[PEN-L:9418] Re: Hawkins, Belkin, Magdoff

[BAIMAN <rbaiman@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

On Mon, 31 Mar 1997, Louis Proyect wrote:

> PEN-L'ers might be interested in my unbiased, journalistic musings on the
> panel discussion "What economics for socialism? Marxist, Market Economy,
> Cooperative?" that took place at this weekend's Socialist Scholars
> Belkin is a member of Democratic Socialists of America, the sponsor
> of the Socialist Scholars Conference and official section of the Second
> International in the USA. He is a socialist in name only. Like most DSA'ers,
> his politics can best be described as liberal Democrat with lip-service paid
> to a socialism somewhere in the distant future, perhaps the 24th century.
>


Just for the record - (and I don't expect Louis to agree with me) I am
also a DSA member and have debating this stuff with David Belkin for some
years vociferously (see SOCIALIST FORUM - recent and back issues).
I find that by far most DSAers agree with my "anti-Belkin" "anti-market"
pro social choice and social governance "democratically planned
socialism" point of view and reject most of David's arguments.  As the
major SOCIALIST organization in the U.S. (we have it in our name folks) I
don't think that most DSAers are the kind of "liberal democrats" that
Louis describes.  In fact I find this canard of beating on DSA now a
little silly.  Of course we are a pluralist organization and David is an
active member - but his views should be treated as those of a small
minority within a much larger democratic-socialist organization.

In Solidarity,

Ron Baiman
Chicago, DSA
CDV Steering Committee