Re: [OPE] Socialism in Cuba and Scandanavian social democracy

dogangoecmen@aol.com

 I just want to enforce this. I at any rate prefer Republic Cuba to monarchic Netherland.

Dogan

 ----------------------
Doğan Göçmen
Author of The Adam Smith Problem:
Reconciling Human Nature and Society in
The Theory of Moral Sentiments and Wealth of Nations,
I. B. Tauris, London&New York 2007

-----Original Message-----
From: ope-bounces@lists.csuchico.edu
To: Outline on Political Economy mailing list <ope@lists.csuchico.edu>
Sent: Wed, 2 Jul 2008 13:12
Subject: Re: [OPE] Socialism in Cuba  and  Scandanavian social democracy

Well said Jerry.

paul B.

----- Original Message ----- 

From: 
  GERALD 
  LEVY 

To: Outline on Political Economy mailing 
  list 

Sent: Sunday, June 29, 2008 2:33 PM

Subject: RE: [OPE] Socialism in Cuba and 
  Scandanavian social democracy

> 
    This is a defence of the violent way to Socialism and the alleged 

> 
    extraordinary role of one man, Fidel Castro. Have we learnt something 

> 
    from the Soviet experience?

Alejandro:

What 
    we should have learned, not just from the Soviet experience but

from 
    all of 
    modern history, is that the capitalist class will not voluntarily 

hand 
    over power to workers without a fight. That was a lesson that 
    Harnecker

learned: 
    after all, she lived through what happened along the

path 
    to the "peaceful road to socialism" in Chile. 

There 
    are many people which are "extraordinary". To think that a single 

individual 
    is incapable of affecting history is the worst kind of 

mechanistic 
    and deterministic Marxism.  

> 
    It is a pity that socialists have not arrived to a consensus on this 
    matter.

Agreed 
    - reformism should have been rejected by socialists as

far 
    back as the 
    19th Century. The demise of the Meidner Plan in 

Sweden 
    is yet another 
    example of what happens when a legislative path to

socialism 
    alone is followed. The capitalist class in Sweden did 

exactly 
    what 
    Marx would have predicted  - they forced the withdrawal 

of 
    the plan.

I 
    guess in _your_ world the ruling class can be expected to give up 

without 
    a fight.  That's 
    not the world _I_ live in or the world Castro 

lives 
    in.  
    Had the Cubans not been vigilant for sabotage, then the 

Bay 
    of Pigs and a counter-revolution might have been successful and 
    there

would 
    have been another bloodbath - probably one that would have

made 
    what happened on and after September 11, 1973 in Chile look like

a 
    minor incident. Happily, the Bolivarian revolutionaries in Venezuela 

have 
    made it clear that they will, if necessary, fight to preserve and 

extend 
    their gains and prevent international imperialism and the 

corrupt 
    oligarchy that had owned and plundered the wealth of that nation 

from 
    derailing the revolution. A positive sign there is that workers

and 
    peasants in poor communities have been armed (and armed 

intellectually 
    as well with the creation of a much more extensive 

college 
    system that it open to all).  After the failed coup,

and 
    the continuing provocations by the US and the reactionary and

privileged 
    domestic elite, this was a necessary and logical step.

In 
    solidarity, Jerry

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