> The problem turns, remember, upon the control of the means of production.
> Capitalism means that this control is vested in the hands of few, while
> political freedom is the appanage of all. It this anomaly cannot endure,
> from its insecurity and from its own contradiction with its presumed moral
> basis, you must either have a transformation of one or of the other of the
> two elements which combined have been found unworkable. These two factors
> are (1) The ownership of the means of production by a few; (2) The freedom
> of all. To solve capitalism you must get rid of restricted ownership, or of
> freedom, or of both.
>
What political freedom?? (and what the *^%$* is appanage, the
dictionary didn't find any means to connect it to your sentence.)
Your premise is false. Capitalism doesn't mean political freedom,
most of the time not even nominally. Economic unequality
cannot provide political equality, when economic power means
political power.
Therefore there is no reason why
non-capitalism should lead necessarily to non-freedom.
The conditions needed for
a successful/democratic socialist transformation were missing
in the historical events so far. This is straightforward analysis
of historical data. A successful transformation has not
happened yet, which does not mean it cannot, when the conditions are
right. New systems have this nature of not yet ever being around.
> Now there is only one alternative to freedom, which is the negation of it.
> Either a man is free to work and not to work as he pleases, or he may be
> liable to a legal compulsion to work, backed by the forces of the state. In
> the first he is a free man; in the second he is by definition a slave. We
> have, therefore, so far as this factor of freedom is concerned, no choice
> between a number of changes, but only the opportunity of one, to wit, the
> establishment of slavery in place of freedom.
You suggest, that people are "free to work" at present?
Because you are wrong in that case. Nobody, who
HAS TO get up and go to work for an income that
is necessary for living a life that is considered to be
satisfactory in the given social/cultural setup, is free.
The wast majority of us are wageslaves, whether we are
happy with our particular situations/conscious of it or not.
The state is an instrument of the status quo, it exist to
enforce our status as wageslaves, and maintain the status of the owners of
the means of production (private property).
If we were free, no enforcement/state would be necessary,
as we would work because we see the need for it or because we enjoy it,
or both.
> Such a solution, the direct,
> immediate, and conscious reestalishment of slavery, would provide a true
> soltuioh of the problems which capitalism offers. It would guarantee, under
> workable regulations, sufficiency and security for the dispossessed. Such a
> solution, as I shall show, is the probable goal which our society will in
> fact approach. To its immediate and conscious acceptance, however, there is
> an obstacle.
>
This is indeed, frightening. Especially as it seem to be
repeated more and more often; the gist of it being, that
democracy is mob's rule of the great unwashed, when
clever, benevolent technocrats could govern us ever so well.
Capitalism hasn't got the economic mechanism to provide
continuous security for anyone - and last of all for the
dispossessed. No form of government can change this.
Hitler needed an artificial market (military/public work)
and a war, to re-kindle the failing machinary. If you follow through your
thread of thought, this is where you get.
There is no capitalism
with a human face, whether based on allegedly benevolent
dictatorship or democracy. It hasn't got the economic machinary to
support it other then for relatively short periods. That's why
it is outmoded and all attempt of it's further zombification is
madness, when we now have the conditions to do better.
> Thomas:
>
> The following article is an example of a State moving slowly towards
> slavery. And as the article mentions, it is the very business class, those
> who, as Belloc identifies as the small minority who control the means of
> production, who find the concepts of Socialism or Welfare state so abhorrent
> to their goals of personal wealth creation who are supporting the political
> moves that are leading the poor into slavery. First, we can see that the
> plight of the poor has to increase in misery and finally as a sop, the
> authorities will bring forth as a panacea to the cruelty they have created,
> "under workable regulations, sufficiency and security for the dispossessed."
>
The whole of the middle-classes are sliding down to
the uncertainties and statelessness insecurity of the underclass.
This experience will sling them out of the stupor created by the
virtual wealth of the last 50 years. Such awareness will bring
the next revolution and the long awaited syncronisation
of collective social relations with the collective and
highly integrated work we already do: democracy, freedom and
the shrinking and disappearing state.
> Convince me that I am wrong?
>
I did my best...
Eva
> Respectfully,
>
> Thomas Lunde
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
