Date: Sat, 25 Mar 95 19:01:18 GMT From: Ron Press <anclondon-AT-gn.apc.org> Subject: Stalin/chaos I find the following in the list. >>>>>>>> Someone--Mostern, I think--reminded us that we cannot guarantee the outcome of a revolution. It unleashes forces which no group can control. Given that revolutions take place under situations of disruption and conflict, horrific outcomes are always possible. I think Mostern (if it was he) went to far when he said he could not see the difference between Stalinism and our current situation (we are having this discussion, after all, and do not anticipate the secrete police coming for us as an immediate consequence). But I agree with him if what he meant was that the current and projected situatiuon is terrible enough to make the risks of revolutionary action worthwhile, if we can do it. Luxemburg posed us with the choice of socialism or barbarism. Well, Stalinism shows you might get both. But if do not get socialism, we will certainly get (more) barbarism. So revolution is a Pascal's wager--I think. I haven't constructed the matrix. Any, bad as it might be, it's our best bet. Which doesn't necessarily say much for our chances. <<<<<<<<<<<<< I will once again face the danger of being tedious, or perhaps too erudite? The above passage reflects in a quite concise manner the ideas of chaos theory. A rigid complex system fails to satisfy the demands for its self preservation. It suffers from internal and external pressures which leads to the breakdown of its organisation. The system boarders on chaos. It has a choice relapse into complete chaos and selfdestruct or a new system emerges from the borderline and reestablishes a system which can survive. If the new system is inflexible and again unable to survive the pressures it too relapses into chaos. And the process repeats. The arrow of time implies that the first system is replaced by a second and subsequently a third. However the ideas of non-linear processes and strange Attractors allows for the possibility that the first system is followed by the second but theat the third system is a variant of the first. For first read Capitalism, the second socialism, the third communism. I do not deny that things are much more complex. But I submit that the above scenario is not only consistent with marxism ( small m) but an extension of marxism. Ron Press. A voice on the outside lookin in??? . --- from list marxism-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu --- ------------------
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