"Haines Brown" <brownh@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote in message
news:87vf3gw12d.fsf@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> "Alpha Male" <TheIntellectual@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> writes:
>
> > "Dean T" <redxanth@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote in message
> > news:05EAe.37920$oJ.29149@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> > :
> > : I was not disagreeing with Marxism, I am a Marxist-Leninist,
> > : Communist Party member. I was trying to explain a position in
> > : layman's terms, re. human nature versus human potential. I did say
> > : that human potential can be quite high, if individualism and greed
> > : is removed from the personality.
>
> I apologize for my misunderstanding
>
> > There in lies the true ignorance of communism. It thinks at a
> > conceptual idealistic level while ignoring human instinctive
> > behaviour. People are not ants.
>
> There are an enormous number of communist ideas, dating well before
> Marx. It is true that they were usually idealistic or
> utopian. However, Marx rejected these communisms and sought instead to
> define a "scientific" communism based on the real limitations and
> potentials of the capitalist system as it actually existed at the end
> of the 19th century and the ability of the emergent working class to
> change that system to one suited to its development as a class. His
> "idealism" was limited to his belief that his analysis was morally
> justified because its implications for the future were positive. I
> believe that is a responsible position for anyone to take.
>
> True, he was an economic theorist, but scientific theory is not
> utopianism, and most of his writings, whether or not you agree with
> his conclusions, were empirically founded. His successors, such as
> Lenin, also always focused on the actual limits and potentials present
> in real existing cir***stances, although they also engaged in
> theoretical debates. Marx and Lenin well knew that you can never make
> long-range predictions in history.
>
> Communism doesn't "think". It represents a variety of ideological
> positions held by quite different individuals in differing
> cir***stances. It would be very difficult to generalize their
> positions to define the position of communism per se, and it would
> certainly be wiser to speak of particular viewpoints or historical
> instances. It is people who think, not ideologies. Besides, what you
> intend to say is not that it is "ignorant", but that communism is
> naive or unrealistic. A Marx or Lenin were by no means ignorant, even
> if you feel they were dead wrong.
>
> There's no denying, I suppose that there are human instincts. But the
> issue is not instincts (self-preservation, for example), but a kind of
> social behavior that is not characteristic of the animal world. Human
> society is an emergent process that obeys its own rules, and these
> rules don't reduce to animal instincts. These instincts exist, but are
> modified and sometimes overridden (self-sacrifice, for example) by our
> personal or social commitments. Also, it is the consensus among
> historians that instincts do not explain history at all, although
> occasionally they might be a factor in our understanding of a
> particular social development.
>
> > The built-in instinct of self preservation dictates that humans will
> > always want to know "what's in it for me".
>
> An unjustified presumption on your part. Even animals (arguably) don't
> act that way - ants being a good example. The issue is also a bit of a
> red herring, for if we understand man as a social being, then what's
> in it for me is compatible with what's in it for society. It's like a
> good marriage. What benefits your partner is your benefit, not because
> your benefits are the same, but because it results in a rewarding
> relation****p which is itself a great benefit. Sometimes you will
> sacrifice your own particular interests because you gain more benefit
> from developing a rewarding relation****p. That does not depend on the
> partners submerging their own personalities.
>
> > Even so called communist states as the old Soyuz Sovyetskix and
> > today's China show that communism is a big joke. Russian black
> > market thrived just as China's capitalism in a communist state.
>
> The Soviet Union and the P.R.C. are not "so-called" communist states,
> but are/were in fact socialist states. That is, they are transitional
> states in which communist principles should be applied to the extent
> cir***stances allow. The issue is whether they are doing the right
> thing and how well they are doing it. They are not utopian ideals,
> which are above any such criticism.
>
> Your reference to the black market in the U.S.S.R. only points to a
> deviation or weakness. All societies have them in abundance. The issue
> is whether those deviations are significant in size and whether it
> impedes the fundamental course of development. In the case of China,
> it is something different, for it is a matter of state policy to allow
> foreign capital investment and greater reliance on market
> relations. However, I believe that if you look at the actual economic
> figures over the last ten or twenty years, you will find that it has
> not really betrayed its principles. But if it has, as you apparently
> assume, then you can't at the same time very well hold it up as a
> model of a "communist" state.
