I don't think the USSR or China should be seen (at least after the fact) as ever having a chance to build socialism. What they did was to bring their nations into the 20th-c. Compare (or contrast) India. No nation in history has modernized industrially without immense bloodshed: I doubt that in percentage terms Stalin came close to matching the record of the U.S. & England in this regard. Africa continues to suffer horribly as an almost direct result of the "process of industrialization" of England and the U.S. Judge China & the SU from that perspective, not form the perspective of a socialism which (so far) exists only in the mind. I think considering all, both nations did pretty damn well.
Carrol -----Original Message----- From: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Jim Devine Sent: Tuesday, April 17, 2012 11:12 AM To: Progressive Economics Subject: Re: [Pen-l] The austerity debate Carrol Cox wrote: > The capitalist mode of production is doing fine, thank you, however much > trouble the current economy may be. Economic collapse is no threat to the > capitalist mode of production. Only its revolutionary overthrow can do that. > Otherwise, as Rosa Luxemburg recognized, the barbarism can go on more or > less for ever. and there's a third alternative: socialist barbarism (e.g. the systems ruled by Stalin, Mao, etc.) > If you don't hit it, it won't fall. so how are we going to create a self-organized mass movement of the working class and other dominated segments of society that will "hit it"? a small bunch of isolated pen-pals can't do it. -- Jim Devine / "In science one tries to tell people, in such a way as to be understood by everyone, something that no one ever knew before. But in poetry, it's the exact opposite." -- Paul Dirac. Social science is in the middle.... and usually in a muddle. _______________________________________________ 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
