[lbo-talk] Ralph loves the nice plutocrats

[Marv Gandall]

Wojtek writes:
>
> Otoh, if you do not care that much about material benefits and prefer
> instead intangible one, such as "freedom" or the right to sleep under the
> bridge (was it Churchill who equated democracy with that right?)  - then
> of
> course the state will always be represented by a policeman who by
> definition
> denies you that that right or that "fredom" (whatever that is.)
>
> But then, our discussion is like one between a priest (you) and a sibarite
> (me) who does not give a flying fuck about immaterial rewards in the
> afterlife and kindred nonsense, and who prefers good life - meaning good
> food, safe shelter, friendly people around, absence of pain and physical
> comfort here and now to all abstractions that the human mind can possibly
> create.
==================================
Ha! I've never being called a priest before! Trust me, Woj: I'm a
thoroughgoing materialist like yourself who doesn't have any illusions about
democracy or the afterlife, but simply believe - as have all previous
generations of democrats and socialists - that it's much easier to fight for
the "good life" if you have the legal right to organize, assemble, and to
freely communicate than if these avenues are closed to you and you are
forced underground. Even the "conspiratorial" Bolsheviks, who equally had no
illusions about "bourgeois democracy", struggled mightily for the rights
which it conferred in order to come up from underground to fight openly
for their program.

I won't repeat myself again. If you don't understand my POV on the subject
by this time, I'm certain others do and so I'll leave the last word to you.