Re: "Socialist command type economy in Iraq"????

[Ian Murray <seamus2001@xxxxxxxxx>]

----- Original Message -----
From: "Devine, James" <jdevine@xxxxxxx>
To: <PEN-L@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Friday, May 30, 2003 2:57 PM
Subject: Re: "Socialist command type economy in Iraq"????


> I wrote:
> > > as Fred Engels noted, capitalism involves socialized production
_and_
> > > individualized appropriation of wealth (a unity of  "opposites").
Thus,
> > > nothing is really totally individualized ("private") or totally
> socialized
> > > ("public").
>
> Ian:
> > Would it not be more accurate to say that even the manner in which
> > individuals appropriate wealth is socially decided upon?
>
> "societies" don't decide anything, so how can something be "socially
decided
> upon"? The society we live under -- capitalism -- is inherited from the
> past, from a series of historical struggles between classes and within
> classes, affected by other social structures such as patriarchy and
> ethnicity along with unique historical events (it's not like someone
decided
> to set it up). This system involves generally-accepted "rules" (often
> broken) about "the manner in which individuals appropriate wealth."

===================


I didn't write *societies*, I wrote *socially.* Is the legislature and the
courts a set of social-deliberative/decision making institution or not? Or
do you really want to get into the individualism/holism Gordian knot on a
Friday afternoon?


Ian