Date: Wed, 20 Aug 1997 20:36:48 -0400 (EDT) From: Louis N Proyect <lnp3-AT-columbia.edu> Subject: Re: M-I: The Madrid Conference On Wed, 20 Aug 1997, Louis R Godena wrote: > But what is it they *stand* for? It seems that the conference was > overwhelmingly middle-class, rather than working class in composition and > outlook. They typically stand for squatters and other marginalized and semi-lumpen elements of society. Don't you recall that our own Jerry Levy was rhapsodic over the importance of the squatters movement for this confab? They, as I said, do not have an orientation to the working class. They seem to favor an alliance between the predominantly middle-class social or lumpen movements in the developed countries and peasant struggles such as the Zapatistas. In many ways, this is a throwback to SDS of 1968 or 1969. Back then it was the student movement plus the Vietcong. Today it is squatters plus the Zapatistas. Not exactly my cup of tea. I like those boring warehouse workers from UPS with all that social power. > And what is "old-line Stalinism"? Aren't most of the political > forms arrayed against the neo-liberal project "Stalinist" in origin or > methodology, or both? One thinks of the political forms of Islam and China > inparticular. Is the conference just another exercise in "Third Way" > political fantasy? > Old-line Stalinism? This would include Jim Hillier's Communist Action Group and others of this tendency. These are good comrades, but the historical legacy of Stalin is singularly unattractive. The only people who are attracted to Stalin in the advanced capitalist countries nowadays are people who are interested in scandalizing middle-class opinion. What bigger scandal can one make than extolling Stalin. This is a little bit like the punk attitude of someone like Johnny Rotten of the Sex Pistols. Instead of safety-pins in your eyebrow, you blather on about how "wise" the Hitler-Stalin pact was. The net result is the same: are these people for real? Oh yes, the conference was just another exercise in "Third Way" political fantasy. > Answers to these questions would in my view be a bit more helpful than > quotes from Harry Cleaver or Toni Negri. > Cleaver/Negri are the resident philosophers of this movement. When I wrote about the Rethinking Marxism conference for Sozialismus I took great pains to write about Wolff and Resnick. The Madrid conference was for Cleaver/Negri as the Amherst conference was for Rethinking Marxism neo-Althusserianism. Its a shame, by the way, that you got snowed out of the Amherst conference. Me and Doug were dying to meet you. I think a lot of the tension we have been experiencing lately would be mitigated if you could come down to NYC and have a drink or two of whiskey with me. Louis P. --- from list marxism-international-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu ---
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