I really think this article misses the mark in some very important ways. With regards to option 1, there’s no discussion of DFA, one of the more prominent groups advocating something like a “party within a party” strategy. DFA is significantly more successful than PDA, and has more than a handful of victories under its belt, and they are very well integrated into the progressive movement. Moreover, the Progressive Caucus has had some success with its agenda - the minimum wage was raised, EFCA passed the House, and so on.
With regards to the multi-issue groups, I was surprised to read no mention of MoveOn, one of the most successful multi-issue coalition groups in recent memory, also clearly well enmeshed within the progressive movement.
The option cited as the most obvious by process of elimination has not been in effect since 2001; it’s been in effect for at least a few decades, and it gets less successful with each passing year. Our success with Social Security was the product of a broad coalition that included DFA and MoveOn, two groups who clearly represent options 1 and 2 respectively, and I think that fact undermines the conclusion of this piece.
Posted by ssachs on Mar 2, 2008 at 1:40 PM
Your point about DFA is well taken, but it is far from clear that DFA stands to the left of Obama. A quck glance at DFA’s website reveals very little about where it stands on any important issues - other than it suports candidates who are “socially progressive and fiscally responsible.” While there is, of course, nothing wrong with “fiscal responsibility “, it’s pretty clear that the use of such rhetoric typically doesn’t lend itself to the kind of expansive social programs that the left considers basic to its agenda. No surprise here - after all Howard Dean is not really on or of the left.
As for the two pieces of legislation you refer to in the first par., was the increase in the minimum wage a Prog Caucus led bill? It is my understanding that it was not. Unfort. - as you point out, EFCA has yet to be signed into law.
MoveON is certainly a huge success - but it is not a “coalition”. It is a membership organization. In my column, I was discussing the possibility of forming a grand coalition of the many membership orgs that are part of the prog mvt.
Sure - the ad hoc, issue -by -issue approach hasn’t been terribly successful in recent years. With Bush in the White House and the Republicans able to block any serious reforms in Congress - it was nearly impossible to move forward. But if Obama (or Clinton) becomes president - and we also have Dem control of both houses of Congress, the ad hoc approach will have a lot more chances to produce solid prog victories.
Posted by kenbrociner on Mar 2, 2008 at 11:14 PM
Fascism and communism are two sides of the same coin, and the name of that coin is capitalism. Every other form of government is an amalgym of communism (on the left) and fascism (on the right), national socialism or international socialism, privately owned enterprise or state owned enterprise, warfare or revolution. In other words, political conflict, like the religious conflict which preceded it, is just another excuse to dispose of the people rendered socially useless by the transition from feudalism to industrialism.
Posted by Major Major on Mar 6, 2008 at 10:40 AM
MM -
So, if Fascism and Communism are the two sides of the capitalist coin, how do you account for the collapse of the Soviet Union into corruption, inefficiency, and bankruptcy, while the United States staggers from triumph to triumph? This despite the Sinisteres’ decades-long predictions and insistence that the USA is “failing”.
In fact, Fascism and Communism are each collectivist and totalitarian, while American democratic capitalism is uniquely individualist and thrives in a (relatively) free environment, both in theory (the Constitution of the United States) and in practice. The Sinisteres want the USA to fail, but so far, no luck. They point to our current problems, but our current problems are quite trivial compared to some of the hellacious trials we have been through in the past: the War Between the States, the Great Depression, and WWII were the biggest.
Marx promulgated the labor theory of value that declared that all value was derived from the value of the labor that was put into it. This is nonsense, of course.
At its root, capitalism is an information system. In a free market, the price of an item tells you whether it is a good deal or not, or if better offers are available. In a stable economic environment, prices do not vary much. But the value of, for example, MicroSoft was quite small thirty years ago, and is much higher now. No amount of labor could have driven up the price of MicroSoft to its current level. The value of MicroSoft is a function of it’s utility that is, in turn, a product of the innovative labor-saving function. Recognizing the changes in cost and the potentials that drive changes in cost are the basic elements of the capitalist information system.
There are hundreds, probably thousands, of similar capitalist technical innovations that add huge amounts of value to our economy and our society. People who recognized the potential of automated data after WWII were in an excellent position to capitalize on their knowledge and insight. The rest of us just benefit from the productivity and efficiency of computers, which is considerable.
In contrast, the Soviet Union had a single master list of all products and their prices throughout the Soviet Union. As a result, they frequently charged less for a product than the sum of the material, labor, and overhead that went into the product. That is why they went bankrupt, they did not know the true cost and value of anything, which only a free market can value correctly. And they certainly did not encourage innovation, except as a criminal enterprise.
Just as an exercise, can you name a single Socialist innovation that produced economies of, say, one-twentieth that of the automation developed in the USA under the capitalist system? No, you cannot.
In other words, political conflict, like the religious conflict which preceded it, is just another excuse to dispose of the people rendered socially useless by the transition from feudalism to industrialism.
