>Well, human progress is occurring. It is occurring while we have a
>capitalist economic system. And no one today thinks the... non-capitalist
>economic systems we saw during the twentieth century were faster roads for
>human progress.
I'm sure there's _someone_ who thinks that the bureaucratic socialist
economies were superior. Perhaps some of them participate in pen-l. So that
negates this effort at the popularity poll method ("no one today thinks")
of asserting the truth of a political position. (What did that other Karl
say about the logical fallacy of appeal to popular opinion?) Or are you
referring to a consensus of those with economic and political power, as you
did in the midst of your long and illuminating defense of neoliberalism? or
a consensus among neoclassical economists, purveyors of capitalist ideology?
It should also be remembered that the US and its allies made every possible
effort to make sure that bureaucratic socialism failed, including invasion
and assassination. They also set up the conditions so that "bureaucratic
deformation" was more likely: military and economic attack, along with the
encouragement of civil war, encourages the rise of the military, the
increased role of loyalty criteria in judging individual merit, the
suppression of civil liberties, etc. The US wars against Nicaragua and
Chile showed the way in which our power elite fought even the possibility
of a "good example" being established which might make capitalism (and of
course the US) look bad.
Of course, it wasn't simply a US effort: the entire development of world
capitalism has meant that the benefits of the system have been more likely
to accrue to the rich countries while the costs are dumped on the poor
ones. Marx's predictions of the rise of working-class movements -- a
necessary component of the establishment of non-bureaucratic socialism --
applied best for the rich core, while his prediction of economic crises
and the like -- which have the impact which encourages the movement against
capitalism -- applied best to the periphery. So the revolutions against
capitalism were most likely to take place in poor countries desperate not
for democracy as much as for the political independence and economic
development that capitalism wasn't providing. So we see the rise of
bureaucratic socialism as a lever to promote national capital accumulation
-- substituting for capitalism -- rather than as a force for deepening and
widening democracy. In the end, the bureaucratic-socialist countries failed
because the bureaucracies which promoted economic growth became entrenched
and corrupt and unable to promote the national economic development they
promised. (I am not talking about Cuba, BTW, since its small size meant
that its fate is totally dependent on its international environment, while
meaning that no matter how bureaucratic its regime, the government's
relationship with the people may be close than that of the US ruling class
with its people.) Of course, the capitalist attack on these countries sped
up the process.
Jim Devine [EMAIL PROTECTED] &
http://clawww.lmu.edu/Faculty/JDevine/JDevine.html
