>>> Doug Henwood <dhenwood at panix.com> 05/02/00 12:05PM >>>
Charles Brown wrote:
>Perhaps you don't realize that it is not established that the
>enormous quantity of things produced by capitalism constitutes or
>creates the best quality of life in the history of humanity.
Regardless of whether this is true or not, what do you do with it?
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CB: What I was doing with it is a lot clearer if you leave it in context. My "point" was made on a thread that went something like: "Capitalism has improved life in the Third World" ; "No , it hasn't when you look at the long run, because, the improvements in the Third World recently were "improvements" over degradations in the "third world" that had been introduced by capitalism in the first place". I say this because Eurocentric ideology has an inaccurate portrayal of the quality of life outside of Europe before the European expansion of the last 500 years.
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Capitalism has prevailed for centuries, and there's no going back, short of nuclear war or total ecological catastrophe. So what's your point?
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CB: This is reckless misrepresentation of my line of argument here. I never proposed going back. I mentioned the conditions outside of Europe before capitalism to debunk the claim that capitalism had net improved the quality of life outside of Europe.
Now our choice is socialism or barbarism ( i.e. nuclear war or ecological catastrophe) looking forward, the only way we can go. Socialism is the only way to stop the immiserating impact of capitalism on the overall lot of the workers of the world.
Do you think capitalism is eternal because it has prevailed for centuries ? Is it the final mode of production ? Has history ended with capitalism ?
My point here is Marx's point, Luxemburg's point.
CB