[WS:] What it makes it tedious is the social context in which this is being discussed. It is like discussing the role of bankers in Nazi Germany - it is bound to degenerate into anti-Semitic diatribes, so a rational thing to do is to try to avoid the whole subject as much as possible. Pretty much the same holds for discussing the role of the state in the context of the US political culture - it is bound to degenerate into government bashing diatribes, so changing the subject looks like a reasonable way out.
Wojtek
On Wed, Nov 16, 2011 at 10:25 AM, Eric Beck <ersatzdog at gmail.com> wrote:
> On Tue, Nov 15, 2011 at 7:20 PM, Bill Bartlett <billbartlett at aapt.net.au> wrote:
>
>> Arguments about to what extent the capitalist class rule by political
>> repression miss the point. The ruling class do not need political
>> dictatorship, they rule via economic dictatorship.
>
> Yes, we've definitely seen over the last few days how the ruling class
> doesn't need "political" repression.
>
> But--and I should have made my point clearer--this division is totally
> specious. The economic dictatorship can't exist without the state
> dictatorship, to use your terms. I think Chomsky's point about the
> Marines is a good one, but it treats the moments and the spheres as
> discrete, temporally and spatially. In exceptional cases, things do
> work that way, but that's not how daily life is structured.
>
> I know this is tedious stuff, so I'll stop.
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