| Theory |
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Bourgeois Socialism -- Exploring the Depths October 5, 2003 by RedStar2000 |
Sometimes I think what it must be like for someone "new" to the "left"...what a morass of bitter controversies they have before them. What "ought" to be simple and straightforward turns out to be enormously complicated. I'm sure there must be some who simply throw up their hands in disgust.
But social reality is complicated and changing it is even more complicated. Without knowing what has been done, what went wrong, etc., it is just about inevitable that errors will be replicated and efforts will be wasted.
Someone has suggested that, among other things, we communists are the "memory" of the working class. It's not a "fun job". Mostly, it involves telling people that their "exciting new idea" is a century old, was tried, and totally failed. People don't like you for telling them that, even if it's true...especially if it's true.
But it is something that needs to be done. We cannot progress if we do not learn from past experience.
So I, at least, am willing to help do it...and hope that people will learn.
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We really do need to stop bickering and present some sort of united front. Even if this front masks differences which can be resolved later, and discussed (preferably without rancour) privately.
Translation: we need to do a better job of fooling people into supporting "us".
Honesty is for "losers".
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It's easier to reach communism from Socialism than from Capitalism.
History has shown us that the exact opposite is true. Thus far, "socialism" has invariably led back to capitalism (the jury is still out on Cuba).
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I’d urge the ‘perfectionists’ to take a good hard look at the reality of what they are proposing, and ask themselves if they seriously think it can be achieved. Then I’d urge them to get behind the common movement and treat their specific demands as very definitely ones of detail. They’d need to say ‘I’d support anything democratically mandated, but I’d urge that my specific views be considered’.
Not a chance, squire.
To engage in politics in a principled way is to make the best determination one can of what is desirable and then to fight for that...regardless of the chances of immediate or proximate "success". One is in it for "the long haul".
Those who wish for a seat in parliament (or on the central committee) have different priorities...and we know what they are.
And what they're worth.
As to supporting "anything democratically mandated", that's simply absurd on its face.
One respects a majority; one does not worship it.
Majorities are simply a "snap-shot" of the views of those present and voting at a given moment...and are subject to change at the next moment.
If a majority approves "an unjust law", one cannot sit back and say "well, that's it, the majority has spoken, we must obey".
Quite the contrary: the communist obligation is to wage the most vigorous and public dissent from an "unjust majority" and, in extreme cases, to openly defy such laws.
One would naturally hope that such occasions do not arise; but if they do arise, then we know how we ought to respond.
Not with servility, but with defiance.
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First posted at Che-Lives on September 22, 2003
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History records a number of socialist movements which had various amounts of success and those that are still in existence are at various stages of socialist realisation (having in most cases had the inevitable ups and downs, advances and reverses, and made [perhaps temporary] accommodations to harsh reality).
You must have put a lot of effort into that paragraph, squire. That is world-class weaseling.
"Various stages of socialist realization", my arse!
They have all either re-established capitalism or are in the process of doing so. The only marginal exception to this trend is Cuba...and who knows what will happen there once Castro leaves the scene.
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Every single one of those movements which had some success was actually founded basically on a Leninist approach.
Almost true...but if you give them credit for their initial "successes", then you must also "credit" them with all the ultimate defeats.
Cuba, of course, did not have a significant Leninist party until a couple of years after the revolution.
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You cannot argue that my way does not work, because it has never been tested either.
No, as I noted in a number of earlier posts, your perspective was extensively tried both prior to World War I and in the inter-war years by various social democratic parties.
There were certainly some significant nationalizations and an extensive welfare system was created. They all said that these were the "first steps towards socialism".
But they weren't.
Even if it were still possible for your approach to win significant electoral approval, you would try to do the same things that the social democrats did.
And you would fail, as they did.
It's not a matter of personal ineptitude or villainy; it's just the wrong tool (bourgeois parliament) for the wrong job (Socialism, Inc.).
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You don't climb a mountain without staging posts. You don't start your swimming career off by attempting to cross the channel, blah, blah, blah...
