[PEN-L:28655] The need for planning

[Louis Proyect <lnp3@xxxxxxxxx>]

> So, Louis, tell me. What does an advocate of state socialism think
> about the problems that developed in the USSR? How do you explain the
> fact that you couldn't get a proper pair of blue jeans or buy an Elvis
> record? Doesn't that indicate that socialism doesn't work? And what
> about the crappy coffee? In one of Spaulding Gray's monologues, he
> talks about how they could only get chicory as a morning beverage in a
> top-ranked Soviet hotel. People complained about getting constipated
> when they couldn't get their morning dose of caffeine. Lenin never
> considered these questions, did he?

Well, I glad that you asked these questions. It allows me to adress some
improtant points that I first made in the journal "Post Soviet
Hermeneutics" in 1998, which is aviable in your better libaries.

Frist of all, the absense of blue jeans must be understood in the
context of the murder of Vasily Pudensky, the dissident Soviet clothign
designer who allied himself with the Grimelski faction that borke away
from the Buhkarinites in 1931 over agrarian questions. Pudensky did not
believe in kulaks enriching themelsves but definitely thought that smart
clothing an dsocialsim was compatible.

On the question of Elvis. Any serious Marxist understand sthat his music
was a ripoff of an oppresed nationality and should have been banned in
any self-respecting proletarian dictatorshop.

Finaly, on the questeion of chicory versus caffeine. I believe that
coffee must be eliminated in order for us to reach a higher stae of
comunism. Too mucyh coffee not only makes you nervous and flighty, it
also makes you run to the bathroom too much. A better answer is bran cerial.


--

Louis Proyect
www.marxmail.org