Eva Durant wrote:
>
>
> > > Who was talking about any final
> > > solution? I find such a strawman a tad offensive.
> >
> > And, believe me, I was sensitive to the implication of the term;
> > however, your uncompromising views do give the impression that you can
> > see only one solution, and that
> > that solution is the final one. But, even so, I do apologize for giving
> > in to my baser
> > instincts.
> >
>
> Uncompromising means, not changing opinions even when
> presented rational reasons to do so. In the absence of such
> what can I do? What if my opinion is actually a good
> approximation to reality, such as, say, Newton's views
> on gravity? Was he uncompromising about these?
>
Hmmm. So, in your opinion, there is a final solution after all!
In a compromise one need not give up one's opinions (to which one is always
entitled); one may simply agree to put them on hold in order to get on
with life. In the case of
this listserv "life" is simply the stated issue for which it provides a
forum. (A compromise may also involve each side in a disagreement
merging views
to produce a mutually-acceptable position, but I don't that's likely in this
context.)
FUTUREWORK is an international e-mail forum for discussion of how to
>deal with the new realities created by economic globalization and
>technological change. Basic changes are occurring in the nature of work
>in all industrialized countries. Information technology has hastened the
>advent of the global economic village. Jobs that workers at all skill
>levels in developed countries once held are now filled by smart machines
>and/or in low-wage countries. Contemporary rhetoric proclaims the need
>for ever-escalating competition, leaner and meaner ways of doing
>business, a totally *flexible* workforce, jobless growth.
> ... etc.
To both collectivists and certain environmentalists discussing such short
range or limited issues is tantamount to shuffling deck chairs on the
Titanic. But, as
has been noted before, to muddle through a bit at a time, while frustrating,
may be the best approach. It at least holds out the prospect that
society may
attain a singular (critical) point at which a paradigm shift occurs and
the correct views are conceived and implemented.
The following is an extract from "The Communist Manifesto" by Marx and
Engels. How much of this has already been implemented? Or found to be
undesirable? Or outmoded by technological change?
"The proletariat will use its political supremacy to wrest, _by degrees_
(my emphasis), all
capital from the bourgeoisie, to centralise all instruments of
production in the hands of the State, i.e., of the proletariat
organised as
the ruling class; and to increase the total of productive
forces as rapidly as possible.
Of course, in the beginning, this cannot be effected except by means of
despotic inroads on the rights of property, and on the
conditions of bourgeois production; by means of measures, therefore, which
appear economically insufficient and untenable, but
which, in the course of the movement, outstrip themselves, necessitate
further inroads upon the old social order, 18) and are
unavoidable as a means of entirely revolutionising the mode of production.
These measures will of course be different in different countries. 19)
Nevertheless in the most advanced countries, the following will be pretty
generally applicable:
1.Abolition 20) of property in land and application of all rents of land
to public purposes.
2.A heavy progressive or graduated income tax. 21)
3.Abolition of all right of inheritance.
4.Confiscation of the property of all emigrants and rebels.
5.Centralisation of credit in the hands of the State, by means of a
national bank with State capital and an exclusive
monopoly.
6.Centralisation of the means of communication and transport 22) in the
hands of the State.
7.Extension of factories and instruments of production owned by the
State; the bringing into cultivation of waste-lands, and
the improvement of the soil generally in accordance with a common
plan.
8.Equal liability of all to labour. Establishment of industrial armies,
especially for agriculture.
9.Combination of agriculture with manufacturing industries; gradual
abolition of the distinction between town and country,
by a more equable distribution of the population over the country.
23)
10.Free education for all children in public schools. Abolition of
children's factory labour in its present form. Combination
of education with industrial production, &c., &c.
When, in the course of development, class distinctions have
disappeared, and
all production has been concentrated in the hands of
a vast association of the whole nation, 24) the public power will lose its
political character. Political power, properly so called, is
merely the organised power of one class for oppressing another. If the
proletariat during its contest with the bourgeoisie is
compelled, by the force of circumstances, to organise itself as a
class, if,
by means of a revolution, it makes itself the ruling class,
and, as such, sweeps away by force the old conditions of production,
then it
will, along with these conditions, have swept away the
conditions for the existence of class antagonisms and of classes generally,
and will thereby have abolished its own supremacy as a
class. "
Source: http://www.hartford-hwp.com/cp-usa/manifesto/man-2.html
--
http://publish.uwo.ca/~mcdaniel/
