[Potemkin]

I was wondering; if the rational is actual and the actual is rational, would it then not suffice for Marxists to take a laissez faire approach? To let history takes its course and to let the economic-social tensions of the capitalist system build up and accumulate to a point where a comprehensive revolution of the system becomes inevitable and natural, almost like heated water reaching its boiling temperature.

This is because there is nothing 'historically inevitable' about the victory of socialism over capitalism, despite what vulgar Marxists may say - it requires the agency of the militantly conscious working class, just as the transition from feudalism to capitalism required the agency of the militantly conscious bourgeois class. Without that agency, there might simply be a general collapse into the mutual ruin of all - a new barbarism, to quote Rosa Luxemburg.

[CounterChaos]

I was wondering; if the rational is actual and the actual is rational, would it then not suffice for Marxists to take a laissez faire approach? To let history takes its course and to let the economic-social tensions of the capitalist system build up and accumulate to a point where a comprehensive revolution of the system becomes inevitable and natural, almost like heated water reaching its boiling temperature.

OK..You two have peaked my interest again... Not long after I first came here I submitted my first topic:

Socialist Manifest Destiny in disguise?
viewtopic.php?f=16&t=129531

It has a bit of the flavor that cookiemonster brings up, but speculates that capitalists are aware of the social issues and are using the capitalist system as a means to an end. Here is something I wrote from that piece:

"...inevitability is the key word here...I think that most people don't want to even consider this possibility because it means more of the same and they are not going to see change in a lifetime....The propaganda machine set in place so many years ago will take a very very long time to fade away. How long, is anyone's guess...When you are dealing with finite resources and known rates of population growth-you don't have to guess....Which is better, waiting for a revolution that will never happen, or involving yourself in guiding the ruling class to a smooth transition to the inevitable?"

This is because there is nothing 'historically inevitable' about the victory of socialism over capitalism

Wouldn't resources or lack thereof play a role in determining that? Also isn't socialism an easier means of guiding the masses?

it requires the agency of the militantly conscious working class

How about a militantly conscious military? Read this please:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2010 ... ion-supply

It is not just the US military either:
http://www.theoildrum.com/node/6912

These guys talk all the time.

Finite resources was not something that the aged sages of the past had to deal with.

The military is aware and they are concerned, so concerned I believe they would be able to accept a socialist styled system that preserved democracy if that was what was required. Many have the impression that the leadership in the military is nothing more than a bunch of gung-ho redneck types, that is simply not the case. Take a moment to read that topic and I would love to hear your comments on this...Thanks

[ingliz]

guiding the ruling class

Poor, wretched, feeble-minded Fabianism – how disgusting its mental contortions are!

"Socialists" who reject the class struggle and advocate the principle of social solidarity, preach collaboration with the bourgeoisie, bridle, enfeeble and politically debase the proletariat, are a tool of the ruling class, and not their guide.

The social solidarity that you preach is the solidarity of the exploited with the exploiters, that is, the maintenance of exploitation.*


*Almost Trotsky, that is Trotsky with a few words added here and there.

[CounterChaos]

Poor, wretched, feeble-minded Fabianism – how disgusting its mental contortions are!

OK..I can see where you can see this as Fabianism... <----btw, I had to look that one up...

are a tool of the ruling class, and not their guide.

OK...I can see that too.....

The social solidarity that you preach is the solidarity of the exploited with the exploiters, that is, the maintenance of exploitation.

You scare me ingliz...I'm afraid someday you are going to convert me.....

So in laymen terms, I am being naive to think that capitalists would ever consider that?

[The Clockwork Rat]

Yes.

[daft punk]

Not read the thread yet. In reply to the OP, Marxists do not say the rich are 'bad' but they are the enemy. The rich will try to stop socialism, they always do. They will kill millions in the process. In Indonesia general Suharto killed a million civilians in cold blood (it was not a civil war) with the aid of Britain and America, with British machine guns, with a British battleship in support, with lists of names to be killed from the CIA. Afterwards, the west's top businessmen sat around a table with the general's accountants and carved up the country. Thatcher later described him as "one of our very best friends" I think the words were.

This is a story repeated over and over, from 1917 to today. So the class struggle is a class war. The capitalist class (less than 1% of the population) own the means of production, but it would be far better for the working class (most of the population) to own and control it. Even if the working class comes to power in terms of a socialist party winning an election, as in Chile, the capitalists will try to bring it down. In those situations the capitalists are starting a civil war. They start them. It is the capitalists who decide that route.

As for the middle class, they decide which side they want to be on.

guiding the ruling class to a smooth transition to the inevitable

No chance, not in a million years. Ok so you are a green reformist or whatever. So how much are governments and the ruling class being guided by the greens and the left? Pretty much nowhere.

[Vera Politica]

VP Note: Stay on topic. All off-topic posts deleted.