Carrol Cox wrote: > Rosa Luxemburg defined the "final goal" as "state power," specifically > excluding a "vague conception of socialism" as the final goal. She > recognized the necessity to view the "present as history" (i.e. from a > future perspective) but _also_ the need to avoid becoming entangled with > predictions (claiming a crystal ball); hence the goal that was to make > present activity intelligible had to be a hypothetical goal, such that > setting it did not depend on prophecy.
I think that Hal Draper makes a convincing case that both Marx and Engels thought that discussions and debates about socialist utopias were appropriate parts of working-class collective self-education. Engels wrote of "Socialism: Utopian and Scientific," not "Socialism: Utopian versus Scientific." It was only later Marxists (and self-styled Marxist-Leninists) who made utopian speculation a taboo. -- 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
