[lbo-talk] Race to Nowhere... && Obama got Osama

c b cb31450 at gmail.com
Wed May 4 11:14:07 PDT 2011


Somebody: No, progress, without quotes, is freedom from necessity. That God awful Western life-style means that people do not normally have to worry about dying in infancy or youth. And when they do, they have the luxury of considering it an outrageous tragedy, worthy of memorials, fundraisers, and television movies. One day, hopefully sooner rather than later if we make the necessary investments now, we'll have the unthinkable luxury of considering dying at 80 an outrageous waste of life.

^^^^^ CB: I appreciate your putting this in terms of freedom and necessity. Freedom is the mastery of necessity. What capitalism does is create with its enormous development of the productive forces the potential for mastering all basic necessities for everybody. But then it undercuts fulfillment of this potential, by development of many new necessities (a car or bus-fare becomes a necessity to get to work , in a society where a job is a necessity); and then, by the unequal distribution of wealth, it denies to many the mastery of many necessities in this expanded range of necessities. This dynamic reintroduces the importance of abolishing classes as well as developing technology to achieve progress.



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