Date: Wed, 28 Dec 1994 09:41:40 -0500 (EST) From: Richard Wolff <rwolff-AT-minerva.cis.yale.edu> Subject: Re: Re: autonomist marxism I like your poetry and your poetic prose. I like your intensity and drive. I share much of your perspective. But I cannot join you in the "democracy" fetish. By that I mean subsuming so many different dimensions, aspects, elements of our agenda for social change under the one heading of democracy viewed as some sort of ultimate good sweeping in all other, derivative goods with it. I prefer to see democracy as one among a set of revolutionary objectives. Its establishment may, but need not, entail the establishment of other elements of that set. This is rather like learning the lesson of earlier socialists who imagined, wrongly as it turned out, that socializing property entailed all the other goods viewed as necessary derivatives of such socialization. Thus, we need to define and struggle for an agenda that includes a specific set of social changes - from democratic decision-making to non-exploitative class structures (class in Marx's sense of processes of producing and distributing the surplus labor found in all communities) to non-oppressive communications of meanings amongs ourselves. The recognition of the heterogeneity of oppression and exploitation was premised on such a view. In any case, thanks for your comments, quick response, and poetic imagery. R. Wolff ------------------
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