Wojtek:
> I am reasonably sure that if it were possible to get rid of class
> contradictions, it would be accomplished somewhere.
Unfortunately, in the real world, might makes right. Movements toward socialism -- e.g., the IWW in the USA -- keep on being repressed.
>If we somehow managed
> to get rid of class divisions defined by capitalist property relations, new
> ones would emerge.
that's your faith.
>... AFIK, however, the only economically viable entity that evokes
the socialist ideal of no-distinction society is .... Disneyworld.
Yes, Disneyworld. I realized that when I went there with the kids.
All "capitalist" transactions - reservations, tickets, special deals,
credit cards etc. are conducted outside Disney property by their
business agents. .... Ironically, the dream of socialism has been
brought you by one of the most greedy capitalist corporations - as a
dream and never never land carefully separated from the US reality. <
Disneyworld is the ideal _statist_ society. It's not socialism. It's a hierarchical planned economy, akin to that of ancient Egypt. It deals with the left-liberal or elitist-socialist critique of capitalism associated with people like Edward Bellamy (LOOKING BACKWARD) or Paul Baran: the problem with capitalism is that it isn't planned. The big issue in this view is the market vs. the state, with this kind of "socialism" being defined by its opposition to the market. It was very popular in Eastern Europe and with the various CPs. This is probably why you associate D'world with "socialism."
In Marx's tradition or what Draper calls the "socialism from below" strand, on the other hand, the emphasis is not on plan vs. market, but on the need for democracy, i.e., an end to the class dictatorships of capitalists, Pharoahs, and Stalinist parties. -- Jim Devine / "There can be no real individual freedom in the presence of economic insecurity." -- Chester Bowles