I like to think that people are forced and conditioned by circumstances into being hardened and selfish. Some at least. (Have no pity for the brokers who will be swan-diving from the 13th floors because of their depressed state, having come down from a night of snorting up the last of their cocaine stash - cheap stuff courtesy of the Columbian devaluation - trying to forget the market crash of the day before.) The thing is people continue to fight back - think of Chumbawamba's hit song. Look at the Zapatistas. Look at the Indonesians. Look at the U.S. labor movement. The other day I read of French garbagemen dumping garbage everywhere at the drop of a hat.
The key is revolutionary reforms, not necessarily an oxymoron. Mr. Henwood has expressed the desire for reforms that give the working class some breathing room. Do these reforms let the air out of the desire for revolution? Again, not necessarily. I know the French are considering a 35-hour work week, but haven't read anything on it recently.
The question I've had on my mind lately is whether the Russian revolution was necessary for all of the gains that have been made since. In a sense, we'll find out in the next 10-20 years whether it was. I heard the Russian Communists are calling for nationalization of key industries, free education and health care, etc. Pretty bold considering the circumstances.
>I'm not sure that this argument Doyle and I are having is very
>worthwhile. I would be interested, however, in discussing peoples'
>conceptions of social justice, if there are any takers on that one...
To each according to their need ... The obvious point is that if no one attempts anything worthwhile politically, we know what the result will be. And we haven't even discussed capitalism's destruction of the environment, even though some on the list are/have. Here's an excerpt from a book I'm reading where a guy, named "Guy," is pondering ecological degradation:
Hard to explain that one away, hard to justify it - to the young (Guy meant), to those who would come after. How would you begin? Well, we suspected that sacrifices might have to be made, later, for all the wonderful times we had with our spray cans and junk-food packaging. We knew there’d be a price. Admittedly, to you, the destruction of the o-zone layer looks a bit steep. But don’t forget how good it was for us: our tangy armpits, our piping hamburgers.