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 ?). --- from list marxism-thaxis-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu ---
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