-- Alan P. Rudy Sent with Sparrow (http://www.sparrowmailapp.com/?sig)
On Saturday, April 28, 2012 at 11:51 AM, shag carpet bomb wrote:
>
> I don't think Carrol is advocating a hair shirt conception of socialism.
> Rather, I think Carrol is referring to a definition of conservativism
> (among the defs Corey Robin challenges in his book!) as essentially a
> position in opposition to change?
>
> At 10:12 AM 4/28/2012, Alan P. Rudy wrote:
> > On Saturday, April 28, 2012 at 8:44 AM, Carrol Cox wrote:
> > > I still believe that change is on the whole evil -- unless absolutely
> > > necessary.
> > >
> >
> >
> > What silliness. We're now either going to have to get into a useless
> > discussion of absoluteliness or of necessity or of when and how it is for
> > this or for that that quantitative changes become qualitative and
> > therefore more real in their changiness. And you, of all people,
> > appealing to evil? C'mon.
> >
> > The issue is never change or stability it is the combination of the pace
> > of and participation in and directionality of change.
> > > 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?
> > >
> >
> >
> > Again, really? This kind of meta-analysis, while very attractive for
> > polemical, assumes a singularity and continuity to capitalism over the
> > last 150 years in order to assert some sort of homogeneous normality. For
> > that matter, it wholly collapses capitalism and the state as if there was
> > a straightforwardly abstractable essence associated with the myriad
> > expressions of capitalist modernity.
> > >
> > > 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.
> >
> >
> >
> > Oh please, perhaps there's some sort of textual foundation to this account
> > but, even if it's true and Marx had an ascetic vision of/for socialism,
> > these days the idea that a redistribution of the aggregate wealth produced
> > by capitalism would restrict the distribution of high quality amenities
> > embraces far too much of a natural and social limits discourse.
> > >
> > > Carrol
> >
> > Alan
> > ___________________________________
> > http://mailman.lbo-talk.org/mailman/listinfo/lbo-talk
> >
>
>
> --
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> ('coz there's 5 million ways to kill a CEO)
>
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