You're repeating yourself, squire. So I will repeat myself: communist revolution is not a "linear process"...it is a massive and spontaneous uprising that "breaks all the old rules".
The "step-by-step" process of "reaching socialism" that you envision has not only failed the test of history but was probably always based on a mis-understanding of how class societies change from one form to another.
The bourgeois "revolution" in England was a rather "peaceful" transition as such things go; in most places it was far more turbulent and involved abrupt and violent episodes...revolutions, in fact.
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Then you have the somewhat thorny question of 'rise up against what exactly?'. In those countries where socialist revolutions have had some success there has always been a clear target. There actually were very obvious elites and class boundaries with definite and large distinctions. This simply is not the case in western nations.
Yes, it is the case. The enemy is quite clear to me and to others...even if we are a very small minority. As things "get worse", the enemy will become clear to most working people.
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I already know your answer, you'll be very vague.
Would you prefer that I play the charlatan and make detailed predictions concerning events that may not take place for 50-400 years and under circumstances of which I have no knowledge?
You probably would prefer that; all the more reason for me to decline the "honor".
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YOU CANNOT REVOLT UNLESS THERE IS SOMETHING DISTINCT TO REVOLT AGAINST, and in advanced liberal democracies or social democracies there just isn't a target.
Bourgeois rubbish!
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I don't know what to say to you really. I'm going against my own pleas in a way when I criticise you; but I cannot see how to find any sort of a compromise with someone who simply won't contemplate the notion that he might not be 100% correct and who preaches essentially doing nothing positive.
I agree, no compromise is possible. What you see as "positive" is, in my view, reformist crap.
Perhaps I'm wrong in that assessment.
Let history judge.
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First posted at Che-Lives on September 27, 2003
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You appear to view any society that is not Redstarist as Capitalist.
No, I view countries that are not communist or still mired in pre-capitalist formations as capitalist.
Of course there are many differences among them, a few of them significant (geography, climate, natural resources, level of technological development, etc.).
But they are capitalist...that is their dominant characteristic.
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You recognise no gradations and seem incapable of seeing anything as intermediate, anything as compromise, or anything as progress towards anything.
Frankly, this sounds downright mystical. What are you talking about here, squire? Do you mean something like "if country A has a more generous welfare system than country B, then country A is closer to 'socialism' than country B"?
Because if that's what you're getting at, then you're just being absurd.
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This leads to the absolutely ludicrous situation where you are talking as if every nation in the world (except Cuba apparently) had the same social and political system. Or at least that they are all equally far from 'socialism'.
An amusing caricature of my views. I've said many times that I expect proletarian revolution in the most advanced capitalist countries first.
So did Marx and Engels.
Which one is "closest" is a ludicrous speculation.
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China, for example, very clearly does not have the same socio-economic system as the USA. Now I'd say it is closer to socialism; what do you say?
It's capitalist...and the superficial features that might suggest otherwise are clearing changing year by year in the direction of resemblance to the U.S.
That does not mean it will ever be "a perfect copy" of the U.S.--it simply means that to all intents and purposes its ruling class operates in the same way and to the same ends as the American ruling class.
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According to you they have been tried and have failed because we don't already see a fully fledged Socialist nation anywhere.
We don't even see a "partially-fledged" socialist nation...whatever that might be. We see capitalism everywhere, except for a couple of anomalies (see below).
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No, there was not a Leninist party in Cuba originally. But there most certainly was a Leninist approach (a vanguard) taken right from the outset.
Apparently, it was the "price" of assistance from the USSR. I don't think the Cubans wanted it.
Be that as it may, yes, I certainly "admit" that both Cuba and North Korea are anolamies...if history were "neat" and "orderly", they would not exist in their present forms. Cuba would be "like" Costa Rica or Jamaica and North Korea would be "like" Thailand or, perhaps, Indonesia.
It took a congruence of "low-probability circumstances" to make those countries what they are.
But I hardly see how their existence in their present forms supports your case for "progress".
