> >
> > > > Who was talking about any final
> > > > solution? I find such a strawman a tad offensive.
> > >
> > > And, believe me, I was sensitive to the implication of the term;
> > > however, your uncompromising views do give the impression that you can
> > > see only one solution, and that
> > > that solution is the final one. But, even so, I do apologize for giving
> > > in to my baser
> > > instincts.
> > >
> >
> > Uncompromising means, not changing opinions even when
> > presented rational reasons to do so. In the absence of such
> > what can I do? What if my opinion is actually a good
> > approximation to reality, such as, say, Newton's views
> > on gravity? Was he uncompromising about these?
> >
>
> Hmmm. So, in your opinion, there is a final solution after all!
>
?? Just because I find no adequate reason
as yet to change my opinion, that doesn't mean
that said opinion says anything that can
be termed as final solution.
You sidetracked your debate about the way I said it
(uncompromisingly) to what I said - two
different things in most books.
> In a compromise one need not give up one's opinions (to which one is always
> entitled); one may simply agree to put them on hold in order to get on
> with life. In the case of
> this listserv "life" is simply the stated issue for which it provides a
> forum. (A compromise may also involve each side in a disagreement
> merging views
> to produce a mutually-acceptable position, but I don't that's likely in this
> context.)
>
Yes, compromise is a very essential part of human cooperation,
no argument there. However, it is not always possible,
or even necessary or useful. If we are consccous about
something harmful, we have a duty to attempt, using the
most convincing evidence, to shift other people to our view,
so that we can cooperate to avoid the continuation of
said harm.
>
> To both collectivists and certain environmentalists discussing such short
> range or limited issues is tantamount to shuffling deck chairs on the
> Titanic. But, as
> has been noted before, to muddle through a bit at a time, while frustrating,
> may be the best approach. It at least holds out the prospect that
> society may
> attain a singular (critical) point at which a paradigm shift occurs and
> the correct views are conceived and implemented.
>
To muuddle through is the maddest possible strategy
when you are aware, that the boat is sinking.
- You should tell as many people as you can, so
you may use the largest capacity of human
inventiveness to avoid/survive the catastrophy.
Human history is defined by the progress of
"artificial" involvement in the paradigm-shift
business. At this point, if you leave it
to the muddle-through shortsightedness of
the present captains of the media, you might as well
pop a few pills and jump overboard to avoid all
the chaos of the sinking. I uncompromisingly try my
best to shift that horrid paradigm.
The gist of syncronising cooperative production
with cooperative distribution did not happen,
the process of polarization of economical, thus
political power is happening as much and more
than in Marx's time.
All compromises so far ended up with an untouched
capitalist economic base. I agree, that the
non-compromising revolutions failed, too,
but we had a chance to find out exactly, why,
and all those conditions that lead to the failure -
such as poverty, illiteracy, thus the continuation of
the despotic burocracy intact from the tsar -
cannot be repeated with the awareness and expectancy
of democracy - a paradigm shift that actually
happened in my opinion, and waits for the opportune moment
to assert itself...
Eva
> The following is an extract from "The Communist Manifesto" by Marx and
> Engels. How much of this has already been implemented? Or found to be
> undesirable? Or outmoded by technological change?
>
> "The proletariat will use its political supremacy to wrest, _by degrees_
> (my emphasis), all
> capital from the bourgeoisie, to centralise all instruments of
> production in the hands of the State, i.e., of the proletariat
> organised as
> the ruling class; and to increase the total of productive
> forces as rapidly as possible.
>
> Of course, in the beginning, this cannot be effected except by means of
> despotic inroads on the rights of property, and on the
> conditions of bourgeois production; by means of measures, therefore, which
> appear economically insufficient and untenable, but
> which, in the course of the movement, outstrip themselves, necessitate
> further inroads upon the old social order, 18) and are
> unavoidable as a means of entirely revolutionising the mode of production.
>
> These measures will of course be different in different countries. 19)
>
> Nevertheless in the most advanced countries, the following will be pretty
> generally applicable:
>
> 1.Abolition 20) of property in land and application of all rents of land
> to public purposes.
> 2.A heavy progressive or graduated income tax. 21)
> 3.Abolition of all right of inheritance.
> 4.Confiscation of the property of all emigrants and rebels.
> 5.Centralisation of credit in the hands of the State, by means of a
> national bank with State capital and an exclusive
> monopoly.
> 6.Centralisation of the means of communication and transport 22) in the
> hands of the State.
> 7.Extension of factories and instruments of production owned by the
> State; the bringing into cultivation of waste-lands, and
> the improvement of the soil generally in accordance with a common
> plan.
> 8.Equal liability of all to labour. Establishment of industrial armies,
> especially for agriculture.
> 9.Combination of agriculture with manufacturing industries; gradual
> abolition of the distinction between town and country,
> by a more equable distribution of the population over the country.
> 23)
> 10.Free education for all children in public schools. Abolition of
> children's factory labour in its present form. Combination
> of education with industrial production, &c., &c.
>
> When, in the course of development, class distinctions have
> disappeared, and
> all production has been concentrated in the hands of
> a vast association of the whole nation, 24) the public power will lose its
> political character. Political power, properly so called, is
> merely the organised power of one class for oppressing another. If the
> proletariat during its contest with the bourgeoisie is
> compelled, by the force of circumstances, to organise itself as a
> class, if,
> by means of a revolution, it makes itself the ruling class,
> and, as such, sweeps away by force the old conditions of production,
> then it
> will, along with these conditions, have swept away the
> conditions for the existence of class antagonisms and of classes generally,
> and will thereby have abolished its own supremacy as a
> class. "
>
> Source: http://www.hartford-hwp.com/cp-usa/manifesto/man-2.html
>
> --
> http://publish.uwo.ca/~mcdaniel/
>
