Louis is right! Mine ps: I don't know how this message looks like. my server practically does not work now.. >This seems correct -- but it also seems to indicate the irrelevance or >even obscurantist nature of long arguments about whether some other >people are/were happier in Situation A rather than Situation B. > >Carrol You don't seem to get it. This is not about a "Golden Age". It is whether radicals should defend the right of peasants to live in conditions that people like Walt Rostow or others view as "primitive". Marxism has tended to err on the side of Rostow. If you look at "Marxism and Social Democracy: The Revisionist Debate 1896-1898", edited and translated by H. and J.M. Tudor, you will discover that Edward Bernstein cited the Communist Manifesto in support of colonialism in Morocco. Between the rude "tribalism" of the Moroccans and the "civilizing" role of the Europeans, Bernstein aligned himself with the latter. Citing slavery and pasha despotism, he claimed that "modern democratic institutions" were necessary.