Dear guys,
1. You need to sort out definitions. Democracy is the term used for one person
one vote. States of affairs are states of affairs and should be specified as
you did: peace, etc. Socialism in economics is defined as state ownership of
capital goods; if that is too narrow, widen it.
2. I have always thought that the Achilles Heel of Marxist thought was the
reluctance to specify much about socialism -- the allergy to cookbooks, as it
were. To that my reply is, "Hello, we tried that with Lenin. He had no clue
once he took over. Then we got Stalin." Maybe it would be nice the next time to
have a plan BEFORE taking over.
>Michael Perelman writes:
>
>>> Capitalism has had centuries to try to get it right. No country has
>>> ever really instituted socialism, which began in poor countries with
>>> serious external threats. Even so, the growth in the USSR and China was
>>> impressive.
>>>
>>> Marx said that he did not write cookbooks. He could not determine how
>>> things should be done. I am not sure that Jim D's 51% is the way to go.
>
>Utter copout. Why am I more interested in the mechanics of socialism than you
>are?
>
>Let's me ask a related question which I kind of danced around in the prior
>posts. In your view, Is "socialism" a process of governance ("one person, one
>vote"), or is it a description of a state of affairs ("peace, clean air and
>water, and social and economic equality"). If it is a process, what if the
>voters vote to permit private property relations, or inequality, or NASCAR
>racing? Must the voters vote in a certain way for the society to retain the
>"socialist" label? And if it is a state of affairs, what if the state of
>affairs is achieved through centralization and/or authoritarian rule? Can a
>society retain the "socialist" label if the decision-makers are an enlightened
>elite?
>
>David Shemano
>
>
>_______________________________________________
>pen-l mailing list
>[email protected]
>https://lists.csuchico.edu/mailman/listinfo/pen-l
>
>
_______________________________________________
pen-l mailing list
[email protected]
https://lists.csuchico.edu/mailman/listinfo/pen-l
