[lbo-talk] Obama got Osama

[Wojtek S]

Joanna, I think you are missing the point of this discussion.  If
moral virtues could improve the lot of the humankind, religions would
be all that is needed.  The point of the USSR being a superpower was
not their military, but rather that it created enough productive
potential to a superpower, which takes a lot for what used to be
backward country.  We could argue whether that productive potential
could have been put to a better use that the military gear - but that
is beside the point.  The point is that their created that potential
in direct contradiction of the pseudo science of economics tells us
about "balancing" supply and demand, budgets etc.

PS.  I  think that most people (save a few die hard idealistic
intellectuals) would prefer to be rich and live amongst selfish
bastards than to be poor and live amongst the virtuous.

Wojtek

On Mon, May 2, 2011 at 2:21 PM,  <123hop at comcast.net> wrote:
> I have no problem with smashing property relations and no quarrel with the advantages of sanitation.
>
> But I take strong exception to your view of the poor and the working class. The most dignified and decent people I have ever known were working class; and, I tell thee, if you're ever down and out and need a helping hand, it's from these people that you will get it and from no one else.
>
> Equally, the meanness and selfishness of the upper classes combined with the whoredom of their paid intellectual servants exceeds anything the working class has done. And this, without the excuse of ignorance.
>
> Also, I don't think being a super-power is what a progressive agenda aims for.
>
> Joanna
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Wojtek S" <wsoko52 at gmail.com>
>
> Somebody: "Having said that, personally, I do not see the hopes of
> mankind as resting entirely upon the feeble shoulders of the working
> class and poor. The main means of improving humanities condition is
> through technological progress."
>
> [WS:} I wholeheartedly second this opinion.  I think that the idyllic
> view of the downtrodden masses rising up  and bringing progress is a
> delusion, if not a self-defeating myth.  Historically, there was
> nothing progressive about the proletariat itself - and Lenin keenly
> observed the limits of its revolutionary potential if left to its own
> devices.  So it is quite surprising that this myth is still gaining
> some traction some 100 years later.  The key to the success of the
> Russian revolution was to free human productive potential from the
> yoke imposed on it by property relations - only after that happened
> the USSR rose to the rank of world's superpower.
>
> [snip]
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