On 10/16/06, Jim Devine <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
Yoshie:
> Weren't Aristotle's thoughts on demagogues more a sign of his
> aristocratic anxiety about democracy than anything else? In
> Aristotle's system of thought, a demagogue is one who acts against the
> interests of rich men: ....
> Hugo Chavez is Aristotle's idea of demagogue.
_of course_: I referred to the rich as Ari's "employers." That doesn't
mean he was wrong on everthing, though.
Since Aristotle wasn't arguing that demagogues didn't serve the
interests of people, his criticism of demagogues essentially boils
down to the idea that they anger the rich by serving common people and
therefore destabilize the state. That's not an idea that helps the
Left today, imho.
Yoshie:
> To my knowledge, MST and the like do not have the kind of corporatist
> relation that the main Mexican unions have had with the PRI. It
> seems to me that left-wing criticisms of -- including electoral
> activism against -- Lula and the PT have been very vigorous.
I thought I made it clear that I was talking about future trends, not
the present. There was also a question mark at the end of my sentence.
Lula has to be reelected for the MST to gain a corporatist
relationship. And that's likely not enough.
please make a greater effort to understand what I'm saying.
But what does it mean to talk about "future trends" unless seeds of
those "future trends" aren't in the present?
--
Yoshie
<http://montages.blogspot.com/>
<http://mrzine.org>
<http://monthlyreview.org/>
