>>> Doug Henwood <dhenwood at panix.com> 05/02/00 11:59AM >>>
Charles Brown wrote:
>When you say any objective measure , how about number of workers
>killed and maimed in automobile accidents ? How about number of
>workers killed and casualtied in crime ? Number of workers in prison
>?
Come on now. You're never going to win any significant number of First World workers to your cause with this sort of gloomy stuff.
_________
CB: I don't agree. I think the people demonstrating in London against capitalism probably included a lot of workers who have a mature understanding of the full impact of capitalism.
It will be especially true as time goes on that that approach will win more and more workers, as you get more and more workers who have not experienced anything but the false utopia of ever increasing stuff.
And I am not proposing barracks communism. As the glut of stuff gets bigger and bigger, the alternative becomes a high material standard of living itself.
___________
No wonder Leninism is so dead. Not "things are awful, rise up!," but "things could be lots better than this!" Optimism! Possibility!! I'm shocking myself by sounding so upbeat; maybe it's the new century.
_____________
CB: Things are awful. What are you talking about ? Alcoholism, crime, divorce, domestic violence, police murder, children shooting children, automobile deaths and injuries, global warming, Star Wars.
Plus, we were discussing the Third World impact of capitalism as pulling down the average of the workers' of the world's lot below what it was in before capitalism. Things are really awful in the Third World. Why is it Americans fear immigration so much ?
Keep thinking Leninism is dead. We like the element of surprise.
CB