Date: Thu, 7 Mar 2002 23:05:08 +0100 (CET)
From: zxmzc14 <birgit.bock-AT-student.uni-tuebingen.de>
Subject: Re: AUT: re: The relative decline of material living standards  in


Louis
you say:
"-They are condemned by history. History, the natural history of men and
human society dooms them to disappear. And so they seek to halt the
inevitable course of history, to halt human society, and they also want to
prevent, by means of force, what they cannot hold up in any case,"

 don't know about this , I think this is positivistic view of history
 which leads to all kinds of trouble, what about saint augustine's
 view of history, where he basically says that if we let history
 speak for itself we see that human civilization has repeatedly displayed
a failure to secure peace. And this not becuasei certain individuals or
groups
 don't want peace but
 because history herself will not allow it. Augustine says that
 although some humans try to achieve peace it is for the most
 part beyound their will. Because men do not write history, but are
players
 or actors in history. This is also more or less a classical or roman
 view of history. Now I am not going to say that we have to believe in
some
 other worldly peace like augustine does but his view of history in the
world
 is what I see all the events and lessions history has to offer us.

 As for the debate on cuba is seems preety lame to continue to demand that
we ha
ve an exact understanding this question, when none of us are communists,
we all
live in western countries. why don't we get some north korean or cuban on
this
 list who is part of a communitst political party which is in power and
living c
ommunism at a daily level. Until then we are just sympathic to idea which
we do
not have the courage or determination to live out as a daily reality.

does theoretical knowledge give us more authority than practical
experience?


Jeremiah






On Thu, 7 Mar 2002, Louis Proyect wrote:

> Date: Thu, 07 Mar 2002 13:39:11 -0500
> From: Louis Proyect <lnp3-AT-panix.com>
> Reply-To: aut-op-sy-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu
> To: aut-op-sy-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu
> Subject: Re: AUT: re: The relative decline of material living standards
>     in capitalist Cuba
>
> Harald:
> >When even such a a basic thing as soap
> >dependended on the USSR, this says a lot, to put it mildly.
>
> What it says is that Cuba had to rely on the USSR for many consumer goods.
> In all of the posts that I have been reading here, there has been no
> suggestion of an alternative course. Surely, Cuba was better off trading
> sugar for cars, tractors, clothing, soap, etc. rather than launching its
> own consumer goods industrial sector, right? To build such factories, you
> need steel, right? And machinery, right? I can't imagine that you would
> argue anything so patently ridiculous, right? Well, who knows...
>
>
>
>
> Louis Proyect
> Marxism mailing list: http://www.marxmail.org
>
>
>
>
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>



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