Julien about Tahir, leeenglock, and John Bunzl:
Mr. Wood offers us a standard anti-reformist rant re: SP eventhough SP is not
the standard reformist thing...
>In those rare cases in history where politicians are
>elected to power who genuinely wish to curb some of the
>worst practices of large corporations (e.g. Allende in
>Chile; the Spanish 2nd Republic) the economic interests
>organise themselves into an alternative form of politics,
>namely the rightwing coup.
>
>The naivety seems to lie in the belief that those who
>control the economy are susceptible to purely rational and
>humane argumentation and that they can be swayed to bow to
>the will of the majority. But history has shown that if the
>will of the majority threatens their interests then
>'politics as usual' comes to a swift end. The ruling class
>rules through consent as far as possible, but if that is not
>possible it is still determined to rule. Or does history
>provide us with counter-examples?
First, I note the phrase "who genuinely wish to curb some of the worst practices
of large corporations" which could describe most politicans from the right as
well as the left. IMO, Mr. Wood phrased it like that to make us that it's extremely
rare that politicians are in any way not the total slaves of large corporations so
that we shouldn't expect any politician to go as far as opposing large
corporations... but we have minds to identify empty talk and rhetoric.
I think that we should then look a bit deeper in those two examples. They are
popularly associated with the concept of "government of the people" because
of the coups against them and not the other way around IMO. If you think
otherwise, may I ask you what was more prorgessive about those
governments than other leftwing ones like the French one of 1936. These
examples were obviously chosen by Mr.Wood to make us think that any
slightly progressive government will be attacked and to make us associate
ballot victory with failure.
There's something similar about these two cases, and I'm not thinking about
the spanish character or the catholic mentality or whatever. In those two cases,
the coups weren't purely internal affairs motivated solely by the ruling class
and economic interests but foreign powers who were probably motivated as
much by strategical factors as by political ones were involved. This takes us
away from Mr.Wood's caricatural world.
As to counter-examples, in most countries there has been some progress in
the way that the government regulates the economy at some periods, isn't it?
Compare 1925 with 1975 for example. How do you explain that? Maybe you'll
tell me that it was one more trick of the ruling class to quiet the people. I would
answer that if the ruling class does that, we must ask ourselves whether this
class is actually ruling and how we can make it trick us more and better.
leenglock breaks out news about the conspiracy:
>the majority are all the time manipulated using all the means
>available to the ruling classes. chomsky has written books
>like "manufacturing consent" which show clearly how easy
>it is to rule over sheep.
What's that book of Chomsky you've read? I read a few chapters of another
with exactly the same title but another content. odd. BTW, calling people
sheeps solves nothing.
John says:
>I agree. That is clearly an element of the SP policy proposals which
>requires alteration or a complete re-think. Any suggestions?
Here's a CL-talk post of the 24th of June:
>> Genetic code shall not be owned!
>> Down with bastard IP laws!
>> Burn the patents!
NO! Do not burn the patents. Make them available freely to anyone who
wants a copy.
I suggest instead of "Burn the patents!":
Burn the patent office!
Burn the patent lawyers!
Jos�
I think that the "Down with bastard IP laws!" line is the most relevant to your
"alteration". Since IP laws are good for "competitiveness" I presume, then we
shall wait with SP until each and every dictatorship of the world has agreed
with us before to get rid of those laws. The mere thought of this brings joy and
courage to my heart [irony alert].
If you want to re-think completely some stuff, I'll suggest you a thought
experiment. Imagine that a MIT economist deviced a magic wand to get rid of
the bad effect on "competitiveness" of any progressive measure. Would our
governments implement such measures? Then link the result of this
experiment with the concept of getting a handle on the real issue instead of
taking care of the smoke that some are making around it.
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