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The ‘total strike’ has come for France (mronline.org)
submitted 1 week ago by to c/chapotraphouse@hexbear.net
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cross-posted from: https://news.abolish.capital/post/87207

(Carl Court/Getty Images)

The people are in revolt, and the entire social order is collapsing.

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[–] 49 points 1 week ago (6 children)

This is very optimist. I don't share the optimism and I think people are a little too caught up in the spectacle. It is certain that we are in the transition away from the current version neoliberalism, the contradictions are simply to large, but to claim that this change is facilitated by a revolutionary french working class is a little too much.

If Macron somehow could brutalize XX millions of Africans to slave away in the mines in order to ensure that french people could retire at 60 with good healthcare and good student/teacher ratios they would all be happy and content.

There are little organizing, no demands, and treatlerism on full view.

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  • [–] 33 points 1 week ago (3 children)

    If Macron somehow could brutalize XX millions of Africans to slave away in the mines in order to ensure that french people could retire at 60 with good healthcare and good student/teacher ratios they would all be happy and content.

    But they can't anymore. Isn't that (one of) the root cause of the whole US/Euro/NATO decline in the first place?

    Revolutions don't happen because the moral character of millions suddenly improves, it happens because of material and economic root causes.

    But you're correct that it requires a degree (and type) of organization that isn't currently present.

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  • [–] 16 points 1 week ago (2 children)

    But they can’t anymore. Isn’t that (one of) the root cause of the whole US/Euro/NATO decline in the first place?

    Revolutions don’t happen because the moral character of millions suddenly improves, it happens because of material and economic root causes.

    You are entirely correct! But I did not mean to invoke it as a moral argument (not directly anyhow). I just take issue with the msm framing of the revolution of the french working class, they are rioting for concessions, not for a change of system. The aim is to put fiscal pressure on their colonizer-capitalist political class to get some more crumbz.

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  • [–] 6 points 1 week ago (1 child)

    It seems obvious that populist discontent can be directly affected by material and economic conditions.

    Is there any marxian principal of condition which would predict the prevailing of one side or the other of populist sentiments?

    The moral character of the proletariat on the aggregate seems like the only way to make a deterministic prediction on such a thing. Am I mistaken about that?

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  • [–] 7 points 1 week ago

    The moral character of the proletariat on the aggregate seems like the only way to make a deterministic prediction on such a thing. Am I mistaken about that?

    Well it has never happened in the imperial core really, so I guess we don't know. But I think generally, the masses must understand that liberalism and their far right populism isn't a viable option. Clearly we aren't there yet in the west, I think it will be clearer in the coming decades though, when the states are materially conditioned to cooperate with the East.

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  • [–] 14 points 1 week ago* (1 child)

    The French working class are revolutionary, I believe that. The problem however is that an electoral alternative is viable in Melenchon, and while that electoral alternative exists as a possibility there will be no revolution.

    If the state grants emergency powers to the presidency or suspends elections or something, you're getting revolution, because the only thing holding this back from being a revolution is that the electoral option is viable. If the state shuts that doorway on the movement then it has only one option and will turn to it.

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  • [–] 12 points 1 week ago

    Oh they are revolutionary alright, I am just doubtful that "the only viable electoral alternative" is Melenchon rather than Le Pen. Which is my point, the whole of western left is tweaking as if it isn't as likely (if not more) that the country just turn full on fascist instead, as is usually the case when Europeans run their economies into the dirt.

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