Re: Thinking out loud

11/29/2000, Louis Proyect wrote: 
    > I guess that the only revolution which truly deserves the
    name is the one that is directed at the propertied by the
    propertyless. In different eras, it will be Spartacus,
    Babeuf or Mao. But what unites them all is a desire to
    eliminate slavery, either ancient, feudal or wage-based. The
    goal has always been to own collectively to produce for the
    common good. The main confusion in the period following the
    rise of the "bourgeois democratic revolution" has been the
    class interests of the oppressed versus that of our
    oppressor. And obviously we need an analysis of world
    capitalism that places no confidence in the revolutionary
    potential of our oppressors.
    

Dear Louis,

I never know whether people are being serious of facetious
on this list; I'll assume you're being serious.

I sympathize with your implicit values, but it seems to me
that a revolution is worth the name if it radically
transforms something, as in Copernican Revolution, or
Industrial Revolution.  Is it reasonable to try to pre-empt
the noun when it has such general utility?

Most intentional political revolutions historically have
probably been led by elites, as was the case with the
American Revolution and seeemingly the French Revolution as
well.  I believe Marxism claims a proletarian primary cause
in such cases, but even so it is usually elites who have the
option of choosing which adjustment path to follow.

The kind of revolution to which you want to grant an
exclusive claim to the name seems to be the exceptional
variety, at least among revolutions with successful
outcomes.  I guess those would be 'peoples revolutions', or
'proletarian revolutions', or 'anti-slavery revolutions'
-if we permit the noun to keep its full popular territory.

Don't we need our analysis of capitalism to be a correct
analysis? Can we deny that capitalist elites show great
talent at engineering revolutionary changes, as in the case
of the Reagan-Thatcher Revolution?

rkm