Dddddd0814 at aol.com wrote:
>> I'm sorry, but I can't help but notice how similar this is to the propaganda
>> model of Stalin's USSR. Stalin maintained that socialism could be achieved in
>> a single country, if only its citizens became "good socialists" and
>> "anti-imperialists." This, Stalin maintained would, keep Capitalism "in
>> check". The foundation for revolution rests on subjective moral imperatives
>> and willpower, rather than actual material considerations. If only a
>> universal ideology of "good", where people adopt a prescribed course of "core
>> values", can be forced onto the masses from without, then "it's all good."
Brian O. Sheppard x349393:
> I have to agree with David on this one, Chuck. Surely you know that any
> better society is not as dependent upon people becoming, well, "good," as
> it is on developing instutitional means to hold coercive forces in check.
> The point isn't making people become angelic; it's constructing means to
> hold people to account and eliminating the aspects of modern institutions
> that allow some to unjustly dominate the rest (private property in means
> of production, etc.)
>
> Of course, the defense of this sort of system would rely upon the
> vigilance of those who benefit by it. They would have to want it to work.
> If they didn't want it to work, it wouldn't.
I think to some extent we're stuck with the necessity of effecting a cultural change as well as changes in institutions and relations if we want to emerge from capitalism. Anarchists could not force this change on other people; they would have to hope that, presented with a choice, other people would decide to live in and support freedom. Hence the necessity of revolutionizing not through elections, coups or civil wars but through actually doing things differently beginning on a local level.
If people won't do this, then there's not much use imposing righteous institutions on them from above. They won't stick.
-- Gordon