[lbo-talk] Re: Political Cartography

Carrol Cox cbcox at ilstu.edu
Sun Nov 21 17:47:43 PST 2004


I think this exchange between you and turbulo illustrates what I have been saying all along -- that trying to use "welfare state" to cover both socialist and capitalist states expresses no particular political position AND serves to create confusion in political discussion. The phrase "welfare state" has been clearer than most political slogans for at least 50 years. There is an important topic, about which sharply different viewpoints exist on this list, and which _some_ of the posts under this subject head ("political cartography") took up. And then the discussion wandered completely afield because someone had a yen to use "socialist state" and "welfare state" as having the same meaning. Since then we've been discussing lexicography rather than politics. That's the usual result of sloppy diction.

It wasn't pedantry on my part, as the subsequent course of the discussion proves. And my sarcasm re freshman comp was no sillier than your sarcasm (not irony) about "capitalists dictatorsip." I don't see how you can call the one pedantry but associate the second with the glories of Swift and Aristophanes.

Carrol

andie nachgeborenen wrote:
>
> Please don't be irony-deficient.
>
> Sweden is indeed a capitalist state where the rights
> of private proverty are upheld -- though to a far
> lesser degree than in the US , since the existence of
> rights is a matter of degree. It is also a welfare
> state where the workers have won extraordinarily
> extensive concessions from capital such that the main
> advantages to them of a shift to socialism, understood
> as full public and democratic control of production
> and investment, would be mainly theoretical.
>
> A Swedish Communist once told me that it was as hard
> to be a Communist in his country as in the US, but for
> the rather different reason that it was hard to
> explain what concrete benefits Communism would offer
> that Swedes do not already have. So, while Sweden is
> capitalist, the workers there do not writhe under the
> iron heel. I should not have to explain this obvious
> stuff in such a pedantuc manner.
>
> I will say again that what the Swedes have would be
> worth our fighting for, that if we won it it would be
> a victory past imagining for ordinary and working
> people (sorry 'bout that ol' time populism -- must be
> a Midwestern disease), and that we are not likely to
> be so lucky in our lifetimes or those of our
> grandchildren.
>
> --- Turbulo at aol.com wrote:
>
> > In a message dated 11/21/04 2:04:37 PM Eastern
> > Standard Time,
> > lbo-talk-request at lbo-talk.org writes:
> >
> > Andie wrote:
> >
> > > Both Sweden and the US are capitalist
> > dictatorships in
> > > which the workers writhe under the iron heel of
> > > capital. Right?
> > >
> > >
> >
> > I don't get this at all. Sweden and the US are both
> > capitalist states, which
> > isn't to say they are identical capitalist states.
> > In the former, the working
> > class and social provision are much stronger. But in
> > both, the right to
> > private property in the means of production is
> > upheld. Is this controversial?
> > > ___________________________________
> >
> http://mailman.lbo-talk.org/mailman/listinfo/lbo-talk
>
>
> __________________________________
> Do you Yahoo!?
> Meet the all-new My Yahoo! - Try it today!
> http://my.yahoo.com
>
>
> ___________________________________
> http://mailman.lbo-talk.org/mailman/listinfo/lbo-talk



More information about the lbo-talk mailing list