Mollydukes,

Ah ! the luxuries and comforts of the middle-class ! Do you have the slightest idea of what it might have been like living in the open, bitter cold on winter nights, blisteringly hot on summer days ? Of having to endlessly search for food, and having to smother your new-borns when there was no prospect of food ? Of violent and constant warfare between neighbouring groups, always the threat of somebody in the night snatching you away from your camp (women) or murdering you as you slept (men) ? Of having no idea about how the world worked except what the elders told you of their conjectures, and what they had been told by their elders, and so on ?

What on earth is the value of an 'unchanging' culture ? An unchanging culture is one in which people cannot learn, or which does not have the means, or will, to learn from other people - in Marxist terms, a reactionary culture.

But by all means, if you really and genuinely want to live in some sort of traditional way, feel free - pack up and move out into the bush, leave it all behind and give it a try. I'm sure that you will learn a great deal about reality. Just say goodbye to your plasma TV :)

Your comments about the Enlightenment were interesting - yes, the writers two and three hundred years ago were groping towards something, and they could only see a sort of fuzzy 'big picture' - universal rights and equality for all regardless of gender or race or religion, separation of church and state, the rights of the individual and the fostering of civil societies - but how easy it would be, as you demonstrate, to turn back on all that and searching for some mythical Golden Age back in some distant past, or in some other place. Like central Australia - did you have that in mind ?

[TBC]

[contd.]

Squeers,

Yes, capitalism can be evil and heartless, and should be reformed or replaced with something better. But slagging is one thing, coming up with better solutions is something else. And that's our obligation, to fall back on neither a dream of Utopia nor think we have done anything by carping and criticising about the present. What do we put in its place - without retreating into myth or repudiating what has been painfully achieved over the last few hundred years ?

The future has to be built on the present, on reality, not wishful thinking, or empty criticism. As someone wrote once, the task is not just to describe or criticise reality, terrible as it may be, but to change it.

Joe

Dear Poirot,

The Communist Manifesto recommends:

5. Centralization of credit in the banks of the state, by means of a national bank with state capital and an exclusive monopoly.

6. Centralization of the means of communication and transport in the hands of the state.

7. Extension of factories and instruments of production owned by the state; the bringing into cultivation of waste lands, and the improvement of the soil generally in accordance with a common plan.

The manifesto prescribed state ownership of means of production and state control of expression and transportation. Marx recommended a totalitarian state, and Lenin and the other Marxist dictators carried out the recommendation.

The Soviet Union was a Marxist state.

Many Marxists promulgate myths. Two of the myths are:

1. The states called Marxist weren't really Marxist. That is addressed above.

2. Stalin hijacked a Leninist revolution. Censorship, the gulag system, the dictatorship and the secret police were all products of the tyrant Lenin not Stalin.

Loudmouth,
In your short post you've used the terms "evil and heartless", "dream", "Utopia" (which I only repudiated), "carping", "retreating into myth", "wishful thinking" and "empty criticism", implicitly accusing me of "slagging" via this colourful mode when I've done nothing of the kind! Would you mind pointing out where I've indulged any of these?
It was Marx who said that the point of philosophy was not to understand the world but to change, hence the concept of praxis. Since then Marxists have sought to do just that and have signally failed. I do not believe capitalism can be meaningfully reformed, and I'm equally persuaded it can't, or at least won't, be stopped except by its own destructive means and in its own time.
You can prattle on about change all you like and it will get you nowhere; the current system merely patronises such voices, once they are loud enough, making token gestures towards token reforms. It's called "co-option". The world is manifestly not going to change willingly and nothing you or I do will change it. There is no will for change (in the West), the hegemonic centre holds, and in that case I consider my uncompromising condemnations of capitalism in the face of it, if they get anyone to think about it, far more useful, since consciousness has to change, than talk of revolution by tiny minorities, or the reform-minded chatter of wowsers.
Even Marx refused to be drawn into speculating about utopia; the overthrow of the bourgeoisie was the first consideration, and that would (will) only happen when the time is ripe. There was thus a strong element of wishful-thinking, rather than optimism, to Marx's thought, and in his hopes for the socialist movements of his day.
Like I said, I agree with him.

Squeers,

Well, I didn't say it would be easy :)

What is wrong with you people?

Why do you want to bite the teat that feeds you?

Truth be known, most of you could not survive for more than a week out of sight of a supermarket.

Socialist supermarkets have a habit of having empty shelves. For god sake, have a look at what you have. If you don't want 3 plasmas, don't buy them, no one forces you to, but stop bitching about the poor silly buggers who do want 3 of the things, its their fool spending that keeps the bread on your table.

It is also their spending that keeps available, something to put on that bread, something often not available in socialists economies.

In 8 years out in the Pacific, I met thousands of folk from capitalist societies, who had dropped out, to sail around the world. That was fine, & the system let them do their own thing.

I never met anyone from a communist/socialist society. Perhaps the drop out type, in those places, can't afford a yacht, & perhaps those who could afford one, aren't allowed to drop out.

I also saw many islanders, in their socialist economies, dying of a tooth abscess, or similar. Lack of capitalists industry meant there was no contact or communication, & no antibiotics either.

I sure as hell know which one I want to be part of, even if I don't want a bl00dy plasma.