You really ought to give a little thought before making weird-ball pronouncements such as this. You just said that
Posted by scorp on Mar 6, 2008 at 8:18 PM
Reader Comments
I really think this article misses the mark in some very important ways. With regards to option 1, there’s no discussion of DFA, one of the more prominent groups advocating something like a “party within a party” strategy. DFA is significantly more successful than PDA, and has more than a handful of victories under its belt, and they are very well integrated into the progressive movement. Moreover, the Progressive Caucus has had some success with its agenda - the minimum wage was raised, EFCA passed the House, and so on.
With regards to the multi-issue groups, I was surprised to read no mention of MoveOn, one of the most successful multi-issue coalition groups in recent memory, also clearly well enmeshed within the progressive movement.
The option cited as the most obvious by process of elimination has not been in effect since 2001; it’s been in effect for at least a few decades, and it gets less successful with each passing year. Our success with Social Security was the product of a broad coalition that included DFA and MoveOn, two groups who clearly represent options 1 and 2 respectively, and I think that fact undermines the conclusion of this piece.
Posted by ssachs on Mar 2, 2008 at 1:40 PM
Your point about DFA is well taken, but it is far from clear that DFA stands to the left of Obama. A quck glance at DFA’s website reveals very little about where it stands on any important issues - other than it suports candidates who are “socially progressive and fiscally responsible.” While there is, of course, nothing wrong with “fiscal responsibility “, it’s pretty clear that the use of such rhetoric typically doesn’t lend itself to the kind of expansive social programs that the left considers basic to its agenda. No surprise here - after all Howard Dean is not really on or of the left.
As for the two pieces of legislation you refer to in the first par., was the increase in the minimum wage a Prog Caucus led bill? It is my understanding that it was not. Unfort. - as you point out, EFCA has yet to be signed into law.
MoveON is certainly a huge success - but it is not a “coalition”. It is a membership organization. In my column, I was discussing the possibility of forming a grand coalition of the many membership orgs that are part of the prog mvt.
Sure - the ad hoc, issue -by -issue approach hasn’t been terribly successful in recent years. With Bush in the White House and the Republicans able to block any serious reforms in Congress - it was nearly impossible to move forward. But if Obama (or Clinton) becomes president - and we also have Dem control of both houses of Congress, the ad hoc approach will have a lot more chances to produce solid prog victories.
Posted by kenbrociner on Mar 2, 2008 at 11:14 PM
<blockquote>The term
Posted by scorp on Mar 3, 2008 at 9:16 PM
Fascism and communism are two sides of the same coin, and the name of that coin is capitalism. Every other form of government is an amalgym of communism (on the left) and fascism (on the right), national socialism or international socialism, privately owned enterprise or state owned enterprise, warfare or revolution. In other words, political conflict, like the religious conflict which preceded it, is just another excuse to dispose of the people rendered socially useless by the transition from feudalism to industrialism.
Posted by Major Major on Mar 6, 2008 at 10:40 AM
MM -
So, if Fascism and Communism are the two sides of the capitalist coin, how do you account for the collapse of the Soviet Union into corruption, inefficiency, and bankruptcy, while the United States staggers from triumph to triumph? This despite the Sinisteres’ decades-long predictions and insistence that the USA is “failing”.
In fact, Fascism and Communism are each collectivist and totalitarian, while American democratic capitalism is uniquely individualist and thrives in a (relatively) free environment, both in theory (the Constitution of the United States) and in practice. The Sinisteres want the USA to fail, but so far, no luck. They point to our current problems, but our current problems are quite trivial compared to some of the hellacious trials we have been through in the past: the War Between the States, the Great Depression, and WWII were the biggest.
Marx promulgated the labor theory of value that declared that all value was derived from the value of the labor that was put into it. This is nonsense, of course.
At its root, capitalism is an information system. In a free market, the price of an item tells you whether it is a good deal or not, or if better offers are available. In a stable economic environment, prices do not vary much. But the value of, for example, MicroSoft was quite small thirty years ago, and is much higher now. No amount of labor could have driven up the price of MicroSoft to its current level. The value of MicroSoft is a function of it’s utility that is, in turn, a product of the innovative labor-saving function. Recognizing the changes in cost and the potentials that drive changes in cost are the basic elements of the capitalist information system.
There are hundreds, probably thousands, of similar capitalist technical innovations that add huge amounts of value to our economy and our society. People who recognized the potential of automated data after WWII were in an excellent position to capitalize on their knowledge and insight. The rest of us just benefit from the productivity and efficiency of computers, which is considerable.
In contrast, the Soviet Union had a single master list of all products and their prices throughout the Soviet Union. As a result, they frequently charged less for a product than the sum of the material, labor, and overhead that went into the product. That is why they went bankrupt, they did not know the true cost and value of anything, which only a free market can value correctly. And they certainly did not encourage innovation, except as a criminal enterprise.
Just as an exercise, can you name a single Socialist innovation that produced economies of, say, one-twentieth that of the automation developed in the USA under the capitalist system? No, you cannot.
You really ought to give a little thought before making weird-ball pronouncements such as this. You just said that
Posted by scorp on Mar 6, 2008 at 8:18 PM