Alan L. Maki A question from, John Hollingsworth, in Canada... Let's discuss this--- Why is it that European working class people fight back hard against the austerity program while here in North America we don't (or at least we don't on that wide scale)? I think that could also be a productive discussion; we need to dispense with ...this notion that Canada is much other than a region within the centre of (declining) Empire
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John Hollingsworth
Partly it may have to do with timing, i.e. especially in Canada a lot of the austerity measures are still pending. But things in the US are particularly dire. I agree with Judith re. Quebec, there is a different social and political culture... at the base there.
I think that the nature of the protests also should be explored. European and Latin American protests are a lot heavier and cross a lot more lines than we typically do here. Though I know Alan disagrees, the G20 in Toronto did have a good deal of militancy from the base, but the top leadership's first priority seems to always be to condemn instead of interpret and use militant disruption because they are also more afraid of it than with the more comfortable role of lobbying and sitting at the table with governmental and business leaders as a junior partner.
But it is also true that so-called violent protest is much less tolerated or accepted by people here than in much of Europe and Latin America. And, it is only in North America that property destruction is routinely understood as "violence". In Canada (especially outside of Quebec), appeals to "peace, order and good government" tend to trump all other concerns.
Jim Bruce Could it be more hope of changing leaders in a parliamentary government without having to wait at least 4 years? (Concerning European working class people.) I would love it if we could force an unscheduled election here on any and all offices.
Laura Clay Chapdelaine I have heard that the high school college-prep curriculum in much of Europe is rooted in the study of philosophy, leading people to question nationalism and religion as dominant forces in their lives. It seems to me that those 2 factors in particular subdue social unrest here in the US.
Jay Gannon i think a good deal of it might have to do with labor history - in North America, state repression of strikes and such was historically much more violent than it was in Europe...
Brian Latour it's because the NDP is so amazing at promoting a radical response to cuts (snicker)
Alan L. Maki
Brian, you may snicker all you want about the NDP. Do you want to snicker about the accomplishments working class politicians like Jacob Penner, Joe Zuken, Bill and Mary Kardash, too?
Working people are going to respond to what Wall Street and Bay Street are doing to them... but, they are not going to respond through anarchy. The resistance is going to be well organized and militant... every bit as militant as what we are seeing in Europe. Working people in North America have a proud history of defending their rights and livelihoods. The signs of this growing organized and united militancy are all over the place... from Windsor to Washington D.C. From New York to Vancouver working people are fighting back.
Everywhere I travel I find working people trying to figure out hw to overcome their problems, getting involved, organizing and struggling.
Anarchist don't understand what it takes to build working class movements because you are living for the next "big demonstration" and awaiting the "one big final general strike."
You anarchists and many on the left just don't get it. You don't understand why European workers are in the lead. Check out who their leaders are from the rank-and-file on up: Communists.
John Hollingsworth Quit being sectarian Alan. Just because you guys got a bug up your ass about anarchism doesn't mean you come off as credible with this kind of bullshit to anyone but your fellow true believers in the party line. How profoundly wrong you are about what anarchists do in everyday life in our workplaces and communities. Quit it with the social democrat in Communist clothing routine. It was tired 40 years ago.
John Hollingsworth p.s. If you want, I'm happy to have a dialogue with you about what kind of organizing work I'm involved in at the moment, write me and ask.
Alan L. Maki
Nothing "sectarian" at all here, John. I'm stating my opinion just like you are... my FaceBook page, as far as I can determine, is one of the very few places on facebook or anyplace else where everyone seems to feel free to express their op...inions without any attempt to stifle or thwart what anyone has to say.
You and Brian have exhibited more animosity towards me and my views than anyone so far. And, as you can see, there are even Republicans and Tea Party people who carry on more civil dialog and debate.
In my opinion--- and I certainly am no psychiatrist--- you and Brian seem to be very insecure in your views.
