On Mon, 15 Apr 2002 11:35:12 -0700
joanna bujes <joanna.bujes at ebay.sun.com> said
> My experience backs up what you're saying. When I was in Romania in
the > sixties, my parents told me that I had to get straight A's (10s)
if I wanted to go to the university. In other words, my performance
would need > to be nearly perfect in order to overcome the negative
marks against me:
> 1) I was privileged by being the daughter of intellectuals who
>2) did not belong to the party.
>Had I had "healthy social origins," like being the daughter of
peasants, the bar would have been lower.
Gee reverse discrimination.
^^^^^^^^
CB: Affirmative action exactly in the direction of abolishing classes. "Reverse discrimination" would be a right wing way of describing it, and it sort of robs them of the good credit they should get on exactly moving to classnessless: affirmative action for peasants.
^^^^^^^
But note that Pary members had no such criteria. The fact that there was a question of social mobility at all is a pretty good indicator that "Communism" had a pretty strong caste system, and probably a class one. In a truly classless (or casteless) society - even a socialist one, let alone a communist one - the question of social mobility would not arise.
^^^^^
CB: What version of the transitional phase called socialism are you using ? Marx's discussion of this says the socialist phase will likely still bear the marks of the old capitalist society in it for a long while, which it would seem likely to include "social mobility".