Re: [A-List] New Economy Bull

[Waistline2@xxxxxxx]

In a message dated 12/15/02 5:11:48 AM Pacific Standard Time, sherrynstan@xxxxxxx writes:

> Property can NOT exist but for the state.  It is a completely
> politico-historical phenomenon.
>
> I am more than a little taken aback by the reference to the American
> Revolution as some deeply liberatory experience.  The entire project of
> exploiting the Americas was one of conquest and plunder.  Which meritocracy
> do people refer to when they talk like this?  The chattel slave economy of
> the South built on the plunder of indigenous people?  Or the development of
> Northern machinofacture - also on former indigenous land - that wase based
> absolutely on Southern cotton?  The emancipation of the American Revolution
> was of a strengthening local bourgeoisie from a decaying and distant
> European aristocracy.
>
> One fundamental weakness of libertarianism (I was one once, long, long ago
> in a place far, far away...) is its absolute ahistoricism.  It's a
> mythology, based on a kind of formulaic logic, premised on the "liberty" of
> an atomized individual with no ancestors.
>
> 2,000,000+
> Is the US criminal justice system a weapon of mass destruction?
>
> Money for reparations, not for war!


The above is correct, but misses the point. The point is the historical formation of social consciousness and how people think things out. 

The Communist in China provide a lesson. There banner was for New Democracy and against the foreign invaders and they were Marxist. Why? Because that is what it took to accomplish a specific stage development. 

What good does it do to know things and then treat with contempt the limitations of the masses. What happens when the masses call for a Third Edition of 1776? Is there something inherently wrong with striving for a "more perfect union" if we imbue this with our class stance and desire? 

And yes, I am a descendant of Southern slavery - capitalist brand. 


Peace


Melvin P.