At 09:39 PM 1/25/98 -0800, you wrote:
>Pope Scolds Capitalism in Cuba
>
>By Victor L. Simpson
>Associated Press Writer
>Sunday, January 25, 1998; 2:29 p.m. EST
>
>HAVANA (AP) -- This communist island is not exactly on
>the verge of a free-market explosion, but there was Pope
>John Paul II, warning against ``capitalist neoliberalism'' and
>``blind market forces.''
etc.
My comment (WS):
I was reviewing the _Critique of the Gotha Programme_ over the weekend and
I realised how much different the Left's attitude is today. Back then,
Marx trashed the liberal reformers for their sentimentalist vision of the
economy instead of accepting the historical role of capitalism and
transcending it.
Today, the Left is happy if _any_ critique, even that from the mainstay of
reactionism such as the Vatican, is publically uttered.
What would Marx said about the Cuban problem today? He would probably
scoff at the attempt to build a sheltered island isolated form the sea of
capitalist globalization (there is no such a thing as socialism in one
country only). Globalization, like industruialization, creates objective
conditions to transcend national protectionism (which the Soviet style
"communism" was in disguise) and for the first time provide basis for a
truly universal (as opposed to national) working class.
>From that perspective, Castro' mustering papal support for his holdout
against being swallowed by neoliberal globalism is as, if not more,
retrograde than Lasalleanism chastised by marx in the Critique.
wojtek sokolowski
institute for policy studies
johns hopkins university
baltimore, md 21218
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
voice: (410) 516-4056
fax: (410) 516-8233