I state specifics; you come back with vague generalities like "social democrat in Communist clothing routine."
Judging from the amount of correspondence I am receiving about our exchanges people are really appreciating the exchange.
Here is something below you and others might want to comment on... Something from the noted anti-globalization advocate Immanuel Wallerstein who I frequently exchange ideas with... it kind of fits right in to our discussion here... by-the-way, John; you are the very first person to ever suggest that I am a "sectarian," I appreciate all ideas in the working class movement... but, this doesn't mean I have to agree with all of those ideas and it doesn't mean I should not forthrightly state my views... because I can't be badgered and intimidated into dropping my views does not make me a "sectarian:" (See continuation below... this darn FaceBook isn't conducive to allowing these kinds of exchanges...)
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Alan L. Maki
(Continued from above)
Professor Wallerstein,
This is a great piece. However much I agree with you about social democracy, I don't think it will be as dead as you think as a "movement."
...
In fact, I think there were a lot of social democrats in the Soviet Communist Party and in most Communist Parties... it really doesn't make any difference why they are there; they just are.
Which makes me wonder what you think the future of Communist parties are? I think the future is bright... curious to know what you think?
Since you have done social democracy you might as well continue right on down the list; after all, the Communist movement is still going strong and a force to contend with and Marxism still remains the major opposition to capitalist thinking and capitalism.
You might just as well lay your ideas out about how you view the Communist movement because if working people can't rely on social democracy they have to be able to organize themselves into some kind of movement which begs the question: What about the future of Communist parties? Do you think there is something between the social democratic movement and the Communist movement workers need to consider or is there something further left than the Communist movement... anarchism?... or, is there something between the Communist movement and anarchism that we should be looking at in your opinion--- you have stated why you think social democracy as a movement is dead... well, I think we are entitled to hear your view on where the working class movement goes from here.
You know, the New Democratic Party in Canada across the border from us is still a very mixed bag of left ideas where social democracy is the main current but it hasn't really tried to shove other ideologies away as has been the case in Europe... I would be interested in what kind of future you think the NDP has... again, venture another guess :)
Alan L. Maki
Quoting Becky Dunlop :
Please do not reply to the listserv. To correspond with the author, write immanuel.wallerstein@yale.edu. To correspond with us about your email address on the listserv, write dunlop@binghamton.edu. Thank you.
Commentary No. 290, October 1, 2010
"Does Social-Democracy Have a Future?"
This past month, two important events marked the world of Social-Democratic parties. In Sweden, on September 19, the party lost the election badly. It received 30.9% of the vote, its worst showing since 1914. Since 1932, it has governed the country 80% of the time, and this is the first time since then that a center-right party won reelection. And to compound the bad showing, a far right, anti-immigrant party entered the Swedish parliament for the first time.
Why is this so dramatic? In 1936, Marquis Childs wrote a famous book, entitled Sweden: The Middle Way. Childs presented Sweden under its Social-Democratic regime as the virtuous middle way between the two extremes represented by the United States and the Soviet Union. Sweden was a country that effectively combined egalitarian redistribution with internal democratic politics. Sweden has been, at least since the 1930s, the world poster child of Social-Democracy, its true success story. And so it seemed to remain until rather recently. It is a poster child no more.
Meanwhile, in Great Britain on Sept. 25, Ed Miliband came from far behind to win the leadership of the Labour Party. The Labour Party under Tony Blair had engaged in a radical remaking of the party under the label "the new Labour." Blair had argued that the party should also be a middle way - one not between capitalism and communism but between what used to be the social-democratic program of nationalization of the key sectors of the economy and the unbridled dominance of the market. This was quite a different middle way than that of Sweden in the 1930s and afterwards.
