RE: [DEBATE] : Chávez's slow construction of Socialism

[Russell Grinker]

Patrick wrote:

Russell Grinker wrote:
> "For those of us hoping for a major US downturn"... Patrick, so you're in
> favour of a major US downturn which will put millions out of work, lose
> people their homes and bring back the breadline? 
If it weakens Washington/NY so that we have millions more in work, more 
homes and more bread everywhere else, yeah that'd be nice. If not, no. 
Depends upon the politics, of course. But a financial crash in the US is 
a necessary if insufficient condition for world social progress. Do you 
disagree?

Economic crisis doesn't necessarily translate into gains for working class
organisations. Surely our current situation is a case in point? Western
economies stumble from mini-crisis to mini-crisis but with few consequences
for ruling elites owing to the relative absence of alternative politics or
mass resistance. Without this, after a depression capital is free to reorder
things as it sees fit and social progress is by no means guaranteed. As
Mattick observed: 'The depression was finally ended not by a new prosperity
but through World War II, that is, through the colossal destruction of
capital on a worldwide scale and a restructuring of the world economy that
assured the profitable expansion of capital for another period.'

> And not just in the US but
> probably here too. 
Not necessarily. From 1932, when SA went off the gold standard and 
embraced inward industrialisation, to the mid-1940s - i.e. a period of 
deglobalisation - SA's growth, industrial development, wage balancing 
(even in racial terms) and self-reliance all strengthened at the fastest 
rate in the country's economic history, if I'm not mistaken. Bill 
Martin's book on this is excellent. You could also read some Andre 
Gunder Frank about the 1930s, as most lefties of your generation once 
did. Then you wouldn't be so stroppy, comrade!

So another western depression and economic autarky in the periphery (which
may or may not stimulate growth here) are the answers to all our problems
then - and sod our 'class allies' everywhere else?