Date: Sat, 2 Mar 96 9:16:51 EST
From: boddhisatva <kbevans-AT-panix.com>
Subject: Re: LENIN VS TROTSKYSTS ON STATE CAPITALISM!





		To whom...,




	This is another Leninist missive with some of the best arguments
*against* centralism that I've yet seen.  Statements such as:

"The Soviets are a new state apparatus which, in the first place, provides
an armed force of workers and PEASANTS; and this force is not divorced from
the people, as was the old standing army, but is very closely bound up with
the people"  


are laughable.  Simply SAYING that the new workers' state apparatus will be
"closely bound up with the people" does not make it so.  Of course there is
no argument presented here why such a thing should be true, because there is
no such argument.  Plenty of soldiers in death squads come from good
proletarian roots.  The PROBLEM is power.



	About power the missive goes on to say that: ""The decisive thing
is the organization of the strictest and countrywide accounting and
control of production and distribution of goods".  Here Leninists make the
clear argument that their vision demands strict accountability TO the
state BY individual citizens for ALL their economic activity - for the
purpose of CONTROL!!!! 



	That kind of state power simply is not controllable.  With 
labrynthine regulation and what seem to people in parliamentary states as 
impossibly cumbersome checks and balances on state power, the US 
government STILL manages to wield too much and for the wrong causes.  
There is simply no way that any government can be trusted with that kind 
of control.  



	Forget the adolescent fantasy of perfect centralist efficiency!  
Efficiency is unimportant compared to democracy.  Give people the right
to the fruit of their labors, and protect that right from those who would 
diminish it.  THAT is the aim of socialism, not efficiency.






	peace,




		boddhisatva









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