>[EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: >>what are you trying to prove with your insults Doug? are you implying the >>impossibility of a socialist agenda? who is fantasizing here? >Ok, so you don't have any idea what changes are necessary in the >actual structures of production and consumption. All that's required >is loyalty to Marx and a critical attitude. That's pretty much what I >suspected, but it's good to see my suspicions confirmed. this is complete BS. We discussed what changes were necessary in the "actual structures of production" if you had paid enough attention to the subject matter of the posts instead of insulting people. One of them being, as it was mentioned, is the abolution of the distinction between town and country side. This distinction exists in every advacned capitalist country and it has been taking place in every developing country that is in the process of capitalist modernization.On the one hand, we have uneven urbanization and industrilization in the cities, on the other, we have commercialized agriculture in the country side: two forms of inequalities and class conflicts existing side by side and refinforcing each other. why to abolish this distinction as a sociialist agenda (since there is a rationale for it) 1) first, as MArx said in primitive accumulation chapter of Capital that capitalism first started in the country side, tranforming the property relations and generating the surplus necessary to build capitalism in the cities, so country had to be modernized first with new instruments and techniques of production. 2) although this transformation was progressive, it also impoverished the agricultural folk., either by forcing them to work under new capitalist landlords or forcing them to migrate to cities as wage laborers. If you also look at the actually existing socialisms, Doug, you will see an attempt to abolish this country/city duality towards a more equitable redistribution of wealth, so we are not talking about fantasy here or something which did not exist.. Land reforms in Russia, China, Cuba all attemped to achieve abolition of property in land; since traditional agricultural economy was also largely untransformed in those countries due to historical reasons, land reforms played an important role in applying rents of land to public purposes through a progressive income tax (which Marx talks in the Manifesto) and "abolution of right of inheritance". I am not saying land reforms were compeletely sucessfull; I am saying they were historically progessive compared to previous times (capitalism). For example, in Russia, between 1917-1921, various decrees were implemented by the soviet government to abolish the special priviliges of aristocrats, tsarist officials and capitalists (at a time when there were still monarchies in Europe). in 1929, the revolutionary cadre accomplished the elimination of estates of nobles (structurally) and their various "honorofic and political priviliges and their landed properties.the class of capitalists too with its private ownership and control of various industrial and commercial enterprises met its demise in this period....during the 1920s, Red army and party leaders were heavily recruited from industial workers and peasent background" (Skocpol, p. 227) Socialism should be judged vis a vis historical circumstances by means of assesing the resources available to actors. We should learn from history and the experiences of actually existing socialisms.I know this is of zero interest to you Doug. Regarding population-- the part of your post which does not directly concern me, but i will answer. 0 population rate in Europe has nothing to do with the sustainability of environment there. Over-population pressures are created by capitalism, not by people, among the several reasons being HISTORY OF COLONIALISM, IMPERIALISM, POVERTY, PLUNDERING OF NON-WHITES AND THEIR RESOURCES, DECLINING LIVING STANDARTS IN THE THIRD WORLD, GLOBAL INEQUALITIES, INCREASING ECONOMIC INSECURITY. IN THOSE COUNTRIES FACING EXTEREME POVERTY, CHILDREN ARE SEEN AS AN ASSET-- A SOURCE OF INCOME AND CHEAP LABOR. THINK ABOUT CHILD SLAVERY, THINK ABOUT CHILD SEX.. Another point worth mentioning: strawman of over-population is one's of the ways of obscuring capitalism's inequalities and racism.. I am working in an underclass black neigh, and I generally walk there. The people are structurally marginalized in that area of Albany, living below the poverty line. They are isolated into a small area; living as a big family, children playing outside etc.. so what happens is that they seem to be over-populated: small houses not having enough capacity to carry people and unevenly built to marginalize african american people there!! This is racism, dude racism! okey, my blood pressure is gradually increasing. have a suny day on wall street! Mine >Oh, and solving the population problem? When people are happier they'll >have fewer babies. Population growth is virtually 0 in Western Europe, but Western Europe is only a bit more ecologically sustainable than the U.S. But is a growth rate of 0 low enough? Could we feed and house 6 billion people if we all spent our time searching for "Jack-in-the-Pulpits or fishing for pickerel"? That kind of rural leisure is available to someone living in a rich country; in a poor country, you'd be more likely tilling the soil or grinding corn from dawn til dusk. These apocalpytic imaginings aren't serious politics, they're just lurid fantasies. Doug
