From: barnhart@gagme.chi.il.us (Mr Aaron Barnhart)
Subject: Re: Marxism (was Re: Pessimism
Originator: barnhart@gagme
Organization: Evanston, Illinois
Date: Fri, 9 Oct 1992 01:48:29 GMT

This is in reply to chriswa@microsoft.com (Chris Waldron), who wrote:
: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:
:>It's very hard to say to someone like you, Carlyle, who obviously
:>accepts the Marxist outlook on these things as the closest to telling
:>it like it is that in fact it ain't.
:>
:>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.
:>
:>You *are* making "judgments on the right or wrong of ... our economic
:>system" because you don't believe in capitalism tenet of expansion,
:>in fact hold strong to the opposite view, which is that the proles
:>only have so much to take, and if one swipes a job, why, some other
:>poor slob is out his.
:>
:>That's not to take away the insult of life as it is.  Just to say
:>that we don't all call that view "reality," it is actually what you
:>first called it, pessimism.
:>
:/* ----------------------------------------------------------------------- */
:
:The problem with capitalism is that it lead to monopolies and/or oligopolies.
:In order to expand you have to find either new markets or obtain additional
:market share.  If you do not have an expanding ecomony then the only way to
:gain additional market share is by obtaining your competitor's share.  Thus
:power and control redistributes upward.  Also expansion cannot continue
:unabaited without undue environmental problems.  Thus for capitalism to be
:just system it must be restrained.  

I must admit I get a kick out of receiving such fearsome instruction
on the evils of big corporations that need to be curbed from an employee
of the Microsoft Corporation.

:However Jack Kemp was a major architect
:in the unrestraining of capitalism in the early 80's as co-sponsor of the
:Kemp/Roth 1981 tax-cut that distributed wealth upward and the expense of
:the vast majority of the society in hopes that economic activity would
:"trickle-down".  The media conveniantly omits this major piece of information
:when they refer to him.  His enterprise zone initiative is also another of
:his trickle down schemes that assumes that business incentives will revitalize
:the economies in urban areas.  Only until capitalism is restrained or replaced
:with a socially democratic and sustainable economy will you have an equitable
:system and society..

The people I read don't leave these things out.  My point was and
is that Kemp may be wrongheaded, but he passionately believes in
capitalism creative ability -- and whatever its strengths, Marxism
remains essentially a colossal critique of capitalism, not a 
surging, growing, dynamic response to it.  (So far.)

Aaron