<nettime> Thoughts on coups

[Max Herman <maxnmherman@hotmail.com>]

Hi all,

Can we say that coups have now become quantum, both happening and not happening at the same time in a cloud of probability?

Classical Marxism, if I am correct, predicted that capitalism would inevitably collapse and disappear to be replaced by a system in which the workers control the means of production.  Later, Leninism declared that revolutionary intelligentsia must assist (partly for ethical reasons) in hastening the collapse by direct action, and later Stalinism declared that totalitarian enforcement of capitalist collapse (by totalistic nationalism) was also necessary and hence ethically permissible.  (I've read that Lenin incidentally did not agree with Stalinism, at the end, but called it "nationalist socialism" barely if at all distinguishable from the revolution in 1930's Germany.)

What if socialism has also won the Cold War, i.e. a system has prevailed in which periodic bubbles are cushioned by ever-replenishing state bailouts?  The collapse is merely quantized now, in something like an eternal return.  And just as necessarily, every marginal coup is repulsed by a rebirth of democracy every so often and of limited scope a la Montaigne's perpetual see-saw.

Apologies if someone has already articulated this and done so much better, and for any ethical flaws of which I'm oblivious this sunny afternoon.

Very best regards,

Max

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