In the case of Cuba, it appears as if the combination of foreign capitalist investment and dollar-remittances from exiles is slowly but surely re-creating a capitalist "culture" there.
However benign the intentions of the Communist Party of Cuba--who, unlike the vast majority of Leninist parties, actually turned out to be pretty decent "shepherds"--I see no imaginative efforts on their part to stop, much less reverse this process.
Putting U.S. agents in prison is all well and good; putting more real power in the hands of the Cuban working class remains "outside" of their paradigm...unimaginable.
It would be "communistic"...that is, "utopian".
The case of North Korea I have discussed elsewhere; it is a modern version of Confucianist "Asiatic" despotism...poorly disguised with "Marxist" rhetoric. Its leading circles are already planning the introduction of "special economic zones"...the same method that Deng used in China to "open" that country to the establishment of capitalism.
To use words like "progress" in this context seems to me to be unwarranted, to say the least.
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All you need to do is describe in real terms what the target would be today.
A rather pointless speculation, don't you think? Even if we disagree about everything else, I think we would both agree that proletarian revolution is not on history's agenda "today".
Still, if you want to play "what if", I'm willing.
If there were a proletarian revolution in the United Kingdom tomorrow morning, who would be the target?
Well, who owns and runs the U.K. today? What are their names and where do they live? Not being a resident of your "green and pleasant land", I can't be specific...but I know they exist.
When the working class takes command of their workplaces, occupies and destroys the "command & control" sites of the old regime, captures and executes as many of the "leading figures" of the old regime as they can...is there any doubt as to what is the "target"?
You will suggest that people don't perceive the leading figures of British society as the "enemy"...which is just another way of saying what I said: proletarian revolution is not presently on the agenda.
In addition, every worker knows the identity of her/his own boss...and whether or not there should be a place for that individual in communist society. They will decide all by themselves who deserves an amnesty and who deserves to be made "shorter by a head". Who is better qualified to make that decision?
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I am not remotely a social democrat; you have been told this probably a 100 times; it has been explained at length to you; yet because you feel that by repeating it you will discredit me, without having to go to the trouble of actually finding real flaws in what I suggest, you make endless reference to it as though it were a fact.
Frankly, I am astounded that you continue to deny the obvious parallels between you and social-democracy circa 1912.
Perhaps that is what upsets you; you think I am referring to the social democrats as they are now (capitalist, of course).
If so, you have misunderstood me; I think I even made it explicit in one post--that you are a classical social democrat.
That does not mean "pro-capitalist" or a "traitor" to socialism.
The classical social democratic paradigm involved winning a majority in a bourgeois parliamentary election, forming a government, and introducing as much socialist legislation as they could, as quickly as possible...putting off communism to the distant future.
In an era (1875-1914) when faith in bourgeois "democracy" was at its high tide, this seemed to be "realistic" and "practical" for good reasons. The only people engaged in any kind of active resistance to capitalism "outside" of the "norms" of bourgeois society were a handful of nihilists and anarchists...denounced as romanticist terrorists (which some of them certainly were).
Social democracy was a "civilized" and "orderly" path to socialism...suitable for the "civilized" countries of western Europe and North America.
It took the horrors of World War I to reveal what lies beneath the surface of capitalist "civilization"...and the utter futility of appealing to "a sense of decency" amongst barbarians in suits and ties or uniforms.
You are an anachronism, squire. You still want to appeal to "law" and "decency" and "good will" towards a class of people who know only greed and murder...who have demonstrated those priorities throughout the bloody 20th century and who demonstrate them right now.
I don't understand why you so vehemently reject the obvious parallel between your views and those of classical social democracy...but as you will.
I will be perfectly content to cease describing you as a social democrat or as a reformist (the latter, by the way, comes from your frequent assertions that "incremental" change is both possible and desirable).
It just means I will have to write a couple of sentences instead of a couple of words, that's all.
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First posted at Che-Lives on September 28, 2003
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What a fabulous rant!
Almost totally lacking in substantive content, acrid, semi-coherent, utterly venomous, and with a dollop or two of sheer idiocy.
