Date: Mon, 23 Sep 96 13:04:39 GMT
Subject: Re: the state redux & socialism




Justin condemns himself thus:
>
> As to the liberal character of the ideas
> abouit the state, I don't care what you label them. I am perfectly happy,
> even proud, to defend liberal democracy against all comers. I think that
> representtaive government, universal suffrage, extensive civil and
> political liberties, and the rulke of law are great things and I wouild
> not fightr for their abolition. I would fight against their abolition as
> strenuously as I fight for the overthrow of capitalist power and worker's
> self-rule. --Justin
> 

Justin, perhaps you should consider stopping digging.

The discussion has moved from the far off nature of a truly communist
state to what a socialist state would be like, ie the immediate
question : "what are we fighting for ?"

Justin writes:
> I am perfectly happy, even proud, to defend liberal democracy against all comers

Well, what can you say ? Justin defends what Lenin quite accurately described as
the most advanced form of bourgeois rule, the one in which capitalist dictatorship
is the most fully formed, most concentrated.

Justin is in favour of "representative government" ie he throws in the bin
all the lessons from the Paris Commune onwards about how a workers state
ends the cretinism of parliamentarianism and replaces the bourgeois state
with a working, executive body.

Justin, most self condemningly, defends "universal suffrage" ie giving votes to
the bourgoisie. No Justin, a workers state will not give political rights of
any sort to the bourgeoisie. This is what a workers state is, a mechanism for
deprving the bourgeoisie of its rights, just as a democratic republic is 
a mechanism for depriving the working class of its political rights. [ WHEN
the bourgeoisie has been deprived of its rights for long enough, when it has
been completely destroyed, when it has no social power, at this point the
workers state has also withered away completely. ].

Really, the question we have been debating with Justin up till now is 
"what does socialism look like ?". But this is a bit of a waste of time.
What Justin should be asked is : when a workers state deprives the bourgoisie
of its rights, will you, Justin, support the bourgoisie against the 
working class ?

Adam.



Adam Rose
SWP
Manchester
UK


---------------------------------------------------------------


     --- from list marxism2-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu ---