Any philosophy or political idea can become
a dogma, if applied as such, being identified
as Absolute Truth. This, ofcourse says nothing about
the validity and applicability of said idea.
Marxism/leninism as defined by it's originators
does not claim any such identity, it was born from
dialectic materialism, that denies such absolutes.
The present capitalist market system is not
based on any philosophical/political idea, it
happened. Any ideology that
apologises for it sprung up when this system
was already with us. The dogma is that it
cannot be changed to something better.
Or on this list: if we just change some of it's
institutions, than it would somehow work better.
Sorry, the fundations of the economic relations
that need changing.
Eva
>
> There are no societies without religion, even, or especially, those which
> believe themselves to be entirely secular. In our century, in our society,
> the concept of development has acquired religious and doctrinal status. The
> [World] Bank is commonly accepted as the Vatican, the Mecca or the Kremlin
> of this twentieth-century religion. A doctrine need not be true to move
> mountains or to provoke manifold material and human disasters. Religious
> doctrines (in which we would include secular ones like Leninism) have,
> through the ages, done and continue to do precisely that, whereas, logically
> speaking, not all of them can be true insofar as they all define Truth as
> singular and uniquely their own.
>
> Religion cannot, by definition, be validated or invalidated, declared true
> or false - only believed or rejected. Facts are irrelevant to belief: they
> belong to another sphere of reality. True believers, the genuinely pure of
> heart, exist in every faith, but the majority generally just goes along
> lukewarmly out of cultural habit or material advantage. When, however, the
> faith achieves political hegemony as well, like the medieval Church (or the
> Bolsheviks, or the Ayatollahs), it is in a position to make people offers
> they can't refuse, or to make their lives extremely uncomfortable if they
> do.
> ....
Eva
>
> It's a great book!
>
> Faith and Credit: The World Bank's Secular Empire
> by Susan George, Fabrizio Sabelli
> Paperback - 282 pages (September 1994)
> Westview Press; ISBN: 0813326079
> http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0813326079
>
>
>
>
>
>