Where others merely attempt, you succeed!
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...what a social democrat means by Socialism does not mean the same things I stand for. It didn't mean it [in] 1900 any more than it means it today. No social democrat ever has suggested eliminating liberal property laws.
But they did! Are you just ignorant of these matters? Upon winning a majority in parliament, they fully intended to nationalize everything of significance. Why the hell do you suppose Engels had anything to do with them? Before 1914, they were not reformists.
Perhaps you should just go read some things about these folks...maybe you would actually find that you actually like their ideas.
You ought to...they're the same as yours.
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It is nice to finally know what your revolution would do. Lots of people would be attacked and killed by mobs. That's about it as far as I can see.
Given your general political myopia, that's about what I would expect you to see.
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This would mean any unpopular person with any supervisory experience whatsoever apparently.
Quite possibly.
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What you are planning is an orgy of hate and destruction. With not a positive idea in sight. Very nice matey, and very in keeping with the attitude I say you have (an entirely negative spite filled one).
See, every time I actually answer one of your questions, you don't like the answer.
In fact, you don't like the idea of proletarian revolution at all! To you it's just "an orgy of hate and destruction" without any "positive ideas".
Every member of the old ruling class will agree with you.
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You want a crude (but effective) rule of thumb? It's easy - taxation. Where you have 100% taxation on personal profit you practically have socialism by a different name. So a nation that taxes personal profit at 50% could be said to be halfway to being socialist in spirit; whereas one with a rate of only 10% would be 90% capitalist. This sort of stuff is not hard; but not absolute enough for you because it actually requires thought, not dogma.
If I were as "mean-spirited" as you think I am, I would bookmark this quote and throw it back at you constantly...as it is the most idiotic "idea" that I've ever seen expressed on this board.
The present top bracket of the federal income tax in the U.S. is about 30% -- so according to you, the U.S. is "30% socialist".
Sheer lunacy.
(As a side note: the effective tax rate is quite different for different classes. According to a statistic I saw some 10 years ago but which, as you might imagine, stuck in my mind, the effective tax rate--including all forms of taxation--for the lowest one-third of the American population was about 20%, for the middle one-third about 14%, and for the top guys less than 10%. Some classes are "closer to socialism" than others, perhaps?)
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Fundamentally RS you don't seem to really believe IN anything. You believe in destruction of the system and all the people that you have so obviously failed to make an impression on all your life. It's the words of a bitter twisted, and malicious hack you spout. You've simply found an idea which allows you to say 'Kill em all'; and avoid looking like a twisted failure. But you are a disgrace to that idea.
Yep, I'm as bad as they come, all right. Totally evil right down to the bone!
But as long as we're getting personal here...how about yourself, squire? What shall we say of someone who declares himself opposed to proletarian revolution and communist society and yet still wishes to be regarded as a "Marxist"? Someone who is horrified by the deaths of a few hundred thousand assholes but thinks the United States--murderer of millions--is "30 per cent socialist"? Someone whose "socialism" retains a market economy and wage-slavery? Someone who still takes bourgeois ceremonial elections seriously? Someone who distrusts the working class at best and despises the "lower orders" at worst?
Marx once spoke of "bourgeois socialists"...and I'm beginning to think he had a point.
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First posted at Che-Lives on September 28, 2003
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Now tell me about these Social Democrats who intended to nationalise everything. Are you by any chance talking of a particular political party in a single country, which in some magical way I am supposed to guess at, and who for some reason you feel should be taken as the only true 'Social Democrats'?
Well, the Social Democratic Party of Germany was considered the "crown jewel" of the 2nd International...although more for its sheer size than because it differed politically from the others.
Try this...
The Erfurt Program of 1891
Notice how "practical" it is?
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It's pretty obvious they did not mean eliminate private ownership in the means of production immediately , as I do, no matter what they actually did mean.
No, squire, you very definitely do not mean "immediately". You're just trying to sound "radical". A "practical" guy like you would proceed in a very careful, well-planned way.
