Date: Mon, 27 Mar 95 23:42:09 BST
From: Chris Burford <cburford-AT-gn.apc.org>
Subject: Re:  Stalin/chaos


Hi Ron,

I agree with so much of what you say, without ever finding it boring that 
it is hard to know how to respond to your posts. That plus the fact that 
you are one of the only two people on the list I know face to face,
and that makes it a bit difficult to know when to have a good discussion off 
stage and when to have it on stage.

But if I read your post closely, I do have a problem with two points. 

1)
As you know I am very interested in looking at marxism again from the point 
of view of dynamical systems theory, but "The Arrow of Time" - I can't get 
into it. I have bought the book and there are exciting section headings 
like

	"Chaos: a reason for having sex"

and I always seem to have something else to do.

I guess I decided at the age of four as a materialist that time goes 
forward and I don't see why the application of marxism is illuminated by 
this arrow. What am I missing?



2. You wrote philosophically 

 >   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,  
are you quietly suggesting a capitalist road to communism?

Even if you might invoke Stuart Kauffman to show this is theoretically 
possible to conceptualise, how would you explain it politically? Or do 
you think the experience in South Africa might just contain some clues?

It seems to me we will have to argue about this a bit, to take it further.

With regards,

Chris Burford





     --- from list marxism-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu ---

     ------------------