Re [OPE-L:4777]: > Hi, Jerry. Hi, Gil. > Two responses: first, the issue in question is theoretical in nature, not > empirical. Regardless of what Sweden has tried, the question is what Marx > argued as a theoretical necessary condition for the existence of capitalist > exploitation, and what the valid implications of that theoretical argument > are. The existence of the *state* is a necessary theoretical, practical, and historical condition for the production and reproduction of exploitation under a system of generalized commodity production and exchange. > But second, I don't see your example as particularly relevant. Sweden has > had a welfare state involving substantial income redistribution, true, but > in spite of this it is and has been recognizably a capitalist economy in > which the means of production are decidely *not* collectively owned by > workers, either in the form of employee ownership or Roemer-style market > socialism> The core of the Meidner Plan was to legally mandate a system in which the unions would come, over time, to own the majority of the stocks of Swedish corporations (a kind of social-democratic variation on syndicalism). What is relavent is what happenened to the Meidner Plan and why. At issue, for both Meidner and Roemer, is whether it is reasonable to expect the ruling class to voluntarily agree to give up its power. It seems more reasonable, both theoretically and historically, to expect them to fight to maintain their social position and power. In solidarity, Jerry
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