Re: [A-List] July 4 and the Marx vision - theory of AmericanRevolution 2

[Jim Farmelant <farmelantj@xxxxxxxx>]

On Sun, 4 Jul 2004 12:46:27 EDT Waistline2@aol.com writes:
> 
> 
> The Revolution of 1776 was big by any estimate. The  Revolution of 
> 1776 
> ushered in something new in human history . . . a whole new  epoch 
> of political 
> revolution under the banner of national liberation. National  
> liberation meant 
> more than "me and my country" being liberated from "you and  your 
> country" 
> because it happened in a very distinct economic and social  context. 
> 
> 
> 1776 was big. 1776 birthed what would be called the  national 
> liberation 
> movement and this process of national liberation went on for  
> another two hundred 
> years. It reached its peak with the tidal waves of national  
> liberation 
> uprisings between 1940s through 1970s. 
> 
> It should come  as no surprise than many Americans have always 
> supported 
> national liberation  throughout the world as a lofty and noble goal 
> and this 
> included American  resistance to the reckless and criminal war 
> against the 
> Vietnamese. More  complicated reasons are involved in why a section 
> of our bourgeoisie 
> has always  fought against the closed colonial system that prevented 
> their 
> investment of  finance into all areas of the world. 
> 
> Nevertheless, 1776 inspired a  vision because it was a new thing in 
> history. 
> The French bourgeoisie and the  British bourgeoisie had a revolution 
> to free 
> themselves from the feudal estate  system and its political 
> restraints that 
> were based on serf and master and a  system of privilege when you 
> did not have to 
> proceed anything . . . but rather  has force and connections with 
> owners of 
> landed property. 

And it should be noted that the American Revolution helped
inspire the French Revolution.  Lots of those young army officers
that Louis XVI sent over to help the American colonists
came back radicalized.  Lafayette was simply the most
famous of these officers.

> 
> America  was different. America was founded as a capitalist colony. 
> This 
> meant that it  was owned by England and its supreme purpose in life 
> was to ship 
> goods and  resources back to the mother country - the Crown. For the 
> first time 
> in history  a revolutionary colonial revolt was bound up with the 
> revolution 
> against  feudalism, because the American bourgeoisie wanted freedom 
> from feudal 
> England.  

I don't think I would accept that formulation. While Britain, then
(and even now) had some institutional holdovers from feudalism,
it was already predominantly capitalist. The English Civil Wars
and later events like the Glorious Revolution of 1688 established
the political supremacy of the bourgeoisie in Great Britain.

> 
> The United States is perhaps the only country in the world, most  
> certainly 
> in the Western Hemisphere, that was never tainted with feudal 
> economic  
> relations. Canada was, Mexico was and everything else south of the 
> border was  
> tainted. 

I would accept that. 

