Re: Are you going to read the whole thing?

["Chris, London" <100423.2040@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

I liked Mike Dean's impassioned piece.

Short responses only.

As long as there is capitalism there will be marxism,
or marxism inspired criticism of capitalism. How
can you stop criticism of capitalism.

As long as there are classes there will be class struggle.
How can you stop it?

So long as the ideas of marxism, are taken over and merge
imperceptibly with the ideas of other progressive people,
even without acknowledgement, the more we have reason for
satisfaction.

Yes, I am afraid Mike there will be a socialist president of the United
States of America, but you will be dissatisfied with her.

This is because
you are attracted to marxism partly because you are a bit of a
bolshie, partly because there is a utopian streak in marxism, much
as he tried to deny it, partly because argument, conflict, desire,
jealousy, unhappiness, contradiction, creativity and *life* will
continue under any social system, even a socialist or communist one.


But ultimately IMO we make an estimate, independent of the name of Marx
or any other guru. Do we have faith in people? People overall.

Do you consider that without submission to tyranny, our lives will always
inevitably be solitary, poor, nasty, brutish and short? Or do you believe,
that partly through the conflict,
partly through brotherly love and all that, our species is fundamentally a
cooperative species?  If the latter you have faith in people; you have
your equivalent of faith in God. Not an uncomplicated god, a god full of
contradictions, but a god worth having more faith in than many other gods,
which after all are only the divine image of human experience.

So it is certainly very complicated, but we have a choice whether to panic or
not. Why panic? Perhaps that is what Jerry's quote from Lenin was saying.

And if that does not work, how about a good dose of schadenfreude? The
victors of capitalism are in *such* a mess.

Cheers,

Chris





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