Doug Henwood wrote:
>
> As for "the destructive rationality of capitalism," that also seems
> fatally one-sided to me. Call me a Manifesto Marxist if you like, but
> it misses the system's positive contributions to world history.
I don't disagree with this, but I think that by itself, and 150 years of capitalism after the _Manifesto_, it is misleading. It is at least arguable that the good things that capitalism has brought rather lie in the past and that for many years now it has been mostly a generator of misery, and that most of what has been positive in the last century has been more in spite of than because of capitalism.
One does not have to deny the "contributions" of capitalism in order to condemn "capitalist rationalism," which perhaps has rather more to do with the depredations of the IMF than with the achievements of Pasteur or Lister. The world's greatest nation could not even produce enough flu vaccine this year. (I finally got mine today, but it was a ridiculous hassle.)
Carrol