Don't pretend to "breath fire" for my sake...it's simply not in your nature to do so.
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But almost ludicrously you tell me that before renouncing these ideas they were not reformist.
No, by the standards of pre-World War I Marxism, they were not reformist. They only became so after the war and that only in practice. (Curiously, they didn't get around to dumping their "Marxist dogma" until 1959!)
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I would say as a very rough estimate that the USA is probably 10-20% socialist.
Well, if you are now speaking of the tax on corporate profits, I frankly do not know. I know that the newspapers here every year usually report the "scandalous" fact that this or that major corporation had X amount of huge profits and paid zero tax. The share of federal revenues from corporate taxation has declined pretty steadily from sometime in the late 1950s, if I am not mistaken.
Not that the numbers matter, of course. It's simply a proposition too ludicrous to take seriously.
I actually have heard people argue that if 5 percent of the means of production is owned by the government, that "means" that the country is 5 percent "socialist".
Your proposition is even sillier than that!
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Nor am I enamoured of your George Bush approach where people are either '100% with us or 100% against'.
I think it unlikely that he learned his approach from me; I know I've learned nothing from him.
But he has a point, you know. You really are either "for" the American Empire or "against" it.
You really are in favor of proletarian revolution or against it.
Your position is clear--against!
Under such circumstances, that makes your views on nationalization essentially irrelevant...even if achievable, it would be Socialism, Inc.
Which makes you a bourgeois socialist, does it not?
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First posted at Che-Lives on September 29, 2003
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This is pretty basic stuff for lefties, squire...but I'm willing to try and spell it out for you once more...even though I don't think it will help.
1. German Social Democracy before World War I clearly intended to nationalize everything as soon as practicable.
2. You agree with this; your "immediacy" runs contrary to everything you've said on this board concerning practicality and incremental change.
3. German Social Democracy after World War I, when it was actually in power, abandoned the goal of nationalization in practice and concentrated on incremental reforms.
4. You say you "won't" do this--hence the parallel between you and classical social democracy.
5. Modern social democracy (after 1959) became openly pro-capitalist.
6. You have not done this...yet.
7. During World War I, the vast majority of German Social Democracy supported German imperialism.
8. You have said that you may or may not support imperialist war, depending on the circumstances.
9. The classical social democrats and you both agree that the road to power is through existing bourgeois parliamentary institutions.
10. Your belief in incremental change, "compromise", etc. inclines you towards a practical policy of reformism...regardless of your verbal commitment to the fully nationalized economy that you call socialism.
If you had the chance (a majority in parliament), all the signs point towards you acting in the same way the social democrats did.
You will heatedly deny this, of course...and with complete sincerity, no doubt.
The problem is that the German Social Democrats were also sincere. It didn't help.
Certain kinds of strategies lead, with considerable predictability, to certain kinds of outcomes. If you set up a "democratic centralist" party and manage to come to power, the outcome is going to be something "like" a Stalin.
And if you follow in the footsteps of German Social Democracy and "succeed" as they did, you'll eventually end up with a Gerhard Shroeder or someone very much like him.
As I noted earlier, this is not a result of ineptitude or perfidy...it is within the very logic of that kind of politics--ultimately bourgeois regardless of the rhetoric.
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Are you really so mentally ill that you think you are better placed then me to interpret my thoughts?
Overcoming the temptation to offer a flippant response, I would say that it's not a matter of "reading your mind" but rather reading your posts and where they "fit" in the history of the "left".
Anyone reasonably informed about the history of social democracy and the parliamentary road "to" "socialism" would have no difficulty making the same evaluation that I have.
I suspect that you think your ideas are yours...and to suggest that many people had those ideas a century ago seems to you to be somehow "insulting"...that would certainly explain a good deal of your belligerence.
It's true, of course, that your "free market" version of social democracy is, thus far, unique to you (as far as I know). I'm pretty sure the classical social democrats would have rejected the idea instantly (though Lenin's New Economic Policy had much in common with your approach).
