Talk about banal observations. Of course we are discussing our own feeling towards CAPITALIST society. Jim's group no longer wants to change it, as is his privilege. By the way, I note that LM leaders now openly call themselves "libertarians." From the current issue of LM:
Discussing the paedophile
panic
The libertarian
parent's dilemma
"As a father, I do not much care what happens
to those individuals who are guilty of sex
offences against children. Throw away the key,
throw them down the stairs, whatever."
But that doesn't stop Mick Hume worrying about
the consequences of the paedophile panic for
the rest of society
With all due respect to Yoshie, it is simply inaccurate to refer to this group as "Marxist". They reject the characterization and it discredits Marxism to apply it to them. By the way, what's next? A libertarian's guide to hot vacation spots? "Join Mick Hume and Rush Limbaugh for a 5 day cruise of the Mediterranean!"
>
>Charles was right when he allied this question to Marx's theory of
>alienation. He should have added 'commodity fetishism', that state that
>Marx described in which relations between men take the alienated form of
>relations between things. Its not the cars that are the problem, its the
>form of social organisation - but the car is a kind of stand-in.
Another banal observation. Cars of course are not the problem. The way society is organized is the problem. The bourgeoisie destroyed public transportation in the 1940s in order to foster the accumulation of capital. Trolly-cars don't generate profit, General Motors sedans do. It didn't matter that workers would prefer to take public transportation to get to work, the ruling class had another agenda.
>
>I was impressed recently when my sister-in-law calmed my niece after she
>hurt herself on a sharp piece of plastic by punishing the 'bad' piece of
>plastic. But then my niece is only three. Punishing the 'bad' car is to
>remain within the ideological framework of commodity fetishism.
What nonsense. Nobody is discussing "punishing" cars. Is that what James thinks the anti-car activists are doing in NYC when they try to keep cars out of the parks? What's next for LM? Guest editorials from the late Robert Moses?
Louis Proyect
(http://www.panix.com/~lnp3/marxism.html)