The choice by the Labour Party of Ed Miliband over his older brother David Miliband, a key associate of Tony Blair, was interpreted in Great Britain and elsewhere as a repudiation of Blair and a return to a somewhat more "social-democratic" (more Swedish?) Labour Party. Still, in his first speech to the Labour conference a few days later, Ed Miliband went out of his way to reassert a "centrist" position. He did however lace his statements with allusions to the importance of "fairness" and "solidarity." And he said: "We must shed old thinking and stand up for those who believe there is more to life than the bottom line."
(Continued below... )
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Alan L. Maki
(continued from above... third and last part)
What do these two elections tell us about the future of social-democracy? Social-democracy - as a movement and an ideology - is conventionally (and probably correctly) traced to the "revisionism..." of Eduard Bernstein in late nineteenth-century Germany. Bernstein argued essentially that, once they obtained universal suffrage (by which he meant male suffrage), the "workers" could use elections to win office for their party, the Social-Democratic Party (SPD), and take over the government. Once they won parliamentary power, the SPD could then "enact" socialism. And therefore, he concluded, talk of insurrection as the road to power was unnecessary and indeed foolish.
What Bernstein was defining as socialism was in many ways unclear but still seemed at the time to include the nationalization of the key sectors of the economy. The history of Social-Democracy as a movement since then has been that of a slow but continuous shift away from a radical politics to a very centrist orientation.
The parties repudiated their theoretical internationalism in 1914 by lining up to support their governments during the First World War. After the Second World War, the parties aligned themselves with the United States in the Cold War against the Soviet Union. And in 1959, at its Bad Godesburg conference, the German SPD officially repudiated Marxism entirely. It stated that "from a party of the working class, the Social-Democratic Party has become a party of the people."
What the German SPD and other social-democratic parties came to stand for at that time was the social compromise called the "welfare state." In this objective, in the period of the great expansion of the world-economy during the 1950s and 1960s, it was quite successful. And at that time, it remained a "movement" in the sense that these parties commanded the active support and allegiance of very large numbers of persons in their country.
When, however, the world-economy entered into its long stagnation beginning in the 1970s, and the world entered the period dominated by neo-liberal "globalization," the social-democratic parties began to go further. They dropped the emphasis on the welfare state to become the advocates merely of a softer version of the primacy of the market. This was what Blair's "new Labour" was all about. The Swedish party resisted this shift longer than others, but it too finally succumbed.
The consequence of this, however, was that Social-Democracy ceased to be a "movement" that could rally the strong allegiance and support of large numbers of persons. It became an electoral machine that lacked the passion of yesteryear.
If however social-democracy is no longer a movement, it is still a cultural preference. Voters still want the fading benefits of a welfare state. They regularly protest when they lose still another of these benefits, which is happening with some regularity today.
Finally a word about the entry of the far right, anti-immigrant party into the Swedish parliament. Social-democrats have never been very strong on the rights of ethnic or other "minorities" - still less on the rights of immigrants. Social-democratic parties have tended to be parties of the ethnic majority in each country, defending their turf against other workers whom they saw as undercutting their wages and employment. Solidarity and internationalism were slogans that were useful when there was no competition in sight. Sweden didn't have to face this issue seriously until recently. And when it did,a segment of social-democratic voters simply moved to the far right.
Does social-democracy have a future? As cultural preference, yes; as movement, no.
by Immanuel Wallerstein
[Copyright by Immanuel Wallerstein, distributed by Agence Global. For rights and permissions, including translations and posting to non-commercial sites, and contact: rights@agenceglobal.com, 1.336.686.9002 or 1.336.286.6606. Permission is granted to download, forward electronically, or e-mail to others, provided the essay remains intact and the copyright note is displayed. To contact author, write: immanuel.wallerstein@yale.edu.
These commentaries, published twice monthly, are intended to be reflections on the contemporary world scene, as seen from the perspective not of the immediate headlines but of the long term.]
