Re: Milosevic out?

["Charles Brown" <CharlesB@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

>>> jdevine@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx 10/06/00 04:13PM >

You say:

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Whether one calls the
relatively egalitarian statist economic development efforts "socialist" or
not is the kind of sterile academic debate I try to avoid.

((((((((((

Yet, I was responding to a post in which you seem to be telling Lou that Yugoslavia is not "socialist"


To Lou you said:
(1) state ownership of enterprises only shows the _potential_ for
socialism, not the actuality of socialism. (It's necessary, but not
sufficient.) It's not just a matter of the state owning the means of
production. We must also ask: who owns the state? After all, the Egyptian
Pharaoh owned the land and other major means of production. Do you think
that the workers and peasants of Serbia had significant democratic control
over the Serbian state? (Louis, do you think that Algerian state-owned oil
wells are "socialist"? How about the Tennessee Valley Authority?)

BTW, Marx and Engels didn't equate state control with socialism. To Engels, ".... -clip-  "

))))))))))

CB: So, as you say second, no sterile debate over whether  or not Yugoslavia is or was socialist. Rather, is Yugoslavia part of the world historic process in which imperfect, potential socialisms are developing toward actual socialism ?