[OPE-L:3569] Re: Query: Newsgroup on Planned Economy

[Anders Ekeland <anders.ekeland@xxxxxxxxx>]

Thanks to Hans Ehrbar for a quick and detailed response.

Regards
Anders Ekeland
Norway


At 05:08 PM 7/6/00 -0600, you wrote:
>
>In response to Anders Ekeland's question:
>
>In May an June 1998 I tried to start a mailing list with
>Paul Cockshott and Allin Cottrell as moderators, with the
>plan that we should start off from their book "Towards a New
>Socialism" and work out more of the details of a
>computerized socialist economy.  The purpose was to think
>through some of the problems of socialism and come up with
>solutions which we would feel comfortable with.  During the
>first two months students from my undergraduate class were
>subscribed, and after this I hoped that the discussion would
>continue.
>
>The discussion never took off.  Some list members did not
>agree with the basic framework of the list and sidetracked
>the discussion.  And I have the impression that list members
>generally did not feel comfortable discussing socialism in a
>country like the USA, a counterfactual situation, at such a
>concrete level.
>
>Later someone else tried to continue the discussion from a
>different perspective not clearly grounded in marxism.  I
>forget the details, but this did also not work out.
>
>I think there is a need for a list about socialism, but
>those who organize such a list need to be really clear what
>they want to achieve and why, and they must be prepared
>to defend their objectives, since thinking about socialism
>unfortunately has a very bad reputation among Marxists.
>
>
>Hans Ehrbar.
>
>
>
>
>