From: Jim Devine . To the extent that these folks see themselves as socialist, they equate socialism with state ownership and/or control of the means of production, missing or minimizing the need for popular-democratic control of the state.
^^^^ CB: Marx, who saw himself as a socialist, emphasized abolishing private property and replacing private appropriation with social appropriation, and to each according to work, as characteristics of socialism. Marx and Engels succinctly define democracy as the working class as the ruling class. With modern mass societies, only republican or representative democratic control of the state, and through that ownership of the basic means of production and planning the giant economy, is feasible and viable. It is not feasible to have direct democratic control by tens of millions of workers. ^^^^^^^ (Sometimes they seem to assume that workers' control of the state prevails -- despite the clear lack of democracy -- perhaps due to the alleged ability of the CP to know and act on workers' long-term interests while ignoring its own collective interests and its members' individual interests.). ^^^^^^^ CB: Isn't most of the population in China peasants ? Democracy as majority rule in that circumstance would be peasants' control of the state. How are u defining democracy ? _______________________________________________ pen-l mailing list [email protected] https://lists.csuchico.edu/mailman/listinfo/pen-l
