[lbo-talk] clarification

[Gar Lipow]

On Sat, Feb 13, 2010 at 12:57 PM, SA <s11131978 at gmail.com> wrote:
> shag carpet bomb wrote:
>
>> It's not just that it's unpredictable, it's that planning things out in
>> the detailed way people expect --- like those dudes you don't like but Gar
>> does -- puts too many restrictions on your ability to think on the ground,
>> quickly, and adapt to exigencies.
>
> I keep getting hung up on this "planning things out" concept. No one is
> trying to write a plan to be voted on and adopted by an Official Committee
> of the Left and included in the bylaws and annual resolutions. This is about
> discussing ideas that people can think about and debate. Always the
> opponents of talking about socialism refer to it as "predicting," "deciding
> in advance," "planning," "pre-determined." That has nothing to do with it.
>
> Another question I have: You say people in the movement will work out these
> issues as they come up, so we shouldn't talk about it now. Okay - how will
> we know when the issue has come up? At what point exactly does talking about
> socialism stop being tyrannical "deciding in advance" and start being
> "responding to issues as they come up." Because clearly the issue has
> *already* come up - it seems to come up every single time people on the left
> get together - yet you *still* don't want anybody to talk about it.
>
> SA

Also for a long time it was taken for granted that "socialism"
included the workers owning the means of production. Have socialists
dropped that? Because if it still part of the definition of socialism
that is a pretty powerful specific - in spite of contention over what
"workers own the means of production" means.