re: your post of Tue, 21 Dec 1999 22:43:52 -0500
A quick reponse.
What do you mean by communism? Is the organizational form or your communism
hierarchical as in the 'Etatism' of Stalin's Russia? What are the
operational sets of values that are at work in capitalism (how about
unconstrained liberty, inequality, and law of the jungle competition) and
in your communism (how about liberty constained by state in all dimensions,
inequality, and forced fraternity of war time trenches (see B. Crick,
Socialist Values and Time, Fabian Society)?
In defining an ideal system why not start with a base camp position that
what we humans are all about or ought to be all about is to create the
conditions for the free and full development of each person as the
conditions for the free and full development of all (Marx and Engels).
Subsequent logac may get one to the realization that the operational set of
values that seems likely to best do that is: liberty morally constrained by
not doing injustice to others; equality, defined as the eliimination of all
unjustifiable inequalities (something society can't get by any other means
would seem to be a justification for an inequality); and community
mindfulness.
The words of this 'trinity' of secular values seems preferable to the old
fashioned liberty, equality and fraternity. Negative freedom or "freedom
from something" fits in as freedom from injustice done to you by others.
Note this puts the emphasis on the positive developmental freedom to do or
to become of each that is missing in conventional liberalism, ie.,
capitalism (private bureaucracy governs, including the government) and in
etatism (state bureaucracy governs all) where unmorally constrained liberty
dominates the argument in each and developmental freedom is assured only to
those who dominate).
What is 'left', I think, is a flatter participatory democracy which can be
thought of as social democracy or a full democracy of human rights
consistent with the UN UDHR.
It helps to ask what sort of society do you want to live in and what sort
of society would you like to leave to your children and grandchildren.
Justice is impossible in both capitalism and etatism so we struggle,
however slowly, for social democracy. Having the definitions straight seems
to help in some sense.
>Dear f/w friends
>
>Time, perhaps for a next step in this.
>
>My guess might be that few of us see capitalism as *the* last word in social
>and global management ('That which has a start also has an end' and so on.)
>
>I think, that, if we are to have any chance of defining a better system (at
>least one, practically, that we could get to within our? life-times!), then
>defining 'where we are now' is one fair place to start.
>
>Ok, Ok, I accept that defining tangibles and intangibles is a slippery task.
>tho' key to that is to try to untangle cause from effects (Dilbert:
>"Capitalism; The harder I work, the fatter my boss becomes." - a description
>of cansequences rather than cause - this definition is equally true of other
>heirarchy-based systems!)
>
>Hence I accept, full well, that the operational level of definition that I
>took from the Oxford Dictionary ("Private ownership of the means of
>production and their use for private profit' - I paraphrase a bit) is a
>start only, but this will get us along.)
>
>(Consider, for example, the fact that the above has an 'ethical' component
>behind it - that ownership of anything is realistically possible,which we
>could challenge, *but* let's leave that to one side for while.)
>
>
>So, the OD definition leads to the start of the following start to a table
>of possibilities:
>
>
>Economic system Ownership of productive assets Ownership of benefits
>
>Capitalism Private Private
>
>Communism Public Public
>(Theoretical?)
>
>
> OK, f/w friends, any others?
>
>Hugs
>
>john
>
>***********
Dr. W. Robert Needham
Director, Canadian Studies Program
St. Paul's United College
University of Waterloo
Waterloo Ontario N2L 3G5
http://arts.uwaterloo.ca/ECON/faculty/needham.html
