[lbo-talk] Fear not: Pope Noam has faith

[Lance Murdoch]

On Tue, 30 Nov 2004 04:06:19 -0800 (PST), B. <docile_body at yahoo.com> wrote:
> Lance Murdoch wrote:
>
> People can go centuries living in the most
> miserably foul conditions. It's happened before--slave
> societies existed thousands of years, there was the
> Dark Ages, etc. People have an enormous capacity for
> suffering and hardship, unfortunately.

Slave and feudal societies are fairly static.  Plant the crops,
harvest the crops, plant the crops, harvest the crops.  Capitalism is
more dynamic - it is revolutionary as Marx said.  Production is
constantly being revolutionalized.  Unemployment and recessions are
endemic to it.  Capitalism does not have the stability of these former
economic systems, which themselves were not that stable (or they would
still be around).