"Fighting for Reforms Without Becoming a Reformist" by Robin Hahnel

I really liked this reading. I think that it's because it was written fairly recently (2005) so I found that I was able to relate to the way it was written better than I was to some of the older texts that we've read for class. 

I think that there are two very telling quotes from this text. The first is, "It turns out that capitalism is far more resilient than revolutionary socialists expected it to be." I think that this is one of the core ideas of studying socialism. True capitalists will always fear and reject socialism as an economic system. American governments have always wanted to spread "democracy" to undemocratic countries, and capitalism usually follows democracy. 

The other important quote from this passage is: "There is nothing wrong with the notion of winning reforms. If reforms are successful they will make capitalism less harmful to some extent. If winning a reform further empowers people, and whets their appetite for more democracy, more economic justice, and more environmental protection than capitalism can provide, it can hasten the democratic creation of an alternative to capitalism. As a matter of fact, that is a concise description of precisely what democratic socialists must be about." 

I think that nearly every political belief or ideology has a similar sort of notion. It's the whole idea of easing people into an idea so as not to scare them. When the people realize that the political belief isn't as bad as they originally thought, they want more.