Date: Fri, 13 Jun 1997 11:46:43 -0500 From: Doug Henwood <dhenwood-AT-panix.com> Subject: Re: M-I: state capitalism rakesh bhandari wrote [quoting Barkley Rosser]: >"European command socialist economies collapsed when confronted with the >external pressure to make a Schumpeterian leap to a higher level technique >cluster, the information-computer technology. This technology is best used >and developed in the sort of individualistic entrepreneurship system >associated with competitive market capitalism. The very effort to take >advantage of relative backwardness and to adopt this technology unleashed >the social political forces that eventually led to the collapse of >socialism." There may be something to this analysis, but it's is also a rather selective history of the evolution of computer technology, which emerged (like the Internet) from the deeply subsidized and highly planned economy supervised by the Pentagon. Further, computers have in many cases been forces for centralizaion and concentration (of both information and authority). It also lets the Soviet ruling class off the hook for the collapse of socialism. Barkley's recycling two kinds of bourgeois propaganda: one about recent capitalist history, the other about the end of the USSR. Too bad he's not here to accept the brickbats he deserves. Doug -- Doug Henwood Left Business Observer 250 W 85 St New York NY 10024-3217 USA +1-212-874-4020 voice +1-212-874-3137 fax email: <mailto:dhenwood-AT-panix.com> web: <http://www.panix.com/~dhenwood/LBO_home.html> --- from list marxism-international-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu ---
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