I just noticed this response to my note in Socialist Forum, a house organ of Democratic Socialists of America, so I'm going to respond. The author is one Patrick McQueeney, associated with the Cosmonaut website and the "Marxist Unity Group" caucus of DSA. We have never met.
Simple to understand Max. You ran smack into a wall of good old fashioned sectarianism and dogmatism. How can one really prove one is really a true Marxist as this chap is unless you are willing to write off all Democrats as being the same as Republicans......(leaving the Marxist national constituency at about a level of 213 people).
I’ve been running into people wishing they were in Moscow 1917 my entire life. Pain in the ass. Won’t shut up. Don’t know what they are talking about. Only there to show the rest of us how pathetically we’ve sold out. Nope ... been there. No more
From Cosmonaut: “To set ourselves on the right path programmatically, we must identify and uproot the ideology of Draperism which has gained almost hegemonic status in our ranks.”
Apparently, the ghost of Hal Draper is leading DSA to error.
There are a handful of groups in DSA like this, but I have to say they are not typical. The bigger problem is non-ideological, radical idealists, not "Marxists."
Les Leopold, a labor educator (not to be confused with Leonard Leo, architect of the right wing takeover of the Supreme Court) argues in his book Runaway Inequality that financialization has been the leading factor driving the divergence since the 1970s of wage growth, which stagnated, from labor productivity and profits, which continued to increase. His statistics indicate that financialization had more impact on that trend than union-busting, automation, or globalization. A key mechanism he cites is the pressure to prioritize quarterly profits over long term investment, therefore to bust unions, outsource jobs, and concentrate ownership within industries.
Simple to understand Max. You ran smack into a wall of good old fashioned sectarianism and dogmatism. How can one really prove one is really a true Marxist as this chap is unless you are willing to write off all Democrats as being the same as Republicans......(leaving the Marxist national constituency at about a level of 213 people).
Why I will never ever go to a DSA meeting.
Lots of variation by chapter. You might not run into anyone like this, and if you did, they might hold their tongue.
I’ve been running into people wishing they were in Moscow 1917 my entire life. Pain in the ass. Won’t shut up. Don’t know what they are talking about. Only there to show the rest of us how pathetically we’ve sold out. Nope ... been there. No more
From Cosmonaut: “To set ourselves on the right path programmatically, we must identify and uproot the ideology of Draperism which has gained almost hegemonic status in our ranks.”
Apparently, the ghost of Hal Draper is leading DSA to error.
There are a handful of groups in DSA like this, but I have to say they are not typical. The bigger problem is non-ideological, radical idealists, not "Marxists."
Max, and these “idealists” (which ideals?) do not claim the true marxist socialist banner?
The expression "intellectual acne" keeps coming to mind.
Les Leopold, a labor educator (not to be confused with Leonard Leo, architect of the right wing takeover of the Supreme Court) argues in his book Runaway Inequality that financialization has been the leading factor driving the divergence since the 1970s of wage growth, which stagnated, from labor productivity and profits, which continued to increase. His statistics indicate that financialization had more impact on that trend than union-busting, automation, or globalization. A key mechanism he cites is the pressure to prioritize quarterly profits over long term investment, therefore to bust unions, outsource jobs, and concentrate ownership within industries.