But I don't think that's a major stumbling block to your future membership in some Green Party (for example)--they are in many ways the modern counterpart to classical social democracy. Also, I think you would be acceptable in some of the "looser" and more "congenial" Leninist parties (but definitely not Trotskyist).
You appear to me to be obsessed with the notion that I bear you personal animosity and that my characterizations of your positions are "designed" to "make you look bad".
No, squire, it is history and experience of which I speak...as clearly as I can.
Your repeated personal attacks on me make about as much impression as a barking dog on a passenger jet.
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First posted at Che-Lives on September 30, 2003
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God you are a twat.
...blah, blah, blah...
Whinging and whining as you do will achieve nothing. It never does.
More incoherent ranting.
A reply seems unnecessary.
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Redstar is a master deceiver, a pied piper, and not to be relied upon for a true account of almost anything or anybody.
See above.
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I'm going to tell you something. I've actually been involved (on the periphery not as a fighter or activist) with revolution and revolutionaries. They don't talk about waiting for it. What makes them revolutionaries is that they actually go and do it. NOW. They don't talk about 'waiting a few hundred years'; they say 'we have tried other methods and failed, the people are with us, we will ACT'. You don't 'plan for' a revolution before you have support. A revolution occurs when you have the support but not the power or means to do anything else except revolt with it.
Incoherent, of course, but there is at least a quasi-rational thought there.
The key element is "the people are with us". What does that actually mean in a revolutionary context?
Leninists--at least officially--think it means "the people will follow us". A small group of "leaders" issue the "call" and the people "respond".
It's a common misconception that one can "plan for" a revolution at all...with or without the people. One can plan a coup d'etat. One can plan a strike or even a limited insurrection. One can always plan one's own actions...in the event X takes place, we will do Y.
"Planning" a real revolution makes as much sense as planning an earthquake or a hurricane. It cannot be done.
You can participate in a revolution; you can advocate that this be done and that be avoided. You can offer a "vision" of what revolutionary success would actually mean...and require.
I suspect that what a good many "revolutionaries" actually mean by "planning for revolution now" is simply developing the framework of a "new order" for after the earthquake is over. The last thing they want to see is the continuing direct involvement of millions of ordinary people in the process.
Which is precisely the first thing that I want to see.
Something that to you is "utopian", "impractical", "will never work", etc., etc., etc.
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Committed people don't wait for things to 'be right' they go out and make them so.
Yes, all will be well if we'll only just "work harder" and "stop whinging".
Bourgeois rubbish.
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First posted at Che-Lives on September 30, 2003
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Which is yet another reason why your spontaneous revolution without organisation wont happen.
Without organization?
I'm quite sure there will be many small organizations (and perhaps some larger ones) that will agitate for and participate in the proletarian revolution. Where did I ever suggest otherwise?
What they won't do is lead it.
I'm also quite sure that in the years immediately preceding proletarian revolution that the working class will create its own mass organizations of class struggle (perhaps at the suggestion of some of the small groups) and that those organs will become more and more openly revolutionary as "the day" approaches.
The pot will bubble and boil before it explodes...I should think that would be obvious.
That you choose to indirectly portray the actual experiences of February 1917 Petrograd, 1936 Barcelona, and the French General Strike of May 1968 as "miraculous" events that "will never happen again" simply reveals your own hope that they will never happen again.
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There will always need to be a vanguard committed enough to take the initiative.
There will be many "vanguards" who will take many "initiatives".
What there will not be--if I have anything to say about it--is a VANGUARD who will run the show!
Not even a "practical" one.
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...therefore when I say that I wish to see the continuing direct involvement of millions of people this is in fact what I do want.
And I don't believe you. Not because I think you're a conscious "liar", but because I think you have deceived yourself...or perhaps are simply confused.
The totality of your views as expressed on this board has been characterized by faith in "expert leadership", by the belief that problems of production and distribution are "too complicated" for people to work out (thus retaining the market, money, and wage-slavery is the "only" option), and by the belief that the liberty of the people consists mainly of voting for someone to "represent" them, etc.
