> Who cares if you have income equality if you live in fear?
Is the converse of this: "Who cares if you live in poverty if you are politically free"? That is the promise of capitalism, isn't it? In fact, social justice is measured in the leveling of income.
>You don't have to praise communist thugs, or make broad claims that
>communism was a "great succes," to point out that communism did some
>beneficial things and had real accomplishments.
First, nobody is praising Stalin. I can recognize his accomplishments without denying his failings. Other people are all too willing to step up and make all sorts of wild claims about Stalin. Just because I focus on his accomplishments does not mean that I endorse his negatives and his excesses. What this argument by Brett says, Charles, is that any sort of objective analysis of the macroeconomics of the socialist world-system in comparison to the capitalist world-system between 1960 and 1978 that does not engage in ideological polemics against Stalin is somehow "praising a communist thug." See how deeply anti-communism has infected the left?
> The alternative gets too ideological for my comfort.
Wrong. It is the opposite.