El pueblo armado jamas sera aplastado!
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From: Carrol Cox <cbcox at ilstu.edu> To: lbo-talk at lbo-talk.org Sent: Saturday, April 28, 2012 12:26 PM Subject: Re: [lbo-talk] Switching Sides
The fundamental 'objection' to capitalism is NOT a moral objection. There are no grounds on which one can base a moral judgment. The proposition that exploitation is morally wrong merely sets up an infinite regress. Why is exploitation wrong? And so forth. One can never find that Archimedean point! Moral condemnation of capitalism is just another version of "Stop the World! I want to get off." You can't.
Moralists who claim to be Marxist should read the 4th chapter of Ollman's _Alienation_.
Carrol Overposting for the first time in many weeks.
-----Original Message----- From: lbo-talk-bounces at lbo-talk.org [mailto:lbo-talk-bounces at lbo-talk.org] On Behalf Of ken hanly Sent: Saturday, April 28, 2012 10:55 AM To: lbo-talk at lbo-talk.org Subject: Re: [lbo-talk] Switching Sides
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.
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