Re: utopianism

["Devine, James" <jdevine@xxxxxxx>]

Rather, it seems to be the Achilles heel of various organized and self-styled "official" Marxisms. But reading Hal Draper's book, KARL MARX'S THEORY OF REVOLUTION (an annotated and analyzed collection of quotes from Marx and Engels on political issues), Karl and Fred were very interested in utopian thinking and saw discussion of utopias as useful to working-class self-education. The big criticism of utopianism was tactical and strategic: it doesn't do much good to show people a diagram of how socialism should be organized (as the Socialist Labor Party used to do) and do nothing else, ignoring the possibilities generated by the contradictions of capitalism. 
 
Respect for utopian ideas didn't fit with the growing scientism of Kautsky, Hilferding, and their ilk. Worse, utopian thinking implied an obvious critique of Stalinist regimes, and was so _verboten_. In the end, Engels' SOCIALISM: UTOPIAN AND SCIENTIFIC was interpreted as being "Utopian _versus_ Scientific." 
Jim Devine

	-----Original Message----- 
	From: Robert Scott Gassler [mailto:rsgassle@xxxxxxxxx] 
	Sent: Wed 3/31/2004 12:36 AM 
	To: PEN-L@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx 
	Cc: 
	Subject: Re: [PEN-L] utopianism
	
	

	You're not kidding. I call that the Achilles heel of Marxism.
	
	At 22:39 30/03/04 -0800, Mike Ballard wrote:
	>Thatcher's TINA is the opposite side of the utopian
	>coin.
	>Commies have to know what they want as well as what
	>they want to leave behind in history's dustbin.
	>
	>Regards,
	>Mike B)
	>
	>=====
	>1844 Paris Manuscripts,
	>Marx makes a major point
	>of the relationship between
	>the sexes: "The infinite
	>degradation in which man
	>exists for himself is expressed
	>in this relation to the woman,"
	>
	>http://profiles.yahoo.com/swillsqueal
	>
	>__________________________________
	>Do you Yahoo!?
	>Yahoo! Finance Tax Center - File online. File on time.
	>http://taxes.yahoo.com/filing.html
	
	Robert Scott Gassler
	Professor of Economics
	Vesalius College of the Vrije Universiteit Brussel
	Pleinlaan 2
	B-1050 Brussels
	Belgium
	
	32.2.629.27.15