[lbo-talk] The Additive Error

Carrol Cox cbcox at ilstu.edu
Wed Jul 17 15:21:03 PDT 2013


Building A Left takes quite a few activists, many more than we have now.

The core political strength of capitalism is expressed in the proverb used by JKF in his Inaugural and which too many (who might otherwise be leftists) believe: "A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step." Anyone who believes that applies to left politics can never be a useful activist. And without more activists there will be No Left to deliver a message to the mass of workers. And without anyone to deliver it the content of a message is sort of irrelevant.

Carrol


> -----Original Message-----
> From: lbo-talk-bounces at lbo-talk.org [mailto:lbo-talk-bounces at lbo-talk.org]
> On Behalf Of Arthur Maisel
> Sent: Wednesday, July 17, 2013 3:42 PM
> To: lbo-talk at lbo-talk.org
> Subject: Re: [lbo-talk] Why the Left Can't Inspire
>
> The blog seems like a left analysis (one of long standing) and distinctly
> non-libertarian. It's mainly the ego-driven style ("the key point I want
to
> hammer into people"---ouch---and "I previously covered these topics in two
> popular posts") that makes it sound libertarian. Yet presumably the
blogger
> and the many commenters who seem to agree would not like to be called
> leftists (there is only one commenter as far as I read, Buckaroo Banzai,
> who sounds like a real libertarian).
>
> Why the left can't inspire, yes, but even more, why it can't even get
> credit for its own ideas is definitely a question that needs to be
answered.
>
> On Wed, Jul 17, 2013 at 3:35 PM, JOANNA A. <123hop at comcast.net> wrote:
>
> > I think it's racism (under capitalism). A social safety net would hold
up
> > blacks and whites alike. And for some, that's intolerable.
> >
> > Joanna
> >
> > ----- Original Message -----
> > If the recent depression in advanced economies -- especially in Europe
--
> > weren't evidence enough of the quasi-irrelevance of left wing thought
> > (given the material circumstances, in a 'rational world', revolutionary
> > situations would be afoot) the fact that the following screed on a
> > libertarian blog will almost certainly impact more people than on a
leftist
> > one, although the content could be almost verbatim, is sufficient to
give
> > serious thought as to why no one pays attention to the left
> >
> > Foodstamps Are Corporate Welfare
> >
> > http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2013-07-17/foodstamps-are-corporate-
> welfare
> >
> > Is Chomsky right -- did Stalin do such irreparable harm to the prestige
of
> > socialist thought, that we are still suffering from its consequences ?
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> >
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