On Oct 3, 2006, at 2:05 PM, Carrol Cox wrote:
> Doug Henwood wrote:
>>
>>
>> I'm very sympathetic with this position, but as Hayek cogently
>> pointed out, the normal space for economic planning under socialism
>> or social democracy is the nation. How, in practical terms, do you
>> run an economy with completely open borders?
>
> Socialism exists in another world, with few links to the present one.
> (Its links to capitalist society are with the capitalist society that
> has collapesed in chaos.) Nence it's fairly pointless to wonder how
> borders will be handled in a socialist society.
>
> And it's actually pointless to wonder how borders will work in the
> present society. We are not talking about blueprints. We are talking
> about the demands that must shape socialist practice and theory
> _inside_
> a hegemonic capitalism. Blacks did not achieve "Freedom Now." But they
> would not have achieved anything at all had they demanded anything
> less
> than Freedom Now.
Yeah, I figured you'd say something like that, but things like a welfare state are actual policies in the actual present world whose normal scope is the nation-state. How do you run a welfare state without a state? How do you get to your dreamland of "socialist society" without confronting the contradictions of the present?
Doug