Brad De Long doesn't belong on a left discussion list

[Brad De Long]

>This support for the massacre of worker and peasant leaders by the
>bourgeoisie puts Mr. De Long on the other side of a bloody divide from
>any kind of leftist -- whether trade union militant, anarchist, Marxist
>or any combination or variant thereof. One should no more engage in
>polite discussion with him than with an admirer of Adolf Hitler. He
>should be promptly removed from this list.
>
> - In solidarity against capital,
> - Aaron
>

Look at the Asian Communist regimes: Pol Pot, Mao Zedong, Kim Il Sung, Ho
Chi Minh. Of these, the first three are unspeakable. The best of the
lot--the regime founded by Ho Chi Minh--now spends its time working as a
labor boss for Nike and other western multinationals, using its secret
police to guarantee them a very low-wage, docile, and obedient labor force.

I don't see in what fashion any of these regimes are "left": to kill
millions of people and to replace a ruling class of landlords and merchants
by a ruling class of bureaucrats does not bring us any closer to Utopia.

And I see no reason to believe that a successful PKI coup in 1965 would
have produced a regime any different from the other Asian Communist
regimes...

Professor J. Bradford De Long
Department of Economics, #3880
University of California at Berkeley
Berkeley, CA 94720-3880
(510) 643-4027; (510) 283-2709 voice
(925) 642-6615; (925) 283-3897 fax