Prior to being told that socialism wasn't centered on class, I would have said that the problems you mention below were, indeed, problems for socialism, a handful of the reasons I think socialism is inadequate for my political tastes. But now I don't know what the definition of socialism is, since you say it's not what I thought it was. However, you still haven't supplied a definition. I suppose there isn't one, then, which bodes ill for an ideology in a world where all of its competitors have zippy bumper stickers. I find its diffidence and ambiguity sort of wistfully attractive, in fact.
Oh, well.
-- Gordon
Kelley:
> not too long ago we talked about how to compensate people and whether this
> should be done in a way to reward people for doing especially difficult or
> unwanted jobs. something like that. now, do you think our consciousness
> will be advanced enough to actually look at the work that people do and not
> let subtle sexist, racist, heterosexist assumptions influence our ranking
> of the relative importance or worth of jobs. sure, maybe you have an answer
> to that problem -- just don't have a wage system. but what about other
> things-- like how we actually interact with and accord respect (or lack
> thereof) to people? will people who do certain kinds of jobs that are seen
> as similarly "respectable" only want to live with others that do same--as
> opposed to live near people who say fuck and cock sucker and eat me on an
> hourly basis at least.
>
> very practically, if these issues aren't attended to, what's to stop,
> say, people in a community of workers who own and control the means of
> production in the various factories, plant, offices, etc from, say,
> claiming that a new landfill is needed. how to decide where to put it?
> hmmmm, well, hey, there's a couple of acres in PoliteSpeakersVille and
> there's a couple of acres in SewerSpeakersVille. The Sewer Speakers like to
> live there because they don't like to have to put up with the wussy
> bullshit of the Polite Speakers who wince when they hear the word fuck.
> it's just easy not to have to deal with them when hunting in the morning
> and doing philosophy in the evening, you know? Cos they, like, want to
> debate the merits of cock sucking Gramsci and dickhead Lenin. And they
> really don't like being spoken at in the third person interrogative by
> those trained in Oxford debate tactics, either. Besides, say the
> PoliteSpeakersvilleans, the Sewer speakers like to use those two acres for
> dirt bike and four wheeler trails. What a waste! The two acres in
> PoliteSpeakersville is used for good and proper things, like a community
> car wash for the volvos, roller blading trails, and lodges for teaching
> feng shui. it would be a waste to use that two acres for the much needed
> landfill, those activities and things are important! dirtbiking and four
> wheeling are just a worthless activity engaged by losers who say cock
> sucker and mother fucker.
>
> did marx and engels write only about "class" -- like, there was no
> discussion of the family? of women? of race? ethnicity? etc? WTF? that most
> poor people are black men and women isn't an issue? that collegeeducated
> black men earn less than less than high school educated white women?
> that more white women than white men are impoverished? that whatever kind
> of shitty lives the poor in the US have, they are rich by comparison to
> people sewing soccer balls in india?
Gordon Fitch wrote:
> >Well, evidently it wasn't made clear to me in all that time
> >what socialists think socialism is, if it's not "the means of
> >production owned or controlled by the people or the workers"
> >or something like that -- a definition squarely based on
> >_economic_class_. If you think the question is so dumb, it
> >should be a trivial matter to dispose of it.