• talking to the right

AE Brain  (whose blog description reads: "Intermittent postings from Canberra, Australia on Software Development, Space, Politics, and Interesting URLs.And of course, Brains...")  recently wrote a piece headed "Two Civil Wars".


The first part of the article is about what Brain construes as the "war within Islam: the Counter-Reformation" and the second part is about what he describes as "The war in the Far Left is between Orwell's "objectively pro-Fascists", and those who go back to the Fundamentals of anti-Fascism."

I was interested in Brain's comments on "the far left" as he's a conscious right winger and I've long been thinking that there's a section of the right  who would be very open to genuine left politics if their whole notion of "left-wing" hadn't been (a) contaminated by the current pseudo-left  and (b) by their mistaken belief that  "socialism" = economic stagnation and lack of freedom  (ie the  dreary and oppressive state-capitalism of Eastern Europe prior to the fall of the Berlin Wall).

 Anyway, in his article  Brain, who describes himself as a "right wing death beast"  quotes very approvingly from Christopher Hitchens and then goes on to caution  his fellow right wingers:

"Lest those of us on the Right take some degree of pleasure, schadenfreude, over this, let's just remember what we're supposed to be For, not Against.............

 
"We have far more in common with the Far Left anti-fascists, than the various Antisemitic Paleocons at the Westboro Baptist Church. Just as the Paleocons are indistinguishable from the likes of "Gorgeous George" Galloway, Fisk, Monbiot and their ilk.

We differ from the anti-fascist Far Left only in methodology, not basic respect for humanity. Some of those on the Far Left even realise it, and hope that we'll "see the light" one day, or at least, can work with us for worthwhile ends."

I think there is definitely a section of the right who see themselves as right-wing because they are in favour of globalization and development as liberating forces.  If they thought that  a more dynamic  and exciting system was possible they'd go for it.


My point is that we need to beware of bogging ourselves down in a debate with the pseudo-left while at the same time  ignoring the  progressive side of those who identify themselves as on the right.

It seems to me that the views of the pseudo-left are essentially religious ones.  -  more like a faith than anything else.  These people "believe in" something they call "socialism" because they see it as the one true way to a "better world" but they don't have any real rationale for this belief.  Ask them why socialism would be better than capitalism  and they just beg the question by talking vaguely about better living conditions, less greed, violence and general nastiness.  The general picture seems to be of a society in which capitalists wouldn't be "allowed" to be so greedy and everybody would be taken care of.

Any  right-winger with a smattering  of economic knowledge can point out that  such a system would not work as well as rampant capitalism in providing for people's basic needs. It would also be quite dreary and boring.  But faith in this idea of "socialism"  is hard to shake.

Socialism can only be proposed as a superior alternative to capitalism if it is capable of being more dynamic and allowing more freedom and development than capitalism.  In other words, the  only non-question begging argument for socialism being a superior social system  needs to be put in terms of its capacity to liberate people faster by pushing things forward faster.  If it can't do this then it is a dead duck.  

But this is a debate which is probably only possible with the "progressive right".

Well  no-one has taken me up on the issues I raised in "talking to the right". 

But I'll be dogged about it and have another try!

Before doing that , here's a link to a previous post of mine which is quite relevant: beyond the right .  There's also some relevant material within the  thread entitled progressing the debate.

At the moment we are mainly devoting our energy to combating pseudo left ideology and supporting  the push for global democracy.  The statements on the unite-against-terror website show that this side of things is going very well.

But what do we think about the future?  I don't know how much to read into the victory of Marx in the BBC poll for the greatest philosopher of the millenium (see  Marx wins ), but in some ways it seems as if we've reached a sort of clarifying moment in history. We're on the cusp of a world  which is fully industrialized and in which the global democratic revolution has triumphed everywhere.  

One speaker on  the BBC program "In Our Time" said that,  in his opinion,  Marx's victory in the poll was because the Communist Manifesto is a "brilliantly powerful document that might be written now (as part of) all the talk we have  about globalization, downsizing, world corporations...the world economy moving this way and that...it's all there in the text. It's something that has amazing actuality".

