From: m.lepore-AT-genie.geis.com
Date: Sun, 28 Aug 94 03:17:00 UTC
Subject: The meaning of "socialism"


 
 
 Would you do me a favor and sign your name at the bottom of your
 letter when you're talking to me?  I can't see your name and address
 because the host machine I use deletes the mail headers.
 
    >    As predicted, Lepore appeals, not to concrete reality as
    >    understood with the rational science of economics, but, here
    >    we go, to (alleged) states of consciousness of capitalists.
    >    Ie, and, of course, following Kant, capitalist production is
    >    bad because their hearts are impure.  They have the wrong
    >    motives!  They are motivated by, oh, the horror, the horror,
    >    selfishness.  I guess this means that if I have a pure,
    >    selfless motive to sledgehammer somebody's skull into bone
    >    dust, why, then, by the magic of selflessness, its a good
    >    deed.
 
 Your paraphrase of my position is the opposite of my position.
 Generally, capitalists are not bad people at all.  (I actually met a
 capitalist once, about twenty years ago, and he was very nice.)  It
 may appear to be "evil" which makes someone give the order to poison
 a river, or knowingly to adopt the more dangerous automobile design,
 or to sell nerve gas to Saddam Hussein, but it's not really the
 individual capitalists who are doing these things.  In fact, if
 workers had instead been born into that social caste which subsists
 by moving money from one pocket to another, then we would probably be
 doing precisely the same things.  It's the system of certain
 relationships which is at fault, the government over people by the
 compound interest formula, the system of human beings selling
 themselves on the labor market just as barley and scrap iron are sold
 on their respective markets.  The capitalists themselves are merely
 the personalities who happen to find themselves doing the things
 which, as long as human beings relate to each other merely as
 commodities, someone must do.
 
 Your references to "selflessness" are ambiguous.  I advocate building
 a classless society primarily because I'm selfish.  I don't like the
 fact that it's impossible for most parents, including myself, to feed
 our children and simultaneously to save for their education.  I don't
 like the fact that I will have no pension to live on in my old age
 because I was unable to work for the same company for thirty
 consecutive years.  I don't like having to give ninety percent of our
 family income to the bank who holds the mortgage.  If everyone would
 be quite selfish, and really stick to it, we'd choose socialism.
 
    >    Following Kant into metaphysical subjectivism, Lepore makes
    >    mind (or the subsconsious) the creator of reality.
 
 Now where exactly did I say a thing like that?  No fair making me
 giggle when I'm trying to start an argument with you.
 
    >    I predict, however, that Lepore will agree with the mass
    >    murderer, Stalin,
 
 Thank you for informing me of what I probably think.  I don't know
 how I'd ever determine what I think if you weren't here to let me
 know.
 
    >    when he said, "Dialectics is the soul of Marxism." Ie, with
    >    the Law of Identity thrown out of the window, one's
    >    reasoning tends to...well, get a bit fuzzy.
 
 If you want to know about dialectics, study 20th century physics.
 Without any reference to Marx and Engels, read some Schrodinger and
 Heisenberg.  Try to find your "law of identity" in the "probability
 waves." But - if you care to put that in the form of a question - do
 I agree with the dialectical approach as it is given in the marxian
 tradition?  After reading such works as Engels' _Anti-Duhring_ and
 _The Dialectics of Nature_ dozens of times over past 25 years, I have
 come to the conclusion that dialectics is mostly Taoist gobbledygook;
 it does not enable anyone to distinguish between a true hypothesis
 and a false one.
 
    >    Lepore wants production without real individuals reasoning
    >    about concrete reality.
 
 I wish I knew what the hell you are talking about.  Just because I
 believe, while you don't believe, that the workers in every workplace
 are more technically qualified to elect the managers than a group of
 absentee stockholders are, and that the workers are more entitled to the
 dividends, now I'm supposed to try to decipher your 9 uses of the
 word "reality" and your 6 uses of "concrete"?
 
