Matthias Wasser wrote:
>
> On Tue, Sep 14, 2010 at 12:47 PM, c b <cb31450 at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > What do Americans have to gain from socialism as a world system?
Query: For what Americans might this question be even remotely a real question?
Answer: Americans whose own parents have not yet been born.
Asking (and even more answering) this question is to reduce socialism to a competing brand of canned string beans, waiting on the shelf to be "chosen" by someone who has carefully balanced all the comparative advantages of string beans vs. head lettuce and of canned vs frozen benas, and of this particular brand vs all other brands.
And as a socialist myself, let me state bluntly: I do not give a flyng fuck whether you are or are not attracted to socialism. I do care very very much whether your are active in your local anti-war group or similar activity. Your choosing or not choosing socialism, like my calling myself a socialist, has absolutely no relevance to whether or not there will ever be socialism in the U.S. or any place else. Your being active or not active in some local group is relevant.
What can we know about that "socialism" which the great grandchildren of those now living may or may not be in the process of building?
We can know that it is a realm of embryonic freedom, of people making their own history.
Any one who claims to know more would be better off playing tiddly-winks with his/her neighbor's children. He/she would be more useful to humanity in that way.
Carrol
> But Americans and other G8 citizens, including low-skill laborers with no
> capital, live much better than the rest of the world; indeed, much better
> than everyone could live at, given the current physical limits of the world
> economy. They appear to be doing quite well by the current system, which,
> I'd hazard to guess, is why they so universally support it.
>
> Or is world socialism a system under which nations have withered away, but
> in which the descendants of certain nations continue to consume all the
> resources? What does imperialism need a police force for, then?
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