>
> But even if you mean to take the U.S.S.R. and the P.R.C. as examples
> of failed socialism (a point I'm not willing to concede), what does
> that show? Does the failure of Nazi Germany prove the failure of
> Christianity, for it was, after all, a Christian state? That is,
> states don't reduce to their governing ideologies, and there may be
> very practical reasons for their failure. I believe we must rather
> look at the actual policies of such states and try to understand why
> they fail or succeed, given the cir***stances. There are all kinds of
> reasons why a particular socialist policy fails, and that does not
> necessarily mean that socialism itself has failed. Even if the system
> as a whole, such the U.S.S.R., fails, no serious historian infers that
> it was a failure of socialism per se, but of the specific policies of
> the U.S.S.R. in relation to the real world in which it existed.
USSR failed to achieve world revolution, but didn't fail in bringing a
backward society into the core of the world powers. While it never
achieved
to catch up with the productivity of the western countries, its own
productivity increases by tenfolds. Overbudgeting military and space was
too
much for its economy to sup****t it. Very bad political messages were sent
at
the end of WWII. Controlling every move, the work, blocking its citizens
to
move elsewhere were very bad messages too. Most of all, the corruption of
the communist leaders and their seek for personnal advantages for them and
their friends killed the perspective of achieving a successful revolution.
But, even after dissolution of USSR, are Russians more whealthy under
capitalism? Not at all. Their relative economic power has fallen down and
is
only slowly catching up, thanks to oil prices. Just another form of
domination. That's why I say that the most im****tant thing to do is to
limit
as much as possible the concentration of power. Obvioously, in a world in
competition and war, it seems necessary to have some concentration of
power
in order to face threaths from other concentrated power. That's a cercle
vicieux. Unless there is a synchronous revolution in the most im****tant
countries, made only by incorruptible people, willing to decentralize
powers
as much as possible, the dream is not achievable.
> > Even in a communist society, someone needs to give direction to the
> > "ants". History shows us those are the first communists to become
> > corrupt.
>
> Yes, I agree, there needs to be leader****p, and I agree that leaders
> are subject to corruption. But is that not true of all societies? I
> suspect that if you were to compare the amount of corruption in
> today's nations (there are in fact fairly objective studies that have
> done so), you would find that there's no clear evidence for a
> conclusion that socialist states are corrupt and capitalist states are
> not.
>
> China has a serious problem right now with corruption by local
> officials, but no one would suggest that it is an effect of
> socialism. It seems rather to be an effect of trying to de-centralize
> political leader****p, giving new authority to local leaders situated
> in rather backward cir***stances. I don't think one can argue that
> this corruption has anything to do with socialism, but is an
> unfortunate side effect of development, of immaturity.
>
> After World War II in the U.S., "ward politics" were replaced by
> professional bureaucracy in municipal governments, and one reason was
> that ward politics had proven itself very prone to corruption. But at
> the same time, from a social viewpoint, it transferred authority in
> principle from the working class (the average citizen) to petite
> bourgeois professionals. That is, it marked the change from a very
> imperfect democracy to a less democratic system of government.
>
> As an example of my basic point, I personally happen to be an advocate
> of democracy. You could argue yourself blue in the face that
> democratic systems are imperfect, but I'd still stick with democracy,
> for I'm convinced that it alone can sup****t all round human
> development. If some democratic system has flaws, I'd say, fix those
> flaws and don't toss it out in favor of some other system in which the
> people are no longer sovereign. I say this as a Marxist.
>
> > Communism is the lazy man's dream. By saying you are a communist,
> > you are really saying you're a loafer.
>
> You provide no justification or explanation of this presumptuous
> statement. I've no idea of what you are talking about.
>
> --
>
> Haines Brown
> KB1GRM
|
