are you sure that "the.typo.boy" isn't our friend Andie N.? ;-)
>Sure, but I think even the worst capitalist growth always contained
somethign important - possibility of freedom. ... <
Everytime I hear Dubya talking about "freedom" on the radio (I can't watch him on TV, except on John Stewart), I yell "what in heck do you mean by 'freedom'"? same hear. It's one of those words that anyone can use. It means something different to Dubya than it does to the left. What do you mean?
>Before capitalism, freedom existed either for no-one, or for a very
tiny percent of the population even as a possibility. The scarcity of
material goods did not just limit what people could consume. It
limited the social roles available. If some hunter-gatherer or forager
societies lacked a ruling class as some claim - the limitations
imposed by what nature would give combined with the limitations
imposed by the culture that evolved to deal with those limitation
meant that you had a very narrow range of ways to be a human being.<
granted, but capitalism's culture also involves a narrow range of ways to be a human being. It tends to make us all into greedy insecure and individualistic survival-machines. Luckily human nature resists... unluckily, sometimes that resistance involves the creation of religious fundamentalist movements.
>In societies with a ruling class, those who were out of it had an
even narrower range available, those who were in it had a little
wider possibility.<
serfs had to pay taxes/rent to the lord, but they did control their tools and a parcel of land. This allowed a kind of freedom that had to be abolished by capitalism (in "primitive accumulation"). They also had the freedom provided by extended families and clans.
>Only with the evolution of capitalism did we get the abundance that
opened the possibility of freedom for everyone. That potential occured
in a social system that suppressed its' actualization; but it was
always the hope of socialists that a new social system could enable
the potential for freedom that new means of production made physically
possible. Human beings would for the first time have the chance to
choose from a much wider variety of social roles than had ever been
available, perhaps even to create their social role for themselves
rather that stepping into pre-defined slots. Social roles might even
become something to play with, without need to always take them
seriously. <
As old Karlos and Fred suggested, capitalism creates a _potential_ for collective human wealth and prosperity, for a new kind of freedom to be created, i.e. for (democratic) socialism to be established. Unfortunately, the enviromental damage created by capitalism has undermined (perhaps not totally) the possibility of this kind of socialism.
Even without the latter, the creation of socialism is not a gift provided by capitalism but something that must be won via struggle. -- Jim Devine Bust Big Brother Bush!
This email was cleaned by emailStripper, available for free from http://www.papercut.biz/emailStripper.htm