[WS:] What makes you think things were wrong in Russia and EE? These countries developed strong economies in a very short time without relying on Western capital and with minimal social cost - which was the goal. That is a success story in my book. And that they failed to build a a society in which everyone does the same thing and gets the same in return? Perhaps such model is not very desirable or attainable, so that "failure" is not such a bad thing after all.
On Mon, Oct 7, 2013 at 6:14 PM, Eric Beck <ersatzdog at gmail.com> wrote:
> > Such Zones cannot be maintained indefinitely. Both Cuba and the USSR had
> > pretty good runs of it, and their example encouraged resistance to
> capital
> > around the world. But it is the most naïve (retroactive) Voluntarism to
> harp
> > on their non-socialist features or to whine that their leadership
> were/are
> > "sell-outs" etc.
>
> When did socialists get to be so sensitive? So a long-dead social formation
> is getting critiqued. Who cares? I'd suggest that if you're more concerned
> with defending and honoring it instead of analyzing and figuring out what
> went wrong, your priorities are wrong. That is, if the SU and Cuba are
> going to inform today's left, it will be as an object of criticism, not
> heroism.
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-- Wojtek
"An anarchist is a neoliberal without money."