--
Becky Dunlop
Secretary, Fernand Braudel Center
Binghamton University
PO Box 6000
Binghamton NY 13902
http://fbc.binghamton.edu/
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Alan L. Maki
58891 County Road 13
Warroad, Minnesota 56763
Phone: 218-386-2432
Cell Phone: 651-587-5541
E-mail: amaki000@centurytel.net
Check out my Blog:
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John Hollingsworth Alan, you should really repost that as an article on your FB page and post your comment as such. This discussion is rapidly branching off from its original purpose - as much as I'm interested in all of them, there are more than one going on here right now.
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John Hollingsworth p.s. I think you should respond to Brian's astute, first-hand observations on the Manitoba NDP in that other thread. I think that invoking the names of great democratic socialist leaders from the distant past (Tommy Douglas, etc.) is a really tired No Difference Party tactic to mask their present neoliberal orientation to their activist base and the so-called "left". Focus on the here and now.
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Alan L. Maki
@John... I think I responding very completely. If Brian wants more from the New Democratic Party than what they have brought forward then he and his fellow anarchists and anyone he can convince should organize the kind of grassroots movement required to get this out of the NDP. Just as we didn't like the smoke-filled casinos, we did something about it and the NDP responded just as we wanted done--- the Winnipeg casinos are smoke-free... as are most others in Manitoba. Hundreds of workers now have a healthier working environment.
I am for the stiffest anti-scab legislation.
I am for free higher education.
Let me know what I can do to help Manitobans win these important reforms.
Would you like me to start calling people listed in the Winnipeg telephone book asking if they will become part of a committee to organize for these reforms? When and where should I tell them the first meeting will take place? At the Worker's Resource Center? The Aboriginal Center? Should I call an MLA to see if we can get a room in the Leg?
Just let me know what it is that you want me to do for you that you can't do for yourself up there in Canada... I suppose I can squeeze in one more border crossing through the woods at night... is there an anarchist available to drive me to Winnipeg :)
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John Hollingsworth Well, I'll let Brian or others take that up with you, as I don't live in Manitoba myself. I suspect that he may be already busy with his own organizing work elsewhere at this point.
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Alan L. Maki Yes, John, anarchists are always busy with their own wok elsewhere... so, why bring these problems up? Let Bryan bring forward what he is working on that he is having problems with the NDP and the United Food and Commercial Workers Union on. Then we have something to discuss.
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John Hollingsworth
Brian, are you busy with your wok? I love stir-fries, particularly those that feature ginger and chili garlic sauce.
Anyway, before action comes education. And, I think that having a honest/critical perspective on the NDP's record, and an understanding of why their record is that way, is helpful in grounding activity in ways which will be more effective. I don't think that it's simply because the NDP hasn't been effectively lobbied, or that large enough demonstrations haven't been organized, etc.
John Hollingsworth http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jl1r7E3e-ks
John Hollingsworth p.s. I don't even know if Brian's an anarchist. Of course, "anarchist" is a dirty word among old-guard party line communists (and in the capitalist media), so it's basically just more sectarian name-calling. (Which is more entertaining when you do it in a song and video format.)
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John Hollingsworth
There are lots of reasons why the NDP is the way that it is. One part of it, at a higher level of abstraction, has to do with the historic role of social democratic parties within advanced capitalism, as part of a kind of "historic compromise" of what some call welfare capitalism - a legacy which has been hit by the breakdown of the conditions that made this compromise possible. Another part of it has to do with the culture and structure of party politics, the fetish made of individual leadership (and its role in the concentration and centralization of executive power inside governments and within parties), and the stifling effect of top-down organization in quashing dissent from the "party line". The NDP has a great policy book, but in government has rarely if ever acted on it (and in election campaigns have often disavowed real solutions that you and I would support in favour of what the party pollsters are telling the communications people and strategists who seek to manage both public perception and membership expectations).
