dear  utica rose,

The main  point of my post was to show the economic  evolution
of the big capitals since the imperialist WW2 period from
the reconstruction/boom  period up to the present  day austerity 
demands of capital -and hence the casting aside of Keynesian policy..

Your point is well taken on the Bismarckian
period in Germany, but this was in the 19th
cent. at the beginnings of modern imperialism
 when in capitals development more  lasting
reforms  could still be won and German  social democracy 
had not yet become counterrevolutionary.

On the US struggles of the 30s, these were
recuperated by the US state thru the hitching 
of the workers organizing to alliance with  the Democrats
and the CIO business unionism  by the CPUSA and other
 reformists. This in turn paved the way for the
workers to lined up to do the sacrificing in the
imperialist WW2--while the rich waxed fat on
war profits and gained  temporary world hegemony.


On the Russian state-cap bloc.  No it was no 
'paper tiger" post WW2 but with a new accumulation
cycle world wide in the wake of the imperialist  war,
the state cap bloc though weaker than the US led
imperialist bloc, was challenging the western exploiters
for world power, markets, cheap labor, raw materials, spheres
of influence.
The precipitous  decline, both in economic and political terms for
the state caps regimes came later, in the 70s-80s.
The "free world" was NOT free and that "communist  world'
was NOT communist.

Again , the key to my orginial in this thread ,
is that the MATERIAL economic basis for
the "welfare states' has been undermined 
by the nature of capitals own laws of 
development  and decay. With this 
also comes the increasing political,
ideological  and social rot.

A new workers movement has to be built 
in struggle to face up to the huge challenges
today.

Neil





     --- from list marxism-international-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu ---