Sign of the Times

[Louis Proyect]

Returning to my office from the excellent Labyrinth Bookstore, I ran into a
geezer--by the looks of him, he was even older than me--who sat at table on
the sidewalk in front of Columbia University's main entrance. He was
selling a book titled "The Capitalist Manifesto" that he wrote and
published himself.

Although I usually tend to needle Trotskyists who sit in the same location,
I couldn't resist the temptation to rub his nose in the Russian fiasco and
walked up to him. I asked, "So what's going on in the former Soviet Union?
Capitalism didn't work too well, did it."

He then proceeded to give me a long spiel on how the Russian problems are
rooted in their failure to apply Adam Smith's "Wealth of Nation"
faithfully. I laughed out loud. This guy didn't realize that this was the
same sort of litany I would hear from Trotskyists at the same location,
except that they relied on a different holy text.

This seems to be the approaching fate of capitalist ideologues. They will
sit by themselves in front of Ivy League universities trying to recruit a
misguided and unhappy freshman student. Or they will sell capitalist
newspapers in front of plant-gates early in the morning with headlines like
"Capitalist renewal is around the corner. THE TIME TO ORGANIZE IS NOW! Join
the Republican/Democratic Party." They will organize fund-raisers in church
basements where Lawrence Welk revival bands will play. They will sell
t-shirts with pictures of Ronald Reagan or Lyndon Johnson, with the slogan
"Live Like Him."

Louis Proyect

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