I agree with you that part of the solution to these things is to organize for lower tuition, for social insurance and public utilities, etc. through building broad-based movements that manage to confront the real power-brokers in the economic sphere, for whom all political parties and leaders are but puppets of varying hues. The situation would look a lot different if we build stronger anti-capitalist, party-autonomous unions - and work within existing organizations to change their culture and structure along these lines, a long haul fight - and we could achieve a lot of reforms by seizing control of our own retirement system and pension investments. Things like this, and organizing and building our own power and working in solidarity, instead of trying to get co-opted "representatives" to toe our line by means holding a respectful weekend demonstration at the legislature from time to time before we jump to the next "campaign", that's kind of work I do as an activist and the kind of work that gets my respect and support. Building workers' power on the job and solidarity in the day to day is where most of our real fight as workers is.
Alan L. Maki Well, John; you are living your own contradiction because anarchism is a dead end alley in accomplishing any of the things you write about doing.
John Hollingsworth That's just more sectarian dogma. Honestly Alan your politics would fit in pretty good with the French Communist Party - circa 1968.
Alan L. Maki John, I meet all kinds of people that work for unions who are restricted in what they have to do to keep their jobs and they are almost always some kind of anarchists or ultra-leftists in their "outside" political activities.
Alan L. Maki
Yes, John... they do--- but, at their union jobs they keep their mouths shut. I see this all the time. So, what happens they don't engage in the activities and education they should be undertaking on the job and they engage in the wrong kinds of activity while off the job.
I have turned down many jobs working for unions after being told, "You got the job... oh, ya, one thing; leave your politics at home." I always say thanks... bye.
Scott Marshal, the head of the Communist Party USA's Labor Commission told me, "Well, you have to do what the boss wants you to say and do." I get a kick out of it when these same people tell me to leave my ideas at home then tell me, "Oh, we hire all kinds of Communists." Ya, sure, the kind willing to leave their ideas at home.
The unions have the problems you describe because, to use Utah Philip's words, something like, "They kicked the reds out of the unions" and he goes on to explain what remains.
Social democrats and Trotskyites have no problem getting hired by most unions... but, the fact that these people "lead" the unions is no excuse for not building rank and file forms within these unions which help workers move in the proper direction in spite of these "leaders." Leo Gerard is a perfect example of what really is wrong with the unions.
Workers have to learn to just ignore these big blowhards getting big paychecks and work around them... the unions in the end belong to the rank-and-file. It would be nice to have some decent people at the top in More U.S. labor unions and to the extent they influence unions in Canada it would help you, too.
Leo Gerard is a professional anti-communist... I have often thought he is nothing but a mole placed in the union by the corporation just like his dad was. But, does Leo Gerard have any influence among workers? Not much... when he leaves they laugh at him. He is part of a bureaucracy that for workers is almost impossible to break until the rank and file becomes more powerful... in the meantime, life--- and the class struggle go on... down in the mines and on the floors of mills and factories or wherever people work.
Members of the USW just take it for granted that their "leaders" are going to come in, give a militant tough sounding speech and turn around and sell them out and whatever they do get is going to be because of what they are willing to put into the struggle which Gerard and his worthless staff created in his image, can't ignore.
Fortunately, most unions have better and more honest leaders than Leo Gerard but most unions are also products of over 60 years of anti-communist attacks and this has definitely taken a toll... the UAW still doesn't want to give leaders like Phil Raymond, Bud Simons, Wyndham Mortimer and in Canada people like Jim Tester and Lyle Dotzert their due for the huge contributions they made to building the UAW and other industrial unions all across the United States and Canada. Probably one of the best labor leaders ever in North America was Ray Stevenson and Leo Gerard would probably have a stroke if he even tried to say his name. Another is Nadia Barkan who worked with Phil Raymond.
So, working people have you anarchist on one end attacking the very people who contributed so much to building our unions and on the other end there are those like Leo Gerard... and in all the ensuing confusion that results people wonder why North American labor hasn't yey responded on a level with the Europeans and in the middle there are honest trade union leaders like the CAW's Ken Lewenza who ends up taking shit from everyone when they ought to be pitching in giving him a helping hand.
