-----Mensagem original----- De: owner-lbo-talk at lists.panix.com [mailto:owner-lbo-talk at lists.panix.com]Em nome de Brad DeLong Enviada em: terça-feira, 10 de outubro de 2000 00:19 Para: lbo-talk at lists.panix.com Assunto: Re: RES: RES: RES: RES: Yugoslavia: what the media is hiding (The Guardian)
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>Necessary, but not sufficient. Althought not is the point De Long is
>raising, I would agree that the failure of socialism was related to
>lack of democracy. What happened is that the ruling class simply
>decided to restore capitalism to enjoy even more privileges. That´s
>why there was no reaction against "velvet revolution". I would even
>say that needs democracy more than capitalism given this phenomena.
>As Rosa Luxembourg said, the socialism can´t built by a
>minority, since it´s own nature excludes this possibility" (bad
>translantion from Portuguese, I think). On the other hand, I say
>it´s not suficcient to avoid these disasters mentioned by Brad
>because liberal democracies were also responsible by horrible crimes
>(but they tend to confine thoses atrocities to peripheral countries,
>not need to mention examples, right?).
Peripheral countries? Dresden? Hamburg? Had the Nazi army been a little bit better at holding off the Red Army and had WWII in Europe dragged on into the fall of 1945, we Americans would have barbecued Berlin with uranium and plutonium by-products.
Look back at the plans formulated during the Eisenhower administration for how to fight the Red Army if it came through the Fulda Gap...
Brad DeLong
The point is that the burden of liberal democracies atrocities falls on peripheral countries, while dictatorships are more prone to make those things against its own people. Off course, enemies of liberal democracies are treated the same way in war time, but it´s not a "normal behavior". Let´s mention an example: USSR and Chine had famines, while Ireland (1840´s), India (1700´s, 1800´s and 1943) under England administration had the same phenomena. Once India became independent, there was no more epidemic famine (if you consider Amartaya Sen) At least there was a good excuse for Dresden and Hamburg (I would mention Tokyo too). The west countries were fighting for their own survival (althought they were not in serious threat when those things hapened). But what about slavery and genocide of indigenous people in US and Australia? Only the necessity of capitalist expansion?