So that throws up the question "what's next?" in a particularly forceful way - unless you are one of those who believes in 'the end of history'.

The dynamists of the libertarian right argue that in one sense we have reached a sort of pinnacle - and that is the free market economy - "the invisible hand of the market"  which works in a similar way to "the blind watchmaker" in biological evolution. 

Their view is that it's a great idea for humans to try to gain control over nature - but that economic forces should be left well alone. If we  give free rein to market forces and resist  calls to regulate, supervise and plan ahead, "the invisible hand of the market" will push us forward toward an exciting and dynamic future in which everyone will become better off and more fulfilled.  The future they envisage is an entirely open-ended one in which new possibilities never cease - a future with no end-point. So its not a static utopia.


This vision of the future is one that I see as fundamentally progressive.  But I'd like to see some serious discussion of the whole notion of the "invisible hand of the market" as an engine that is capable of taking us there.

I'm happy to see old Karl kick a goal but it crossed my mind as to what might be revealed by a further poll, of those BBC listeners who voted for him, on the issues of the day. Iraq, for instance. I just wonder. But, yes, I think it's terrific that Marx has not been successfully villified to the same extent as those like Lenin and Mao who, in the C20th, attempted to actually lead socialist revolutions. I'm looking forward to Wheen's book on Das Capital, as I thought his biography of Marx, a few years ago, was very good.

 

Marx supported free trade and Marx/Engels had no time for the 'nationalization' school of thought. Engels made a remark about how, if government ownership was socialism, then Bismark would count as a socialist. The problem with the notion of the free market is that it isn't a reality anyway. Competition and monopoly are inseparable under capitalism. It can be no other way as long as there is a capitalist class, competing within itself, in the pursuit of maximum profit.

 

In my opinion, the left differs from the progressive (non-left) dynamists in that it doesn't aim to establish a free market, where market forces determine everything, but a new form of social organisation in which the 'lizards' no longer own the means of production and the state apparatus that once enforced their rule has been dismantled and replaced by a new one, by and on behalf of the 'wage slaves'. In the C20th, there was experience of 'soviets' and 'revolutionary committees' as new ways of arranging things.

 

The dynamist 'right' sees the free market as the motor for progress. Any de-regulation is therefore good. This may be the case, in most cases, but it does not mean that a left-wing view accepts that analysis. Class struggle, scientific progress and the unleashing of productive forces make more sense as motors for change. I guess it's a case, yet again, of different starting-points but reaching very similar conclusions.

 

Capitalism profanes all that is holy but it also impedes progress through the private ownership system based on pursuit of maximum profit. Previous posts have talked about the retarding role of Bill Gates in restricting the development of new technology. Another example is penicillin. Had penicillin been patented - privately owned - would it have been so available? (This has bearing on a very important issue today - the availability of HIV-AIDS drugs in Africa). If the people owned these new drugs, in the advanced countries where they have been manufactured, they would simply be sent to Africa in adequate quantities to help the sick people there. This is the future I believe in. And it's practical - science has developed the drugs. The obstacle is their private ownership.

 

In the final analysis, it's about freedom and the expansion of human horizons. The world of the C21st is very different to that of Marx's time - but much closer to the type of world he sought.

 

I agree with Kesa's earlier post, where she lists the issues on which the left and the libertarian/dynamist right agree, as follows:

 in favour of:

• globalization
• the spread of democracy
• free speech,
• the internet and related technology   
• science at its most 'radical" (cloning, genetic engineering, nanotechnology, transhumanism)
• exploration of space

 

and against :

• sexism
• racism
• censorship
• bureaucracy,
• political correctness
• the notion of sustainability, the precautionary principal etc
• victim mentality

 

Barry   

 

 

 

Barry wrote:

In my opinion, the left differs from the progressive (non-left) dynamists in that it doesn't aim to establish a free market, where market forces determine everything, but a new form of social organisation in which the 'lizards' no longer own the means of production and the state apparatus that once enforced their rule has been dismantled and replaced by a new one, by and on behalf of the 'wage slaves'. In the C20th, there was experience of 'soviets' and 'revolutionary committees' as new ways of arranging things.

