From: gcf@panix.com (Gordon Fitch)
Subject: Re: Is this a socialist county?
Date: Thu, 13 Aug 1992 22:49:45 GMT
Organization: mydog in exile

gcf@panix.com (Gordon Fitch) writes:
|    ...the 
|    government is clearly run by an elite, most of whom are
|    quite well-off.

rjbodkin@theory.lcs.mit.ed (Ronald Bodkin) writes:
|       I think the government is controlled by the rabble, i.e., vocal
| special interest groups who play beggar-my-neighbour (seeking to raid
| the public coffers for their benefit).  The "elite" who run the
| government may be able to get their friends some extra hand-outs but
| they certainly have predominently disbursed goods to their own region
| and those SIGs who give them money for election.

A curious use of the word "rabble", which hardly seems to
apply to the well-heeled representatives of defense
industries, banks, insurance companies, and other major
interests.  True, they are vocal enough when their lips are
close to the ear of a Senator.

"Rabble" usually refers to the poor.  The poor don't vote,
and no one in the government gives a rat about them except
when they get in the way or can be used as the objects of
some scheme.  

gf:
|    ... In no sense does the "public" or the
|    "working class" own, operate, or even influence the
|    government.  So the government is _not_ socialist.  

rb:
|       It certainly is a shining example of democracy, or tyranny of
| the masses (if you like to distinguish between the good and bad forms
| of government as Aristotle did).  The public influences a government
| that polls them incessantly and adopts (sufficiently) popular
| policies.

I don't see any of this.  I see a great deal of manipulation,
of which "polling" is a necessary part.  Every now and then
the elite screws up, as it did with the Alar business, and
causes a stampede, but in general the cattle head in the
indicated direction.

gf:
|    ... Socialism does not mean
|    "controlled by the government."

rb: 
|       Your (imputed) notion of socialism is simply impossible to
| ever attain (except for tiny communities).  

gf:
|    You may not wish to call
|    the present system capitalism, but it's capitalistic to
|    the core.

rb:
|       By what definition of capitalism?  Would a fascist government
| also be "capitalistic to the core?"  Can you identify meaningful
| alternatives to capitalism that are remotely conceivable for modern
| society.  Hell, is feudalism "capitalistic to the core?"

(1) See below.
(2) The answer to the question about fascism is complicated,
but in general I think it represents a kind of reversion to
feudalism or classical slavery.
(3) There are no alternatives to capitalism in contemporary
society, other than reversion.
(4) No.

gf:
|    I doubt very much if any other economic system
|    is possible under the conditions which produce capitalism,
|    as Lenin discovered in the early 1920s.  He called his
|    post-Bolshevik system "state capitalism," a designation 
|    you can now have free of charge if you like -- if the 
|    government indeed controls half of that wonderful myth, 
|    the GNP.
|  
|       Sounds like capitalism (by your definition) is indeed so
| all-encompassing that we'd better discuss the various types of
| capitalism.

I've put several articles in talk.politics.theory about my
view of what capitalism is and why under present conditions
it is the only viable economic system.  I guess I could post
them again.  Very briefly, given a certain level of culture
and a certain amount and quality of capital, such as that we
have about us now, capital is scarce enough and people are
ignorant enough so that capital must be controlled by an 
elite.  If socialists attempt to implement a socialist state 
through a government, they simply create another elite, 
another bourgeoisie, what Milovan Djilas called the "New 
Class."  This class has or evolves bourgeois values:
the ideology of bureaucratic authority, the ideology
of production, and eventually the ideology of 
consumption.

Naturally, as they do all this, they have a great 
interest in maintaining the fiction of socialism --
after all, it's part of their stock in trade.  Everybody's
in business.  Clearly, if socialism ever comes about, it's
not going to be because of an elite; it's going to grow up
from the bottom, anarchistically, just as capitalism did.
But most of the people who post here can't even think of
this, because they have business-interest propaganda, to
wit, "socialism equals government control", wired in their
skulls.  Apparently.

|         ...  I'd sure rather live under US-style "capitalism" than
| Soviet sytle "state capitalism."

So would everybody else.  So what?  Why is the poor old
Soviet Union constantly hauled up from the grave, whipped,
and buried again?  It was fun once, but doesn't it get 
tiresome?
-- 
Gordon Fitch | gcf@panix.com | uunet!cmcl2!panix!gcf 
*       1238 Blg. Grn. Sta., N.Y., N.Y. 10274      *
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