andie nachgeborenen wrote:
>
> I don't claim to have
> > the least idea of
> > what the alternatives [to liberalism] will be.
>
> That's a lot of help. And your recommendation in the
> circumstances? Is there anything we should fight for
> or against? How will I sell this idea to anyone in
> our broad constituency: all hitherto existing social
> ideas have failed and no one has the slightest idea
> how to proceed or what might replace them even in the
> vaguest outline.
The question at issue is at a high level of abstraction, no more relevant to agitation (which is the problem you raise here) than is the question of Marx's value theory. And I really don't think that we _ever_ have the need to argue what should replace the present system. No one ever argued it with me, nor did I ever argue it with any of the people I moved to a socialist perspective. In actual practice the question arises at a fairly advanced level of struggle, and in general terms answers itself. Only leftists talking to each other as on this list fuss about how to persuade someone to socialism.
While looking up something for another (literary) list I came across a thread from two years ago which from a different angle covers these same questions. You might look it up. The subject line is "Rise of anti-democratic liberalism."
Carrol