[lbo-talk] Cuba's painful blah blah

[jthorn65 at sbcglobal.net]

> Probably. But I don't engage in detailed recipes. Privacy is always
> achievable (except in fictional dystopias). Freedom from enforced
> privacy can only result from collective endeavor. Leisure is the
> greatest good (in and of itself and because it is a precondition for
> most other goods. Collective labor (e.g., the assembly line which Joanna
> condemned) is an evil only when its conditions, including preeminently
> pace, is imposed from outside. Charlie Chaplin's bolt tightening in
> _Modern Times_ is not intrinsically evil but made evil by the
> capitalist's hand on the lever that determines the pace or stopping
> points. Hence the climactic scene of the automatic corn-on-the-cob
> feeder. Note that that device (were it successful) would exclude
> lunchhour conversation, making assembly-line work as isolating an
> experience as that of the housewife trapped in solitary glory with her
> brandnew washing machine.
> 
> Carrol

This doesn't tell me why you think washing clothes at some sort of public institution is preferable to washing 
my clothes at home. Nor does it address the question of cooking meals at home.
I appreciate that you don't try to give a detailed recipe, any attempt at too fine of detail is apt to prove 
wrong. You had no problem specifying washing machines so what about a gas range? I'm not trying to be a 
pain in the butt. I genuinely want to know these things about how you reached the conclusions you did. I 
just might learn something.

John Thornton