> 
> To say the revolution of 1776 was a national democratic  revolution 
> is not 
> enough. To say there was not feudal economic relations is not  
> enough. 1776 was 
> an agrarian bourgeois democratic revolution and all the  agrarian 
> classes more 
> than less are destined to disintegrate in the face of the  advance 
> of modern 
> industrial. The vision of 1776 could only be advanced when the  
> foundation for 
> the industrial bourgeoisie had been laid and they assumed power.  
> 
> People fight for ideas. People fight for their vision even when  
> they cannot 
> achieve their vision. Each time they gain a little bit more as  
> society 
> develops the economic legs to make a noble vision attainable. As  
> technology 
> develops and the mighty forces of production expands a new 
> generation  recast the old 
> vision in their image based on what they conceive as possible.  
> 
> The clearest thinking people in 1776 understood that unless  
> national 
> liberation emancipated the slaves they would have to fight the  
> revolution over again 
> to achieve the vision put forth. George Washington was the  largest 
> slave 
> holder at the time and Jefferson ... well we know his history and  
> the difference 
> between his vision and real life as a slave master. In this  sense, 
> the Civil 
> War was a continuation of 1776. 
> 
> In the same sense  we can see in the growing revolution today that 
> the 
> subjective side of the  social process - how people actually think 
> things out, is 
> inexplicably connected  to the vision proclaimed by the Civil War or 
> the "Second 
> Edition" of the  American revolution. This vision could not and was 
> not 
> achieved. The vision was  mass democracy or a nation - not a union 
> of people or 
> distinct ethnic groups,  conceived in liberty and justice for all. 
> 
> What is democracy?  Democracy is the rule of the people and such 
> rule must 
> rest upon the ability of  the people to choice freely. That, in turn 
> means 
> independence or individual  freedom. Independence and individual 
> freedom rests upon 
> a person's secure access  and control over the necessities of life. 
> If I 
> depend on someone else for food,  shelter and clothing, then I am a 
> person's 
> slave. If I am compelled to do that  person's bidding to secure the 
> necessities of 
> life, then I am that person slave  no matter how democratic and 
> subtle the 
> command is. 
> 
> The ideas of  Jefferson democracy rest on this understanding. Hence, 
> the 
> demand for  independence provided by the small family farm and land 
> ownership. The 
>  Revolution did not achieve Jeffersonian democracy, nor did the 
> Civil War.  
> History seems to keep repeating itself on a higher and spiraling 
> level and the  
> social movements keep demanding the same thing under changing 
> conditions and  
> each time the demands of the vision of 1776 advances the 
> revolutionary 
> process.  In this sense there is a chain of demands from one 
> revolution to the next, 
>  culminating in the outbreak of warfare. 
> 
> The specific feature of  the unfolding social revolution in the 
> American 
> Union and how people are  compelled by their own history to think 
> things out, can 
> be traced back to the  vision of 1776 . . . and this is the modern 
> theory of 
> the American social  revolution. 
> 
> Marxism has never faired well in the American Union  for a complex 
> of reasons 
> grounded in our country as a country of immigrants. Our  history is 
> extremely 
> violent and revolutionary. Where else on earth has a  section of the 
> 
> bourgeoisie gone into Civil War with another section? The  agrarian 
> bourgeois fought 
> the industrial bourgeoisie in the bloody conflict.  

You ignore Latin American which experienced a whole series of
similar conflicts between the agrarian bourgeoisie and the
industrial bourgeosie in the 19th century. These civil wars typically
took the form of clashes between the Liberal parties and the
Conservative parties in various Latin American countries. Unlike
the US where the industrial bourgeoisie emerged triumphant,
in Latin American, the agrarian bourgeoisie won most of these
civil wars. That difference in outcomes, IMO, has a lot to do with 
explaining why the US quickly
emerged as the world's leading industrial economy after
the US Civil War, whereas most of Latin American fell behind
economically in the 20th century.


> This was 
> markedly different 
> from the colonial revolts of the Second World  Imperial War era or 
> the time 
> of Lenin. 
> 
> In shaping the theory of  the American Revolution - Third Edition, 
> old 
> concepts and ideology of the past  is useless. No one in their right 
> mind advocates 
> for a Soviet America because  Sovietism was an industrial form of 
> democracy no 
> matter what its hardships and  harshness. Democratic circles of 
> industrial 
> workers as owners of production is  something connected to the 
> ascendancy of the 
> industrial system.  
> 
> The diverse peoples of America do not think in such concepts and  an 
> 
> important reason is that we have left the ascendancy of the 
> industrial system  a 
> couple of decades ago. The vision of 1776 and Lincoln  . . . and 
> then the  decades 
> of the Civil Rights Movement and its aftermath drives the vision of  
> 
> individual freedom and give meaning to liberty and justice for all.  
> 
> 
> I remember an early slogan from the late 1950 and early 1960s of  
> the Civil 
> Rights activists - "Ain't I A Man?" Does his not hearken to the 
> vision  of 1776 
> and the declaration that all men are created equal and endowed with  
> certain 
> inalienable rights by their creator? 
> 
> The vision of one  revolution becomes the cause of the next and 
> society 
> fights out the social  questions to achieve the vision. 
> 
> What stands before us is  something different and new in human 
> history. To 
> limit our vision to  overthrowing the power of capital and investing 
> the state 
> with the title of  property holder does not conform to American 
> history and our 
> distinct stage of  development of the material power of production. 
> The 
> property relation itself  can be abolished. 
> 
> Liberty and justice - freedom for the  individual, rests exclusively 
> on their 
> ability to access the system to meet  their basic needs, uninhibited 
> by the 
> demand to sell ones labor power as the  precondition. The exact 
> features of a 
> new system and what is possible will come  into focus as the 
> revolution in the 
> technological regime intensifies.  
> 
> The vision on July 4th is a nation - not union, conceived in  
> liberty and 
> justice for the individual. 
> 
> Melvin  P. 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 


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