    >    Apparently, capitalists assume the lotus position, engage in
    >    religious chants, and HERE IT IS, FOLKS!  goods and services
    >    get produced.  Who needs witch doctors?!
 
 It's not clear whether you are stating what you believe, or what you
 think that I believe, or what you think that I think you believe.
 Anyhow - No, capitalist magic does not bring about production.  The
 entire role of the capitalist in modern society is occasionally to
 give permission to allow human beings to act upon nature's resources.
 Production is not allowed to take place unless the capitalists have
 signed certain papers to authorize it.  But the capitalist giving
 that permission is not the same as "contributing" anything to
 production, since it is only our present day property institutions
 which make the capitalists' involvement appear to be "necessary" in
 the first place.  If we artificially make something "necessary"
 (capital, in this case) then the providing of it will appear to be
 a "contribution."  The "need" for capital is like knowing a computer
 password: we have to have it in order to to get any work done, but
 it's also true that we have created the "necessity" in the first
 place.
 
    >    Capitalism is, first, a rational commitment to the material
    >    universe.
 
 A particular socioeconomic system has an intimate connection with
 the "material universe"?
 
    >    Socialism is, first, a sentimental commitment to others'
    >    approval.
 
 You figure that socialists have taken their stand because they want
 the approval of others?  The people who get called "red commie
 traitor" by their family and neighbors, get fired from their jobs
 because of their politics, and get clubbed by the police -- are in
 the movement because they crave lots of approval?
 
    >    Are there class distinctions among bums?
 
 There can be.... if one of the bums owns a bank or a corporation,
 and the other doesn't....
 
    >    Christians wait for God and Marxists wait for matter to stop
    >    contradicting itself.
 
 There's probably something there that's worth discussing but I don't
 understand your metaphorical style of writing.  Could you be a bit
 more literal?  Do you believe that capitalism grows directly out of
 "matter"?  I mean, do you think that the universe has these
 fundamental units - length, time, mass and electric charge - which,
 when assembled together, inherently create - what - capitalism?
 
    >    The democratic power to elect political vampires who steal
    >    money and productive enterprises from those who have, with
    >    the power of independent, rational action, created wealth,
    >    is socialism.
   ...
    >    socialist thugs who steal the productive work of capitalists
 
 Aside from the assumption that it's form of "productive work" to
 inherit one's great-grandparent's wealth and deposit it with
 stockbrokers (and an "independent" activity at that!  Move over,
 Robinson Crusoe!), there's something else notable here.  It is the
 selective ability to see the "stealing" in "stealing." It is
 described as "stealing" if society socializes the industries, because
 society has come to recognize that our industrial institutions are,
 for all practical purposes, public institutions - only with the
 cooperative labor of millions of people can they be constructed and
 operated.  But it is not viewed as "stealing" if the group of people
 who do not own capital must, in order to survive, obtain employment
 by the group of people who own capital, and if this relationship
 provides a mere "living wage" for those employed, regardless of the
 exponential increases in the productivity of our labor.
 
    >    a mindless herd of self-destructive cowards.
 
 I sometimes wonder why nearly all ad hominum remarks are made by
 capitalism advocates.  One would think that they would take comfort
 in the fact that their ideal, the ownership of 90 percent of the
 wealth by the wealthiest one percent of the population, is now in
 full bloom all around us.  It is quite interesting to see so much
 outrage from those who in fact have the least to complain about, in
 contrast to the serene reflection which usually takes place among
 revolutionaries.
 
 And, along these lines, I apologize if you were offended by my
 calling you a "capitalist purist."  I thought the phrase was generic
 and that you would not object to it.  (I was referring to your
 statement that there is really very little capitalism taking place,
 with all the "socialism" or "fascism" of government ownership of
 this or that.)
 
 Let's have a nice little talk, shall we?  Without being sarcastic
 with each other?
 
 I'll even admit that there may be some things which I can learn
 from you.
 
                      Mike Lepore  mlepore-AT-mcimail.com
 
 


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