 

The dynamist 'right' sees the free market as the motor for progress. Any de-regulation is therefore good. This may be the case, in most cases, but it does not mean that a left-wing view accepts that analysis. Class struggle, scientific progress and the unleashing of productive forces make more sense as motors for change. I guess it's a case, yet again, of different starting-points but reaching very similar conclusions.

That's a good starting point Barry and I basically agree with it -  but I think we are going to have to engage in detail with the arguments coming from libertarians.  Such a debate will force us to look more closely at some beliefs we currently take for granted.

It seems to me that  we’ve reached a point where we need to start thinking in quite practical terms about why we believe things would be so much better if the means of production were in the hands of the people.  (I was going to write “if the means of production were not privately owned” but realized that this might suggest some sort of state capitalism  - as used to exist in Eastern Europe).

One reason the pseudo-left isn’t genuinely left is because it’s not really the slightest bit concerned with the practicalities of how the world works now and how it could work differently.

We can’t just take it as an article of faith that production for private profit holds things back relative to what could be achieved if the means of production were to be socialized.  No matter how strongly our intuition suggests that  the world would have to be a better, fairer, healthier and all round nicer place if private profit was no longer the engine of development, we still need to be able to spell out how it would work in practice.

For instance in answer to what Barry said about penicillin, a libertarian right- winger might  point out that competition between modern pharmaceutical companies has led to a massive research and development effort with new drugs being developed at an ever increasing pace. 

In contrast, penicillin was very slow to be fully developed – it didn’t become available to the public for over a decade after Fleming’s initial discovery. If he had been working for a competitive pharamaceutical company, perhaps the story would have been different?

It’s also the case that AIDS drugs are now being made available cheaply in Africa.  Why is this happening?  Ronald Bailey, a libertarian anti-greenie has recently been defending the pharmaceutical industry (but he doesn’t explain how it is that they are now supplying cheaper drugs to Africa. See Do drug companies kill poor people: how for profit medicine helps even the poorest)  

I’m just putting this up as an example of what can be said to counter the “profit holds things back” argument.  My point is not that these arguments are correct but that we do need to grapple with them.  We can only move forward and differentiate ourselves from the religious approach of the pseudos if we are prepared to test our ideas against reality.  One way of doing this is to look closely at what the libertarians are saying because their ideas - both about the future and about things they don’t like in the present -  are rather similar to ours.
 

I’ve been reading their material and I reckon that their arguments  against  the expropriation of the means of production ( and  for the proposition that  genuine free market capitalism will unleash the productive forces and liberate us all)  - won’t stand up to scrutiny from a Marxist perspective.
 

the good thing about debating with libertarian right wingers is that unlike the pseudo left,  they do  engage with the real world. they do welcome progress and they do recognize that changing the world will require them (or us) to actually propose a viable alternative (and take responsibility for it)  rather than  just criticize from the sidelines and demand better lizards.

keza wrote:

The dynamists of the libertarian right argue that in one sense we have reached a sort of pinnacle - and that is the free market economy - "the invisible hand of the market"  which works in a similar way to "the blind watchmaker" in biological evolution. 

The analogy between "the invisible hand of the market" pushing capitalist productivity forward and "the blind watchmaker" pushing biological evolution forward is interesting.

In what sense is the market invisible? Just that we take it for granted that commodities are bought and sold in that way, that it has always been like that (not true, eg. slave society), that it is the only way of exchanging commodities (not true, there is the black market)?

Or is it meant in the sense that it is an invisible progressive force? It is true there is progress of some sort under capitalism, next year's mobile phone will be superior to last years. But selling addictive substances that are bad for you such as cigarettes also "progresses" so much so that governments raise taxes on those items (non market intervention).

