executive pay

Carl Remick cremick at rlmnet.com
Mon Aug 3 06:57:43 PDT 1998


Re Louis Proyect's comment: "I favor low growth economy? You must have me confused with Tony Blair or somebody like that. I am a Castroist. I advocate nationalization of the means of production and planning."

It was interesting reading the New York Times' coverage yesterday and today of what a revered figure Castro is today in the Caribbean as a whole -- in large part because Cuba, despite its economic straits, has been so generous in aiding its neighbors, while Bill I-feel-your-pain Clinton has done nothing to reverse the stiff-the-Caribbean policies of Reagan-Bush.

-----Original Message----- From: Louis Proyect [mailto:lnp3 at panix.com] Sent: Sunday, August 02, 1998 8:20 PM To: lbo-talk at lists.panix.com Subject: Re: executive pay

Jim Heartfield:
>The policies of our two governments, as I understand it are precisely
to
>favour this low growth, called variously 'steady growth' 'the avoidance
>of the boom and bust economy', and 'the Goldilocks eonomy' (not too
hot,
>not too cold, geddit).

This is just silly. The policy of "our" two governments is to defend the interests of the capitalist class. Arguments about "low growth" versus "vigorous growth" take place between bourgeois politicians and are of little interest to Marxists. Carter and Reagan and Bush and Clinton all represent the same exact thing: US domination over its working class and the rest of the world.


>
>Since Louis favour's a low growth economy (the source of income these
>massive income differntials), it is not perhaps surprising that he
would
>like to see the the problem resolved at the level of the state acting
as
>a mechanism for redistribution of incomes, after the event so to speak.

I favor low growth economy? You must have me confused with Tony Blair or somebody like that. I am a Castroist. I advocate nationalization of the means of production and planning.


>Yes, indeed. How could I forget, living in a country where successive
>'socialist' governments have been elected on programmes of social
>redistribution along precisely the lines you indicate.

We do have a big confusion evidently. When I used to sell Trotskyite newspapers in the dormitories of places like Harvard or Columbia 25 years ago, I used to have to explain that I was not for the kind of "socialism" they have in Sweden. I never used the term dictatorship of the proletariat, but I used formulations drawn from my reading of Eugene V. Debs or James P. Cannon. I would take the time to repeat these formulations to you, but deep down I suspect that you know them by heart. It's too bad they play so little part in your thinking today.

Louis Proyect (http://www.panix.com/~lnp3/marxism.html)



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