On Wed, 6 Oct 2004 18:09:41 -0400 Doug Henwood <dhenwood at panix.com>
writes:
> andie nachgeborenen wrote:
>
> >I think this is also a very Marxian idea. Isn't it a
> >problem with capitalism that it degrades taste and
> >human skill and accomplishment, producing stunted
> >monsters? Isn't it supposed to be an advantage of
> >socialism that it will enable people to develop their
> >talents and tastes in a more refined way? Thus making
> >them better, more complete, more fullly rounded
> >people?
>
> Yeah, isn't that a problem for Marxists/socialists? You want to
> overturn the existing order because it's corrosive and brutal, but
> there's an impulse to treat the bourgeoisie as decadent and the
> workers as noble? If poverty and exploitation aren't damaging, why
> do
> you want to end them?
I don't think that the Bearded One had any such illusions concerning the proletariat. The proletariat would eventually overthrow capitalism, not because they were inherently noble but because of their peculiar position within the capitalist mode of production which on the one hand oppressed them through exploitation and alienation but which on the other hand placed them in a strategic position which gave them both the motive and the potential means for waging effective class struggle. I think that the Bearded One took it for granted that exploitation and poverty would necessarily have a corrosive effect on human character.
>
> Doug
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