[lbo-talk] Democracy (was MR & Maoism)

Dennis Redmond dredmond at efn.org
Tue Aug 29 14:38:11 PDT 2006


Yoshie wrote:


> 2. There is no evidence that socialist states necessarily develop
> productive forces qualitatively or quantitatively better than
> capitalist states.

Socialism isn't a particular state or state formation. It's an egregiously heterogenous collection of social processes, ranging from welfare states to social movements, to cultural works of art. Certain nation-states have certain aspects of what a future socialist society might look like, that's all.


> democracy. Hell, politics in Iran today is a lot livelier than
> politics in any of the former socialist nations, North Korea, and even
> Cuba!

I don't know what you're talking about. NK is a society in severe lockdown. But Cuba has a pretty vibrant civil society; so does China, Russia, Hungary, etc. Politics isn't staged speeches and media blitzes, it's the battles waged in daily life, over the most mundane of things.

-- DRR



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