Also some have argued that evolution is not progressive, that evolution is a branching bush, not a linear progression and so the analogy is debatable on those grounds too.  Humans are one product of evolution but so are cockroaches, sorry I shouldn't demean the cockroach.

The "blind watchmaker" is blind but does operate by laws that have been discovered by Darwin (evolution), Mendel (genetics) and others. The expression "blind watchmaker" is asking how could it be possible that mere random processes could produce intricate wonders like the cockroach and humans? And Richard Dawkins, the person who coined that expression, does provide answers to it in his wonderful books.

But the laws of evolution are natural laws that existed long before humans or cockroaches. So they are invisible in a different sense than the laws of the market because the market was invented by humans.

Humans have now evolved to the point where we have invented genetic engineering and can now intervene in the evolutionary process.  So are we going to change the way we do things? Of course we will, we will clone sheep, humans, body parts, do genetic counselling and all sorts of horrible and wonderful things.

We are also working on Artificial Intelligence which is making rather slow progress but sooner or later we will make an artificial intelligence and the dilemmas of "Blade Runner" will become a reality. How will the smarter silicon life form treat humans, put us in zoos or give us a planet to play with?

The problem with the blind watchmaker is that it has created good things very slowly. That's the same problem with the invisible hand of the market. We still have a Microsoft monopoly when Linux is a better operating system.

Another golden oldie.  After "leaving the left" we have "talking to the right"!

It's become recently quite clear that LS motivations for trying to hang on to Marxism and the " left" label are purely based on some unproven notion that socialism or communism, which you freely admit you have no plan for achieving,  will accelerate human development and productive forces faster than capitalism.

Most of us on the left start off with a feeling that the main problem with capitalism is the social injustice that it causes rather than any slowness in the speed of economic development.  We agree with Marx that on the whole capitalism has been quite good at that. We are attracted to left ideas because we'd like to see a fairer world with a much reduced gap between rich and poor. We  would like to achieve the ideal of "from each according to their abilities and to each according to their needs". If you no longer have a desire to see social justice in the world, or attach much importance to the concept, then you really have left the the left. And, of course, then you may as well go off and have a good talk to the right!

I'd like to ask LS comrades: How much , if any,  importance do you attach to the concept of social justice?  

 

 

Cyberman says:

 We *(the left that Cyberman approves of)* are attracted to left ideas because we'd like to see a fairer world with a much reduced gap between rich and poor.

 Yes, that's what I once thought, when I gave my preference to the Labor Party on the grounds that they would 'protect' and 'help' us poor people. Then I realised that I don't want to see 'rich' and 'poor' at all, and that to hope for that under capitalism is a vain hope. And that anyone who promises to 'help' and 'protect' the poor needs the poor to exist, or they are out of a job.

Cyberman asks how much importance we give 'social justice'. Not much, in my case. I don't give a lot of importance at all to a doctrine invented by the Catholic Church because they were scared that the capitalists would provoke the working class to revolution.

'Social Justice' is clearly an ideology that is meant to give the working class enough so that they will not overthrow capitalism, but will be happy with their position under the current system. 'Social Justice' implies a greatful, docile working class receiving benefits from a wise, benevolent ruling class which understands the wisdom of not shearing their sheep too closely, lest the cuts and nicks provoke them to kick out.

It has nothing whatever to do with 'from each according to his abilities, to each according to his needs'

Cyberman once again has a very confusing line of argument where he attacks LS for not being 'left' enough, and then talks about his high regard for cautious, conservative reformism.

I think encouraging the working class to be dissatisfied with their current material standard of living, and asking them to be impatient with the current too-slow rate of growth, would play a very important part in making them willing to overthrow capitalism as they realise that they don't need rulers or bosses to create abundance for all.

