I think Fred has gone over the top in a) concentrating on the moderator's headline for the post on Vietnam b) declaring such headline to be "obscene."
The issue is not the appropriateness of the headline but the content of the analysis. The "development" of golf courses does not occur in isolation, either domestically or internationally. It occurs after the collapse of the USSR, the incorporation, literally, of state supported private capitalism into countries and economies with production relations that could be described, at best, as extensions or parallels to those of the USSR. It occurs with the production of a real, conscious, bourgeoisie in these countries rather than simple bureaucrats and administrators of the impulse to capitalist restoration. So we should ask Fred, and others so dismissive of the concerns of others that they use terms like "obscene," "defeatist," "hysterical," to give us their evaluation of the overall trend. We should ask those insisting on the insignificance of golf courses, resort hotels, beach clubs, and their associated activities like gambling, prostitution, etc., who gains, who prospers from the golf courses, the resort hotels, the beach clubs, and their associated activities like gambling and prostitution etc? Workers or emerging bourgeoisie, or perhaps in a quasi-left channelling of Milton Friedman, do both workers and bourgeoisie prosper, and should we all applaud with our invisible hands the genius of the free market? We should ask Fred and the others: Are these golf courses and hotels and their associated activities produced for their use-value, or are they produced as exchange value in order to garner exchange value? It is not critical analysis that is a sign of impotence, of accommodation and resignation to whatever existing moment appears in capitalism, it is the unwillingness to engage in such critical analysis that stands as the real impotence. ----- Original Message ----- From: "Fred Feldman" <[email protected]> To: "David Schanoes" <[email protected]> Sent: Saturday, October 24, 2009 4:58 AM Subject: Re: [Marxism] Is this what Ho Chi Minh died for? ________________________________________________ YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. Send list submissions to: [email protected] Set your options at: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
