[PEN-L:10996] Re: Religion, capitalism, and populace ...

[John Lawrence Gulick <jlgulick@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

> The trick is not to convince the people that socialism is better than
> capitalism, but that it is a better system for them.

OK, but defining the alternative as "better" has to involve a thorough
reconceptualization of material interest, indeed the very basic notion of
social needs itself. From a radical p.o.v., mass transit isn't "better"
than auto travel b/c it gets one to work faster, cheaper, in a less
polluting way, etc., thus lowering the cost of reproducing labor-power,
or freeing up more wages/salary for other commodified leisure pursuits,
or greasing the turnover time of K., but b/c mass transit is a more
socially transparent and ecologically rational way of getting around ...

People's criteria of what a "better" alternative is will always be
informed by the way existing social relations/technologies of capitalism
frame material interest and need, and so cannot be accepted and promoted
naively at face value, but worked out dialectically through processes
of organizing, struggle, education (and obviously I mean to include
radical theoriticians and activists among the people who have warped
senses of criteria that can be changed only in the context of conflict
and politics) ...

John Gulick