From: heath@athena.cs.uga.edu (Terrance Heath)
Newsgroups: soc.culture.african.american
Subject: Re: Marxism (was Re: Pessimism
Date: 28 Sep 92 21:00:48 GMT
Organization: University of Georgia, Athens

In article <1992Sep27.043707.12309@gagme.chi.il.us> barnhart@gagme.chi.il.us (Mr Aaron Barnhart) writes:
>This is in reply to cwm54@cas.org (), who wrote:
>:
>:	In a capitalist society there are always going to be fewer jobs
>:     than workers. It is the nature of competition. If I "pull myself
>:     up by my own bootstraps" I necessarily displace someone else down
>:     to my previous position. When I open a restaurant someone else
>:     goes out of business because there are only so many dollars to be
>:     spent on entertainment. These are the cold hard facts. But you NEVER
>:     hear those with a voice explain this reality. This is the core of
>:     the problem.
>
>[... and:]
>:
>:	  In short if everyone in this country has a college education
>:      then college grads will be cleaning toilets and sweeping streets,
>:      and guess who that will be. Until Americans admit that because of
>:      our economic system(I make no judgements on the right or wrong of
>:      it),"the poor will always be with us" and because of racism the poor
>:      will always be disproportinately black; and poverty breeds violence.
>:      I don't see americans having the will or ability to understand these
>:      cause and effect relationships.If everyone on the welfare roles was
>:      "trained", there would be no work for them.( Why can't we be honest?)
>


	This is something I've been thinking about a lot, and I've
come to the rather depressing point that, in order for a system like
our current one to work, somebody HAS to be poor.  There simply is not
room for everyone to be at the top. Ideally, one would rise to the top
of one's chosen profession through hard work and execellence. Then one
must question whether there are those who are simply (through no fault
of their own) born not to acheive. Are these then the folk who will
fill the jobs that those of us whose talents are more valued by
society do not want, but jobs which are basic and neccesary to the
day to day functioning of our society? (I speak mostly of jobs
involving the manual labor of some sort, a means of making a living
which has fallen from esteem in our current society). It is almost
comforting to think that there are people who are naturally meant to
do such work. It keeps us from having to believe that in order to keep
a poorer, laboring class some people will have to be KEPT from
acheiving their best.

>I passionately believe, as does any good parent over in Japan, that
>if today's kids are all educated it will *create* jobs.  That's the one
>reason to hang onto Jack Kemp with all his shortcomings, unseemly
>affiliations, and conservatism: because he really thinks there's room
>for everybody to be their best (at least philosophically this is his
>message).  I do too.

	Its a really nice thought, but once we all make it to the
boardroom whose going to take out the garbage?




-- 
"Black men loving black men is THE revolutionary act!"
			-Joseph Beam_
Terrance Heath 
heath@athena.cs.uga.edu