Re: Keeping focus after the WTO

[Carrol Cox <cbcox@xxxxxxxxx>]

Nathan Newman wrote:

> Against the neoliberal agenda of authoritarianism, the Left should be
> arguing for the promotion of equality as a positive good not just for
> justice but for development as well.

No doubt. But equality is a tricky concept. In traditional liberal thought,
for example, it is often argued that equality and democracy are incompatible,
that the drive for equality dissolves freedom. And (depending on how, in
actual practice, "freedom" and "equality" are defined) there is an element
of truth in that argument. (Others have argued, and I would agree, that
equality is a precondition of freedom, but in terms of getting there the
contradictions posed by bourgeois idealogues still are very real.)

Also, note that I did not include in my short list of forms of authoritarianism
that exercised by a revolutionary movement. That would have moved me
from posing questions to writing recipes for the cookshops of the future.

Carrol