On Wed, 12 Jul 2000, Brad De Long wrote:
> >Brad, Marx was careful NOT to describe communism, because he thought that
> >the details should be worked out by the people.
>
> Don't you think that was a big mistake? At the very least he should
> have added a footnote saying that the people who were to work out the
> details of Utopia should not be people like Feliks Dzerzhinsky, or Pol
> Pot, or Kim Il Sung.
Aren't they all ruled out simply by saying that whatever the state does, it should be democratic? Or do you find somewhere where the mature Marx says he changed his mind, democracy is actually a bad thing, he prefers autocracy?
You could say he didn't emphasize it enough. But then, that objection would be raised against your hypothetical footnote as well, no? I'm not sure you can locate a man's key fault in the books he didn't write.
State control of industries under democracy in rich countries hasn't been such a bad thing. Nor has state control of agriculture. Stupid & wasteful in lots of ways, maybe. But not murderous. The crucial variable in ruling out murderous awfulness seems to be presence or absence of democracy, not presence or absence of state ownership. And Marx was for democracy. No?
Michael
__________________________________________________________________________ Michael Pollak................New York City..............mpollak at panix.com