Returning to my office from the excellent Labyrinth Bookstore, I ran into a geezer--by the looks of him, he was even older than me--who sat at table on the sidewalk in front of Columbia University's main entrance. He was selling a book titled "The Capitalist Manifesto" that he wrote and published himself. Although I usually tend to needle Trotskyists who sit in the same location, I couldn't resist the temptation to rub his nose in the Russian fiasco and walked up to him. I asked, "So what's going on in the former Soviet Union? Capitalism didn't work too well, did it." He then proceeded to give me a long spiel on how the Russian problems are rooted in their failure to apply Adam Smith's "Wealth of Nation" faithfully. I laughed out loud. This guy didn't realize that this was the same sort of litany I would hear from Trotskyists at the same location, except that they relied on a different holy text. This seems to be the approaching fate of capitalist ideologues. They will sit by themselves in front of Ivy League universities trying to recruit a misguided and unhappy freshman student. Or they will sell capitalist newspapers in front of plant-gates early in the morning with headlines like "Capitalist renewal is around the corner. THE TIME TO ORGANIZE IS NOW! Join the Republican/Democratic Party." They will organize fund-raisers in church basements where Lawrence Welk revival bands will play. They will sell t-shirts with pictures of Ronald Reagan or Lyndon Johnson, with the slogan "Live Like Him." Louis Proyect (http://www.panix.com/~lnp3/marxism.html)
