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The Forum > Article Comments > Whither the Liberal conscience? > Comments

Whither the Liberal conscience? : Comments

By Max Atkinson, published 17/4/2014

However that may be, the views of Vanstone and Brandis suggest the spirit of Mill is still alive in the Liberal party, and not wholly confined to the world of business, property and entrepreneurs.

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Dear Tristan,

There are a lot of people with double standards in different areas. However, you are participating in this discussion where no one has exhibited any double standard so how is it relevant?
Posted by david f, Monday, 21 April 2014 9:46:35 PM
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Dear David; You may not be showing a double standard - but from experience there are many right-wing/conservative readers of On Line Opinion who do exhibit double standards - or at least a willing ignorance of the 'extreme ends and means' calculations made by anti-communists - and even by self-professed democrats. This is relevant so we do not repeat the same historical mistakes of the past. If we choose to single Lenin out - but consistently fail to say anything about Suharto, Pinochet etc (and Western powers' collusion with them) - then we are failing in our moral duty. By 'forgetting' - and allowing others to 'forget'- we potentially allow the past to repeat itself.

Personally I identify more with Austro-Marxism, Marxist 'centrism', and Left-Internationalist Menshevism - than I do with Lenin in any case. And with Bernstein I too see democratic socialism as 'the spiritual successor' to political liberalism - maintaining all its core qualities.

Interestingly Kautsky disagreed with Marx himself on the issue of the Paris Commune's strategies. Here I agree with Kautsky - who did not 'make his peace' either with Blanquism or Jacobinism.

I haven't read 'the Jewish question' by Marx I admit; though I imagine Marx was informed by his atheism, humanism and materialism; and was also influenced early by assimilationist pressures.

Marx believed in the self-organisation of the working class into a party; and its exercise of a democratic dictatorship. (in line with today's majoritarianism - although I am not personally a 'pure majoritarian') Marx did not ever profess belief in a 'vanguard party'; or for a vanguard to substitute itself for the workers themselves. We have to distinguish Lenin from Stalin; But we also have to distinguish Marx from Lenin.
Posted by Tristan Ewins, Tuesday, 22 April 2014 7:45:02 PM
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Dear Tristan,

I have much the same feeling toward the state as Bakhunin. I think he was spot on to be wary of any state set up according to the ten points Marx enumerated in the Manifesto. I object to the present military adventures carried on by the European powers together with the US. I object to the fact that the US, UK, Russia, Germany and many other developed nations fuel conflict by being arms suppliers. Their sales to less technically advanced nations create a secondary arms market as the older equipment is replaced. The secondary market supplies terrorism. Militarism, racism and destruction of the environment follow. One item that limits overseeing of the destruction is military secrecy. As long as the left is pervaded by the totalitarian philosophy of the bigoted authoritarian Marx it cannot be an effective alternative to rapacious capitalism.
Posted by david f, Tuesday, 22 April 2014 9:58:40 PM
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