File spoon-archives/marxism-thaxis.archive/marxism-thaxis_1997/marxism-thaxis.9711, message 345


From: "jurriaan bendien" <Jbendien-AT-globalxs.nl>
Subject: Re: M-TH: Re: Don Quixote rides again
Date: Sun, 30 Nov 1997 18:30:50 +0100


Yeah I feel a lot like James Heartfield does in terms of prospects.  Except
that perhaps we ought to take another good look at what "reformism" really
means and what its real basis is. I am not sure we are always talking about
the same thing.  For instance, in New Zealand, Finance Minister Roger
Douglas who inaugurated an "open" economy in New Zealand through
anti-protectionist measures, state restructuring, a strict
anti-inflationary monetary policy and privatisation, and demolishing the
trade union's power base, also called himself a "reformist".  It seems to
me though he wasn't a reformist in the traditional sense of the word, where
social democrats, taking advantage of the working class vote, sought to
redistribute income and force concessions from the capitalist class
benefiting workers.  In what sense is Blair's New Labour actually
"reformist" for instance - does it propose any reforms even just referring
to the working class, and if not, in what sense is it then reformist - in
what sense could it be said that it remains a working class party at all
(in my way of thinking it is no more a workers' party these days than the
US Democratic Party is a workers' party, even if workers vote for it ?).



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