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08/17/2020

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Matt

The thing that has made reading people like Luxemburg and Lenin so unpleasant to me is that the rhetoric is always turned up so high, and there is so little effort made to just slow down, look at the arguments, see what's right, and so on. There are real insights in both Luxemburg and Lenin, but picking them out is hard among all the trash-throwing and unwillingness to engage. (To this extent I think that one of Luxemburg's big rivals, Eduard Bernstein, is a nice alternative. While it certainly has its faults, his _Preconditions of Socialism_ is just much more careful, considers arguments in more detail, has many fewer straw-men, and so on. It's also much closer to being right, I think. It's hard for me to not think those two things might be related!)

Steve

The other thing with Rosa L's argument is the utopian revolutionary approach she embodies. The argument is that you have a system that because of its nature and internal logic is incapable of reform or alteration - it's like the scorpion in the parable. So the only thing to go for is complete systemic revolutionary transformation. In terms of its nature and ultimate origins this is Christian thinking of a certain kind - it's the idea of the apocalypse and the utterly fallen nature of humanity given a secular reading. In the words of another of her pieces it is "Socialism or Barbarism". That means that once you conclude the transformative revolution is impossible you have only despair as an option. Just as well for her she died when and how she did.

Eric Schliesser

Her assassination was not just immoral, but also foolish.

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Here's a link to my past blogging (and discussions involving me) at: New APPS.

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