In answer to Carrol Cox, Jim Devine, and Ted Winslow, respectively: Apparently there is no way to look ahead and prevent another disaster like the Soviet Union totalitarian state capitalism in a developing country disguised as a socialist revolution. The freedom that is socialism can exist only under a dictatorship. That makes no sense.
The question is precisely about the system, since any system can be spoiled by a lunatic. If it is impossible to prevent the rise of such a leader as Jim Devines argument seems to suggest then socialism is not a liberated zone, though it may be an egalitarian one. If there is no royal road to the future, if both capitalism and socialism involve suffering for most people, then there is not much point in choosing between them. >"Socialism" will be a product of "human" labour, the defining >characteristics of which are elaborated by Marx as follows: > >"what distinguishes the worst architect from the best of bees is this, >that the architect raises his structure in imagination before he >erects it in reality. At the end of every labour-process, we get a >result that already existed in the imagination of the labourer at its >commencement. He not only effects a change of form in the material on >which he works, but he also realises a purpose of his own that gives >the law to his modus operandi, and to which he must subordinate his >will. And this subordination is no mere momentary act. Besides the >exertion of the bodily organs, the process demands that, during the >whole operation, the workmans will be steadily in consonance with his >purpose." > >So it can only come into existence where the majority of individuals >have developed the "powers" - the degree of "enlightenment" - required >of the the very good "architects" who are to first "imagine" it, i.e. >create a "blueprint" for it, and then "erect it in reality". The >"erecting" requires the same developed intellectual and other "powers" >as the "imagining" because the "purpose" - "socialism" - "gives the >law to his modus operandi" so that to this "law" "he must subordinate >his will." > >"Despotism", as Marx points out, is not the product of "individuals" >who are "enlightened" in the above sense; it's the product of >individuals who are "superstitious" and "prejudiced". > >Marx, for example, makes the "superstition" and "prejudice" of masses >of mid-nineteenth century French peasants responsible for the >despotism of the Bonaparte dynasty. > >"The Bonaparte dynasty represents not the revolutionary, but the >conservative peasant; not the peasant who strikes out beyond the >condition of his social existence, the small holding, but rather one >who wants to consolidate his holding; not the countryfolk who in >alliance with the towns want to overthrow the old order through their >own energies, but on the contrary those who, in solid seclusion within >this old order, want to see themselves and their small holdings saved >and favored by the ghost of the Empire. It represents not the >enlightenment but the superstition of the peasant; not his judgment >but his prejudice; not his future but his past; not his modern >Cevennes [A peasant uprising in the Cevennes mountains in 1702-1705] >but his modern Vendée.[119] [A peasant-backed uprising against the >French Revolution in the French province of Vendée, in 1793]" >http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1852/18th-brumaire/ch07.htm > >By the way, even if you put just the word "cookbooks" into the search >engine at marxists.org no text containing it is found. Where exactly >in Marx's writings is the claim found? > >Ted > > >_______________________________________________ >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
