>>> [EMAIL PROTECTED] 07/13/01 09:32AM >>>
Once again, I have to remark on how weird it is that a bunch of
friends of the working class are getting all excited about the
prospects for recession, which means the disemployment of millions
and lower wages for everyone else. Does the ghost of Andrew Mellon
lurk over PEN-L?
(((((((((
CB: It's not weird, and you know exactly what the complex paradox is. The friends of
the working class on PEN-L consider, as you well know, that the capitalist system is
the main source of problems for the working class; that the failures of capitalism as
a system are in sharpest relief during recessions and depressions , as in the 1930's;
and that somehow people will be more inclined to fundamental systemic change during
recessions and depressions. It is for these reasons that anti-capitalists, including
PEN-Lers, are glad that the rah-rah procapitalist rhetoric of boom periods is
punctured by recession.
But PEN-Lers are also well aware that this is very contradictory in that it is the
working masses who suffer by economic recession.
I'm not sure why everytime this comes up you refuse to acknowledge the first part of
the contradiction that I describe , i.e. refuse to acknowledge that the PEN-Lers'
"enthusiasm" for recession IS enthusiasm for the interests of the working class in the
sense that PEN-L'ers believe that fundamental systemic change is in the profound
interest of the working class; and that PEN-Lers are not at all expressing enthusiasm
for the immediate suffering that comes to the working class in recession.
I'm not sure why , but I think it is because, for some reason you don't want to say
explictly or at least frequently on left lists that you are not sure that capitalism
or some form of it is not the best economic system for the working class and humanity.