Of course, you are not 100% consistent...sometimes you're in "favor" of direct democracy, sometimes you sound almost Leninist, etc. But I think your "heart" is with a "better version" of what we have now.
Class Society 4.0?
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In short you do not suggest a practical way for them all to be involved without simply becoming a messy disorganised and hideously inefficient mass of squabbling individuals.
Well, I have suggested "practical" things that might be done; from the viewpoint of your "market dogmatism", they are all "impractical".
Safe prediction: you will always see any effort to transcend the market as "impractical".
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I don't hate Redstar's guts. I do despise him because he encourages the sort of passive mindlessness that can lead someone whose sole contribution is to 'talk about it' and yet still proclaim that he is a revolutionary.
"Talk" is what people do on a message board. That's all anyone does.
Even you, squire.
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Redstar invited this trouble with me. I like others before me have swallowed my ire and offered to take it outside. He declined. Now he has got me in his face and I'm going to be staying there pointing out the dogmatic lunacy that he spouts every time he reaches for a keyboard.
Something to look forward to.
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My revolutionaries would laff their sox off at your claim to be a kindred spirit.
"Your" revolutionaries?
Did you go out into that "free market place" and purchase yourself some?
You did, didn't you? That is, they let you hang out with them now and then because you gave them money.
That is so pathetic.
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First posted at Che-Lives on October 1, 2003
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Since you are now perfectly happy to have organisation of the revolution could you try and explain why this should not come in the form of 'unions' or 'political parties'. In fact you are going to have great difficulty doing anything except inventing a different name for the same things.
Not for the first time it becomes obvious that what you have a problem with is words not substance.
But regrettably you have also reversed your position on leadership. It's not that long ago you were telling me that while you would not accept organisation you would expect leaders to emerge. Now you don't want this, except of course that you do see vanguards who will take initiative (which is what leadership normally means)..
No, I have "reversed" nothing. See this...
A New Type of Communist Organization
Note that it was posted on November 22, 2002.
Normally, I would expect you to claim that you can't be bothered to look up "all my old rubbish".
Only this time, that's not a very good excuse...the link was also posted on a currently active thread in which you have also posted, in direct response to a question about my views on revolutionary organization.
My conception of leadership specifically repudiates the "power to command"...yours does not.
And that's a real difference!
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God, you do manage to confuse yourself in your endeavours to oppose everything, don't you.
It's all part of my world-wide conspiracy to reveal you as a gormless twit, squire.
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Are you ever going to learn that you cannot simply make up what you like about what other people say?
Are you ever going to learn that what you "say" has logical implications?
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You are starting to make me puke. I spend fully half my time on this board doing nothing but correcting the lies you tell about what I stand for.
Who knows what you stand for? It's a funny thing. You are always accusing me of telling people "what they want to hear"...and yet whenever I attempt to draw a logical inference from something you say, you squeal like a stuck pig--"I didn't say that; I'm not for that!"
Like you, I also have constraints on my time and energy. I can't spend forever trying to figure out "what you mean this time".
I think the "bottom line" is that you are a "bourgeois socialist", that your version of socialism (were it attainable) would be Socialism, Inc. (class society 4.0), and that there is a reasonably high probability that you will support an imperialist war in the future, perhaps the near future.
If there is a proletarian revolution in your lifetime, you will be opposed to it.
quote:
You have never suggested any way to run an economy so that what gets produced is what people want.
Your free market doesn't do that, by the way. At this writing, there are hundreds of vacant apartments in my city at rents too high for people to afford and there are thousands of homeless people who "want" an affordable place to live...which your market does not provide.
I did indeed on one occasion suggest that a central data base--keeping track of everything that was produced and consumed--would be useful in classless society. It would greatly assist producers in determining collectively what was most needed and consumers in determining what was available or likely to become available soon.
It would not be a center of control but rather a source of informed suggestions.
People could still say no.
It really gets to you when people say no, doesn't it?
It's so...negative.
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First posted at Che-Lives on October 1, 2003
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