Working people need to get into the habit of making and taking over their own system of justice - both legal and economic. 'Social Justice' makes that less likely to happen, and I think that for Cyberman to promote it reveals his essentially conservative  pseudo-left mentality.

Comrade Youngmarxist,

If I follow your line of argument correctly, I presume that you wouldn't have been in favour of the anti-apartheid movement. You'd say that all that we achieved was  to improve the conditions of the non white working class in South Africa which has made it less like that they'll  overthrow the capitalist system and establish socialism.

We all knew that this is the way it would work out. But nevertheless we all agreed that the anti apartheid struggle was primarily about social justice and therefore was still worthwhile. 

Cyberman, you do not follow my line of argument correctly.

 The anti-apartheid movement had a clear and specific goal - ending the system of legal inequality under law and establishing a state where all have formal/legal equality under the law in South Africa.

While that in itself is merely reformist , revolutionaries obviously should have supported it. Revolution needs people confident of their own abilities and ready and willing to take power. That is more likely to happen when the prevailing social system is one of legal and formal equality for all under the law.

What revolutionaries should not have done was to think that formal and legal equality under the law was the final goal, because that would be an essentially conservative position once formal equality was obtained.

The trouble with the analogy between social justice and the anti-apartheid struggle is that 'social justice' is not a clear and specific goal.

It is entirely possible I would support a specific given project that was proposed by social democrats or even left Christian Democrats if I thought it was more likely to lead to a strong, confident, powerful working class. If I supported it, I would also probably unite with those reformists to achieve specific aims.

In fact, I am currently involved in the thoroughly reformist struggle of joining with other people who are angered by Yahoo!'s Flickr censoring Germans, Singaporeans, Hongkongese and (South?) Koreans by not letting them see photos that have not been labelled 'restricted'. (At least, Yahoo!'s Flickr is censoring those people who are rich enough to own a computer and (probably) pay for a broadband internet connection. Arise, ye starvelings!)

My reason for getting involved in something that has little in itself to do with the class struggle is that I am finding people who are angry about the act of censorship and prepared to take responsibility and do something about it. Ideas for action range from proposing workable solutions to the staff of Yahoo!'s Flickr, to setting up an open-source, decentralised photo-sharing system completely out of the control of any one person.

That attitude is the sort of thing that will make revolution more likely.

What I am not doing is telling myself that making governments and corporations respect 'civil liberties' is my long-term political goal. And while certain actions proposed by those who believe in 'social justice' may also be worth supporting, 'social justice' is not the goal of revolutionaries who do that.

youngmarxist, I don't think the overthrow of the racist apartheid regime in South Africa should be described as a reform. It was nothing less than regime change, a revolution making democracy possible for the entire population rather than the white minority. The similarities with Iraq are clear: the Left supported regime change and demanded that foreign governments intervene (through trade and sporting boycotts) to support the oppressed people in South Africa. The apartheid regime was based on minority rule: in Iraq the Shia majority were the 'blacks' ruled tyrannically by a faction of the Sunni minority. We all knew that socialism was not the objective in South Africa but, because of an understanding of historical processes and commitment to progress, we knew that a capitalist-based economy freed from minority racist tyranny would be qualitatively better for the people than the old order. Ditto Iraq, where the Shia's majority status is actually represented in the elected parliament.

 

The similarity with Iraq doesn't stop there because, at the time of the anti-apartheid sturggles, there were 'wise' people assuring us that, while they opposed apartheid in principle, they didn't think foreign interference would work. Moreover, these wise ones, some of whom had lived and worked in South Africa, told us - again while assuring us that they opposed apartheid and supported democracy - that black majority rule just couldn't work. Too much tribalism and all that. Doomed from the start, old bean.  (Sound familiar?)

 

Barry

 

 

byork says:

 youngmarxist, I don't think the overthrow of the racist apartheid regime in South Africa should be described as a reform. It was nothing less than regime change, a revolution making democracy possible for the entire population rather than the white minority.