Utah Philips told me he didn't see much hope until we "get the reds back in the union." I think this is probably the crux of the whole thing, too.
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John Hollingsworth
I am not one of those people that you're referring to. I agree that there is this problem among many activists to not see their own workplaces and communities as sites of struggle, and/or not to participate in the first instance in these struggles. And I walk the walk, Alan. I back up people all the time, including within the staff union, against careerism and indifference which is endemic. But I also feel privileged to work with others who may have different political views but who also understand this.
(In my case, I'm paid to do a rather specific and technical kind of job (I'm a survey and data specialist) but I have never left my politics at the door, as a worker. I'm also lucky that I have 10 years on the job now plus union protection, so I understand that others may not have the same security.)
I have often defended communists when they're working from similar principles of solidarity. I really don't care how people self-identify; I care about what they do. Some of my tightest comrades are small-c communists (and I even have some long-time friends in the CPC), although they have often been denounced in similar ways to what you're doing here as "anarchists" by so-called revolutionaries and socialists when they've engaged in militant activity.
I agree with your take on social democrats and Trotskyists and this whole question of "substitutionism" in the union movement, though I have seen more than one CPCer do exactly the same. And, probably a few anarchists, too (though I have to say I've never had the impression that there really are that many of us in these kinds of jobs in any event).
Utah Phillips was an anarchist. The IWW is not an anarchist union; there are many "reds" in it, though admittedly many of us would identify as anarchists of some form or another. There are also plenty more who just identify as workers.
One thing that I do know is that the labour elites are even more opposed to the anarchists in their midst and in the movement than they are with those (relatively few) socialists willing to stand up for the principle of working class self-emancipation.
I think that you really need to get beyond your dogmatic anti-anarchism. The anarchist movement's history is very tightly interwoven with revolutionary workers' movements here in North America, preceding the Russian Revolution and remaining a vital current after the fall of the Iron Curtain.
Anyway, people don't need these so-called "leaders", but we also need to get beyond the idea of having the "right people" in these positions. Yes, we need to honour the names of those who've built up what is good in the unions. But we need other forms of struggle and entirely different structures. We need to recognize leadership as based on a principle of diffusion, not concentration (which is pretty much organizing 101 anyway). We need to build unions and movements where, like the wobblies say, we are all leaders.
Alan L. Maki @John; With this I agree with you, "we are all leaders." Every worker a leader--- these should be what we strive to accomplish. I'm glad to see the more specific we get the "redder" you get :)
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Jay Gannon
i don't identify as an anarchist...people might call me a Marxist or a Trotskyist, but I personally don't like to use those terms much.
At the very least, when referring to myself with those kinds of words, I think it implies a sort of reli...gion as soon as you attach someone's name to it, although I can understand why others do use them, in order to try to clarify what revolutionary tradition they consider themselves to be standing in, and that's fine with me, just personally choose not to.
It's by no means limited to the "Marxist" tradition. There are anarchists out there who still call themselves Maknovites, etc.
I personally prefer the term Marx did - scientific socialism - and my disagreement with anarchism stems mainly from a disagreement over the question of what to do with the state when a revolution actually arrives.
we're not there yet, we're nowhere near close to there yet - and I'd suggest it's due to lack of effective, widespread organization.
in the meantime, however, in terms of that day-to-day stuff, to suggest that anarchists aren't on the front lines engaging people in the day-to-day movement activities, often in very effective ways, really *is* sectarian and I can't agree with that at all, Alan.
There are certain tactics that anarchist movements have adopted that I'm not fond of (the black bloc, for example...and I say this as someone who (a) used to identify as anarchist and (b) has actually participated in it) but they're not inherent to the anarchist argument, they're just a particular tactic.
They might be a consequence of anarchist analysis (or lack thereof) over certain questions, it's true. But anarchism is by no means monolithic. For every anarchist engaged in this tactic or supportive of it, there are surely plenty of others who don't approve of it.
and the reality is, when it comes to that day-to-day stuff, I have to agree with John. more often than not i've found that the whole question of what you call yourself actually does matter significantly less than what you actually do.
