Re: Re: Re: RE: Market socialism as a form of utopianism
From: Louis Proyect [EMAIL PROTECTED] In the first instance, with Morris, you are dealing with a genre of literature, namely the utopian novel. ... In the case of Hahnel-Albert, you are confronted with *utopianism*, a form of political advocacy that seeks ideal solutions to problems that had historical origins. Ralph Waldo Emerson much agreed with you. In criticizing the utopianism of Charles Fourier, he said in part: Our feeling was, that Fourier had skipped no fact but one, namely, Life. He treats man as a plastic thing, something that may be put up or down, ripened or retarded, moulded, polished, made into solid, or fluid, or gas, at the will of the leader; or, perhaps, as a vegetable, from which, though now a poor crab, a very good peach can by manure and exposure be in time produced, but skips the faculty of life, which spawns and scorns system and system-makers, which eludes all conditions, which makes or supplants a thousand phalanxes and New-Harmonies with each pulsation. Carl _ Send and receive Hotmail on your mobile device: http://mobile.msn.com
Re: Re: Re: Re: RE: Market socialism as a form of utopianism
I don't think it is ahistorical to deal with the limits of the possible. Most utopian socialists today are activists. And in fact, I doubt that in the immediate issues, what we are fighting for today Albert and Hahel, Justin, and Michael Perlman would find much to disagree about. But if you want to win m ore than immediate reform, knowing where you want to go is part of knowing what to do. Besides, regardless on what you blame the failures on , actually existing socialisms have been pretty miserable places to live - not only in material goods but in terms of freedom. Workers are not stupid. If you ever want workers to support socialism in the future, you are going to have to give examples of how it can work better than it has in the past. Carl Remick wrote: From: Louis Proyect [EMAIL PROTECTED] In the first instance, with Morris, you are dealing with a genre of literature, namely the utopian novel. ... In the case of Hahnel-Albert, you are confronted with *utopianism*, a form of political advocacy that seeks ideal solutions to problems that had historical origins. Ralph Waldo Emerson much agreed with you. In criticizing the utopianism of Charles Fourier, he said in part: Our feeling was, that Fourier had skipped no fact but one, namely, Life. He treats man as a plastic thing, something that may be put up or down, ripened or retarded, moulded, polished, made into solid, or fluid, or gas, at the will of the leader; or, perhaps, as a vegetable, from which, though now a poor crab, a very good peach can by manure and exposure be in time produced, but skips the faculty of life, which spawns and scorns system and system-makers, which eludes all conditions, which makes or supplants a thousand phalanxes and New-Harmonies with each pulsation. Carl _ Send and receive Hotmail on your mobile device: http://mobile.msn.com
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: RE: Market socialism as a form of utopianism
Gar wrote: I don't think it is ahistorical to deal with the limits of the possible. Most utopian socialists today are activists. I am sorry, Gar. This is not a question of activist credibility. This is not why I object to Looking Forward. It is about how socialism can be achieved. I believe that it miseducates people to write elaborate models. Marxists focus on strategies for revolution, not how future post-revolutionary societies will function. Besides, regardless on what you blame the failures on , actually existing socialisms have been pretty miserable places to live - not only in material goods but in terms of freedom. Workers are not stupid. If you ever want workers to support socialism in the future, you are going to have to give examples of how it can work better than it has in the past. I disagree. There will never be a revolution in a country like the USA until the material conditions have worsened to an extent not experienced in our lifetime. When that time arrives--as I am sure it will--people will care less about what took place in the USSR. We are looking at corporate malfeasance and declining stock markets, a combination that even Bush says might lead to questioning of the capitalist system. We are also faced with the prospects of a cataclysmic war with Iraq. In face of objective conditions that are only likely to worsen in the next ten years or so, it would be a diversion from our tasks as socialists to concoct castles in the air. People will not want assurances how the system of the future will work, they will want leadership to get the boot of capital off their necks. Hate to sound apocalyptic, but that's the way I see it. Louis Proyect Marxism mailing list: http://www.marxmail.org
Re: Re: Re: Re: RE: Market socialism as a form of utopianism
From: Carl Remick [EMAIL PROTECTED] Ralph Waldo Emerson, ... criticizing the utopianism of Charles Fourier, said in part ... Michael Perelman asked offlist about the source of that quote. It's from Emerson's essay Fourierism and the Socialists -- text at http://www.xmission.com/~seldom74/emerson/fourier.html Carl _ Chat with friends online, try MSN Messenger: http://messenger.msn.com
