G'day John,
You write:
>One of the things that is noticable about the replies is that they
>imply (or state outright) that the problem does not lie in the
>economic field but in an almost Hegelian realm of ideas.
Nevertheless, John, an attempt was made to tie ideas to their context - to
the effect this is neither a time of physical desperation in the west
(insecurity and bemusement, sure - but they're coins with two sides) nor of
the widespread confident optimism that seemed to attend high employment,
welfare state reconstruction. Furthermore, the SU's many warts have been
under concerted and unopposed scrutiny for a decade now - whatever the truth
of the SU (and you and I would undoubtedly disagree about this - but that
need not be the issue here), it has been turned into an irrecoverable
negative at the level of background consensus in the west (although large
quantities of Czechs, Roumanians, Serbs and Russians have admittedly begun
to think otherwise - but then, their experience of the promised land has
been rather different from ours).
>As if somehow it was just a question of false consciousness not the
>inherent contradictions of capitalism and imperialism which are the
>key to revolution.
Just possibly the SU was materially, er, sub-optimal. So's what we have
today, of course. I'm not strong enough to entertain the possibility that
those two exhaust human possibilities. If that's idealism on my part, so be
it.
Cheers,
Rob.
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