There are plenty of tactics that 'reds' have adopted over the years that I'm not particularly fond of either.
just saying.
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Alan L. Maki
My point John and Jay is we need to deal with specifics... I really couldn't care less what the politics of people are that I work with on a day to day basis... I work with all kinds of people from the entire range of political thought but ...(makes no difference to me if someone is a Democrat, Republican, conservative, liberal, progressive, anarchist or communist or whether they are religious or not; this has nothing to do with our ideological perspective and world outlooks when considering how and in what direction we want to see the working class moving.
This is the reality check: Workers are not going to abandon the NDP in Canada (my personal opinion is never), I think the NDP is unique in that it will be the vehicle working people choose as their mass political party to establish real socialism in Canada and it will probably require a similar party here in the United States.
You and John think the NDP is an obstacle to working people moving forward and advancing a progressive agenda.
You and John think the only way to get real change is through these huge demonstrations and general strikes like what we are seeing sweeping Europe... I see these kinds of actions in the streets as needed but working hand in hand with electoral politics and in spite of what both you and John say to the contrary, I don't see the NDP standing in the way of these struggles... maybe often Johnny come latelies but not the drag on these struggles you two are suggesting.
Obviously there will be this or that leader often trying to hold things back... but, in general the NDP moves along a path supportive of working people in trying to solve problems, defend their livelihoods and most importantly, the NDP no matter any of its faults, is serving as a very powerful force in Canada preventing big-capital from having its way completely. Do away with the NDP and you will see how quickly the United States military-financial-industrial complex of Wall Street dominates Canada completely.
I maintain that the NDP is a better defender of working class interests than is the Communist Party of China.
Canadian workers have pretty good unions when compared to the rest of the world's unions; Canadian workers have a good solid labor-based peple's party with the NDP... the only things more Canadian workers need as it looks to me is some powerful community mass organizations fighting and struggling around solving basic problems while bring forward solutions to the problems of every day living; and a lots of rank-and-file initiatives to get a few creeps like Leo Gerard out of your hair and all of this hinges on having a good strong Communist Party based upon the principles held to by those like Tim Buck, Ray Stevenson and Lyle Dotzert and good solid Marxists like Jim Tester and you are good to go.
Ever read the Communist Manifesto? Well, there is a reason it was initially called the "Manifesto of the Communist Party." Marx and Engels must have thought that it was important for the working class to have Communist parties... and, yes, Marx and Engels thought it was necessary for workers to have parties just like the NDP and they knew such parties would always be beset with all kinds of problems reflective of all those different ideas within the working class movements. And, yes, Marx and Engels thought the working class needed all kinds of organizational forms organized around solving the problems of working people.
What it all boils down to is neither of you agree with Marx' and Engels' assessment of any of this... you think one organization is going to do the job... you are floundering looking for any organization to tie yourselves to EXCEPT for the Communist Party of Canada which is a really good party with a really good newspaper as has been pointed out by none other than anarchist Brian. It just needs more members.
You accuse me of being "sectarian" only because I'm a Communist. Only because I think that the ideas you are espousing lead workers in the wrong direction--- away from strengthening the NDP, away from strengthening the existing unions... and away from the Communist Party and towards organizational forms that have no connections to the NDP, the unions or the Communist Party.
And, I have left the best for last... when the NDP, the unions and all the mass organizations work together in a huge coalition that includes the Communist Party this is called "the Peoples' Front" or "popular front," the very organizational form you most detest and yet it is these "popular fronts" led by Communist parties now marching through Europe!
This isn't about me being "sectarian," this is about you not understanding what it takes for working people to win reforms or revolutions.
Of course, I have evaded talking about what happens when workers finally come to power because I don't want to lay too much on you at one time.
