On Mon, Jun 22, 2009 at 9:38 PM, Indrajit Gupta <bonoba...@yahoo.co.in>wrote:
> Frankly, no, these are perfectly viable in combination, unless one is a > Marxist and believes that culture is part of the superstructure of a > particular state of development of society, hence is determined - and shaped > - largely by control of the means of production, hence any cultural impulses > during a period of capitalism (I leave out the 'free market' bit for > separate comment some other time) are likely to have been formed by the > underlying class character of society as typical of a capitalist phase. > > So, given that there doesn't seem to be any fundamental conflict between the two, why is it that the combination doesn't seem to be very prevalent (and hence feasible?) politically? Or is there an obvious example that I'm missing? I find the culturally liberal Scandinavian systems to be too socialistic with their high taxes and elaborate social security nets, and I find the anti-gay, anti-abortion but pro-business brand of Republican right-wingism(never mind their ineptitude) to be too culturally regressive. The lines are perhaps a little more blurred in the Indian context, but on the (thin) evidence of what happened to telecom(or power or aviation) during the BJP's one term in power, accompanied by a simultaneous absence of any large-scale socialist policies such as the NREGS, I'd venture that the BJP is more pro-business and less socialist than the Congress, only buttressing this (to me) baffling trend. Venkat Inumella
