Re: World party

Dear Steve,

        Yes, I agree that liberal and pacifist reformism is pretty weak
tea when measured against the array of systemic forces now contending for
global hegemony.  Such reformism is commendable to the extent that it
promotes humane values, but it is no substitute for social, economic,
political, and cultural action by antisystemic world parties.  My only
caveat is that we should get beyond the 19th-Century Marxian definition of
"worker."  Obviously some workers are more exploited than others, but the
success of global capital in co-opting hundreds of millions of workers and
outfitting them with a false bourgeois consciousness must also be taken
into account.  We need to promote a sense of solidarity and common
interest among all those who work for a living and are, whether to a
greater or lesser extent, exploited.  The rhetoric of the PLP may be
suitable in super-exploited peripheral and semiperipheral countries, but
turns off a lot of progressive folks in the core (and perhaps elsewhere),
whom we also need in the struggle to forge a socialist and democratic
world civilization.  Nevertheless, the PLP comes a lot closer to my
conception of a World Party than a coalition of reformists who believe in
working "within the system."  The system is a system:  its job is to
survive and prosper.  Ours is to replace it.  Can we do our job by
political action alone?  Of course not.  The World Party needs an
ideology, a philosophy, and a rational faith, which I have tried to
imagine in my novel.  But it also needs, when the time is right, to
strike.

        Warren

        
On Sat, 13 Nov 1999, Steve Rosenthal wrote:

> I'm a newcomer to WSN.  I'm chair elect of the ASA Marxist section 
> and active on PSN.  I've been reading Wallerstein's "The End of the 
> World as We Know It."  I don't agree with some of it, but Wallerstein 
> continues to address significant questions with new insights and 
> perspectives.
> 
> I expected the world party discussion to be more rooted in the
> sociological and historical insights of world systems theory and
> Marxism and the experiences of previous internationalist political
> organizations.  Instead, with a few notable exceptions, most of the
> discussion has been rooted in reformism and liberalism.
> 
> Here are a few of my thoughts.  I'm sure some will disagree with 
> them.
> 
> In this period of crisis and decline of the capitalist world system, 
> a "world party" is certainly needed.  We face sharpening 
> interimperialist rivalry, intensified by a crisis of overproduction 
> that has plunged most of Asia, Russia, and Brazil into a depression.  
> Nationalist/fascist forces dominate some major countries and are 
> gaining strength in others.  Wars reflecting nationalist and 
> inter-imperialist rivalries have been occurring in the Persian Gulf, 
> the Caspian, central Africa, West Africa, and the Balkans during the 
> past decade.  These wars, with their genocide and ethnic cleansing, 
> are harbingers of a third world war--an imperialist war to redivide 
> the world.  Wallerstein sees the U.S. as the declining imperialist 
> power, and European and Asian imperialists as the main contenders for 
> the position of new hegemon.  That might be correct.  Right or wrong, 
> the workers of the world will be slaughtered until they organize to 
> end imperialism.  Under these circumstances, a reformist or pacifist 
> strategy is suicidal.
> 
> The goal  of an international party of the working class must be to 
> wipe out capitalism and make the working class the rulers of the 
> world.  It's immediate struggles must focus on opposition to 
> imperialist wars, to the symptoms of growing fascism, to racism and 
> nationalism.  It's main constituency must be workers, especially the 
> super-exploited workers: black, immigrant, and women workers in the 
> U.S., immigrant workers in all core countries, and the masses of 
> urban and rural workers in the semi-periphery and periphery.  It's 
> constituency should also include young people, students, and the 
> working class youth who are drawn into the military to fight for 
> capitalist interests.  They must be won to transform these wars into 
> "civil wars" against capitalism.
> 
> An example of an organization that is attempting to organize an 
> international party along these lines is the Progressive Labor Party, 
> which was formed in the early 1960s.  They are actively involved in 
> the UNAM strike in Mexico City, in workers' struggles in Central 
> America, the Caribbean, and South America, and among workers and 
> students in the U.S.  They reject all forms of nationalism and are 
> trying to build one international party, not separate national 
> parties in each country.  Their website is at www.plp.org
> 
> Steve Rosenthal
> 
>