I can see your point there, perhaps I could have said "merely" a bourgeois revolution...not to belittle what was done, but to point out that non-sectarian revolutionaries will take part in struggles that will not, in themselves, bring about our long-term goals, as long as the struggle pushes the world in what we see as the right direction.

Comrade Young marxist,

Your posting of  2007-07-06 08:09 PM shows that you are starting to think along  sensible lines.  You are correct when you edorse  "ending the system of legal inequality under law and establishing a state where all have formal/legal equality under the law". What you are saying is that it is desirable to have legal equality for all under the law. Why do you think that? Is it that you feel it corresponds to a position of social justice.

Comrade Barry,

There aren't many who could make any sort of parallel between South Africa and Iraq. But you've managed to do it so maybe some sort of congratulations are in order.

Outside intervention in the form of cricket and rugby boycotts is one thing. Its quite another in the form of cruise missiles and armoured tank divisions. As I previously said, the ANC and the international anti-apartheid movement were unanimous in their opposition  to anything of a similar kind in South Africa. Nelson Mandela and the ANC (including the SA Communist Party) have never tried to make any similar comparison and have been consistently opposed to US military intervention in Iraq. Have you written them off as just another bunch of pseudo-leftists?

Its not that the left have been opposed to regime change in Iraq  , per se. In fact the left have had a more consistent history of opposition to the Saddam Hussein regime than the USA. Saddam's suppression of Kurds, known as the anfal, began in 1987 and killed an estimated 182,000, destroying thousands of villages and creating about 400,000 refugees. At the time, the United States and Western powers were supporting Iraq with arms. Western companies  helped Saddam build chemical, biological and nuclear weapons capabilities. The USA protected the Saddam regime from censure at the UN through the use of their veto. There is no contradiction in opposing the Saddam Hussein regime itself and opposing the cynical and self serving use of military force against it. Does anyone really believe that the USA made a noble self- sacrifice to help out the Iraqi population and set up a democratic system? Dr Brendon Nelson recently has let the cat out of the bag on that one! There can't be many outside of a dozen or so LS comrades who would say yes.

 

 

 

Cyberman asks:

 What you are saying is that it is desirable to have legal equality for all under the law. Why do you think that? Is it that you feel it corresponds to a position of social justice?

No. I have already answered this:

Revolution needs people confident of their own abilities and ready and willing to take power. That is more likely to happen when the prevailing social system is one of legal and formal equality for all under the law.

Legal and formal equality under the law is not in itself enough to bring about even the  reformist social justice that Cyberman appears to believe in, let alone the revolution that is advocated by Last Superpower.

Anatole France summed it up best:

The law, in its majestic equality, forbids the rich as well as the poor to sleep under bridges, to beg in the streets, and to steal bread.

Youngmarxist, what is the place of democracy in a revolutionary socialism which "needs people confident of their own abilities and ready and willing to take power?"

As in the thread about "Leaving the Left" this one has quickly gotten - though I have only lately come to it - to one of the core differences between the Liberal Right (LR) and the Left, which in this case is the roles of leadership and power.  This really goes hand in hand with the theme of progressive economics raised in the Leaving the Left thread.

Cyberman raised an important when he illustrated his approach to the "Left," which for him is primarily interested in obtaining a state of "social justice."  (Those are not scare quotes, I employ the quotes merely because I am not sure the idea of social justice can have any objective meaning, or at least a determinable end-state.)  But what is the goal of socialism, in the view of LS?

Accelerating the progress now theoretically retarded by capitalism has been mentioned, even if only to push capitalism to it's breaking point.  But, to what end?

It seems to me that those concerned primarily with social justice have implicitly accepted Fukuyama's "end of history," and despairing of any hope to obtain a socialist utopia, tilt themselves at windmills to address injustices.  Is there a plan behind this, or is it's social agenda as piecemeal as their understanding of Marxism?  (I think here of the Marxist inspired "liberation theology.")

