[lbo-talk] Switching Sides

[ken hanly]

 I doubt that there is any normal condition of capitalism except that workers are exploited.. At present many workers in developing countries are able to increase consumption at least, and in some countries state policies even encourage this while in developed capitalist countries the situation is the reverse with wages, pensions, the social safety net etc. being cut. as austerity policies are imposed ostensibly to reduce deficits. In the period of expansion after the second world war you refer to no doubt it was only the developed countries in which there was a growth of the welfare state and worker power but this was in part at least due to the exploitation and austerity in the third world which provided cheap raw materials and other products.

Cheers, ken
 

Blog:  http://kenthink7.blogspot.com/index.html
Blog:  http://kencan7.blogspot.com/index.html

________________________________

 From: Carrol Cox <cbcox at ilstu.edu>
To: lbo-talk at lbo-talk.org 
Sent: Saturday, April 28, 2012 8:44:11 AM
Subject: Re: [lbo-talk] Switching Sides

 
I still believe that change is on the whole evil -- unless absolutely
necessary. It is  necessary for human survival to destroy capitalism. And
this is relevant to the debate over austerity. Austerity is the NORMAL
condition of capitalism, violated for a short time after WW2. Normal
processes of change ("Progress") after 1970 returned capitalism to its
normal state. How did that quote from Benjamin go, re stopping the train
we're on?

Once when Marx had returned to England from a vacation in Germany where his
aristocratic friends had wined & dined him, someone pointed out to him that
that would not be possible under socialism. His reply: I'll be dead by then.
It seems to me that Marx was a conservative in the sense defined above.

Carrol

-----Original Message-----
From: lbo-talk-bounces at lbo-talk.org [mailto:lbo-talk-bounces at lbo-talk.org]
On Behalf Of Michael Pollak
Sent: Saturday, April 28, 2012 4:58 AM
To: lbo-talk at lbo-talk.org
Subject: Re: [lbo-talk] Switching Sides

On Apr 23, 2012, at 8:04 AM, Jim Farmelant wrote:
>
> Well, the esteemed moderator of this also moved from the right to the
left.

Actually, since he was a precocious high school Marxist, Doug performed 
the extremely rare "left-right-left B4 UR 20" maneuver.

Apropos Ismail's original question, I think Michael Lind probably also 
belongs in list of right to left conversions.  Although, like most of 
them, still kind of a weird hybrid afterwards.

Michael
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