I would like to reiterate that we really do need to understand capitalism, but not in its bourgeois sense of the word which empties all aspects of exploitation. The “socialist” experiments you speak of degenerated back into a more authoritarian, or what I would consider to be state capitalism for specific historic reasons. There is an entire literature on this from a Marxian perspective, which is not terribly apologetic to the actions of the Bolsheviks.

I agree with you wholeheartedly that there are “different kinds of capitalism” and that what occurred in Russia from NEP through the successive Five Year Plans were akin to Keynesian managerial techniques in which the CPSU ultimately became the sole “capitalist” in an entire country, or empire. There was money, there was commodity production, there was exchange, the law of value did operate just the same…all of the hallmarks of a basic capitalist system, although the arrangement is not the one typical to most. Since I ascribe to an understanding of social class as being a social relation, particularly the working class to the bourgeosie, it makes perfect sense to understand how certain proletarian revolutionaries turned into a new bourgeoisie. But this is also because a detailed and nuanced understanding of the Russian Revolution and its aftermath have show how and why this process took place.

I’m sorry, but your logic of pitting American democracy against other types of political arrangements strikes me as somewhat conservative, especially in the context of OWS. For most of the Occupiers–and I include myself among them as I’m active in the student movement–where perhaps “99%” of us are American and only grew up under the current political structure in place, it doesn’t really make sense, nay, doesn’t even attempt to provide any sort of reference to how we in this country experience oppression. Apart from lacking the vocabulary, which is woefully absent in any liberal discourse, we can only broaden and therefore redefine what freedom and democracy are for us and to make a distinction between “types of democracy”, i.e., bourgeois and what may (hopefully) lie around the corner. It is only Marx, to my knowledge, who has laid down not just a vocabulary to articulate what bourgeois democracy otherwise masks.

I’m glad you’re having these talks as they are important. I hope to make one at some point!

Mine, for instance, I am not so sure that there is desirable alternative to capitalism. 20th century socialist experiments from the Soviet Union to Tanzania, from Cuba to China, all ended in failure. I rather think there are different kinds of capitalisms, different modern economies, where the issue is how social control of the market and capital accumulation and power is achieved.

Further, when one’s life includes experience with real dictatorship, what you call “ossified bourgeois democracy” looks awfully good. The radical project is not to replace liberal democracy, but to empower democracy more fully.

The point of the seminar was to bring people together with different views who share deep concerns about the present order of things, to develop a capacity to act through their differences. I think this is also the significant achievement of OWS. Given the opinions of the vast majority of American and Polish citizens, not to speak of other parts of the world that are now engaged, (the 99%?) more than this is less. It suggests other sorts of utopian dreams that have turned into nightmares. But this is not a finding of the seminar discussions, but one opinion that was brought to the table.