I must confess that I find the idea of "setting free the productive forces" to be somewhat dreary.  Now this certainly is the result of a less than comprehensive education.  Still, in a world in which all work is valued - when an artist or a musician or a writer can be just as valued as a coporate ceo - who will want to be a machinist, or manual laborer?  It seems to me that what lies behind the idea of accelerated productivity is a dream about technology, analogous to the way the word "modern" was once understood and used by Stalinists and fascists alike.  If we really can obtain "better living through science," then let us by all means accelerate that progress.

Wasn't that, after all, the goal of those men, confident of their abilities and able to seize power, who nearly destroyed Europe just a few decades ago?

Comrade Lupin3,

While Comrade Youngmarxist is thinking about his answer,  I'll nip in with this quotation from Paul Foot. Paul was a marvellous person and journalist and I don't think anyone could ever put the argument for socialist democracy  better than he did in his book "Why you should be a soclialist"

It is a central principle of socialism that the people who make decisions should be accountable to the people who are affected by them. Socialism and democracy, in other words, are indispensable to one another. You can’t have socialism without democracy, and, more importantly, you can’t have democracy without socialism.

When people use the word ‘democracy’, they usually mean parliamentary democracy – a democracy limited to a vote at long, often irregular intervals: the sort of democracy which exists in Britain, France, Germany, Italy and America.

But this is an extremely limited democracy. It works on geographic lines – that is, people vote according to where they live. It operates only in a small corner of society. In the areas which matter – in industry, finance, the civil service, the law courts, the police force, the army, there is no democracy at all. Power is held by people because they have wealth or are part of a class which has wealth, and parliament does not challenge that power. The ‘mass of officials’ therefore, whether they work for multinational companies or the civil service or the law courts, are completely unaccountable. They operate, not on behalf of society, but on behalf of one class, and there is no democratic machinery to control them.

By contrast, the fundamental unit of workers’ democracy is the workers’ council. Because people come together and co-operate most at work, because production of wealth takes place at work, not at home – the workplace is a far better base unit for a democratic system than the home. The workers’ councils run through each part of industry and the services, but they do not operate as individual units competing with one another. They operate within the structure of an overall plan, drawn up by the government.

The government is also made up of workers’ representatives, elected through the councils, grouped this time on a regional basis, to a national Congress of Councils, which then elects its executive or government.

The workers’ councils form the core of socialist democracy.

So you can see that, although we think social democratic capitalism on the European model is better than unrestrained 'laissez -faire' free market capitalism, we don't really agree with Fukuyama's 'end of history' theory. There's quite a bit to go yet. One point to emphasise is that socialism isn't about creating a 'Utopia'. Mistakes will be made , people will quarrel and argue.  Maybe socialism itself won't be the end of history either, but it will be  better than anything that's gone before.

Lupin3, I don't have a proper answer to your question thought out yet, but I did have a good discussion with a friend of mine yesterday that helped to make some of the issues clearer.

 My short answer at the moment is that democracy under a socialist regime is directly related to two factors that are opposed to each other:

1) People's willingness and ability to resist attacks on their rights.

2) People's willingness and ability to take responsibility for solving problems, and their willingness to not just revolt at the drop of a hat, but only when things are serious.

I think that what people are willing to do matters more than the formal structure in which they operate. Structure is important, but even the best structure is meaningless if people are not taking charge for themselves.

If I am right, then one important job of revolutionaries in today's non-revolutionary society is to encourage people to develop their skill and power so that if a revolution ever happens, we would have the best possible chance of making it work.

That's one of the reasons why I think revolutionaries need to get involved in reformist struggles, because reformism is about people making decisions about what they want and how to get it. Making that habit stronger is likely to produce a more democratic revolution.

On the other hand, if there is a revolution in a capitalist society where people are just angry with their lot but have no real experience in taking responsibility for even minor reforms, it would be more likely that those people could be easily oppressed by the new bourgeiosie of careerists who will try to take over a socialist government (using "socialist" in the sense of a post-revolutionary government that is trying, at least in theory, to bring communism closer).