Re: [OPE] market - and other kinds of - socialism

> So we can break this down into two steps:
>
> First task -- interpret the world: find out how it is that capitalism
> reproduces itself -- what are the underlying mechanisms, what accounts
> most basically for capital's ability to maintain itself as what it is;
> what is it that it must preserve in order to adapt to changes in its
> environment?
>
> Second task -- change the world: those features of social life that
> account for the reproduction of capital must be changed and we must
> keep changing them until the task is carried through to the end.

 
Howard:
 
THe process of changing the world, though, leads to new interpretations
of the world and their acceptance by workers. Indeed, that's how revolutionary
and socialist consciousness will come to a large % of the masses: their experience
in struggle changing the world will lead to them changing their conceptions of
the world and what is required to change it. So, I don't think it's a two
step sequential process.
 
We should understand that building socialism is also a process of 'learning
by doing' and hence must be thought of in practice as an adaptive social
process. I.e. mistakes will be made, lessons will be learned, and praxis
will change. We have to support the right of workers to not only make the
decisions related to how socialism is organized in practice but we also
have to support their right to make what in our opinion might be mistakes
and to learn for themselves in the process of making mistakes. Of course,
if we think a policy is misguided we should say so, but ultimately we have
to support the right of the majority to make decisions and learn from it.
What is socialism if it is not genuine, social self-determination?
 
In solidarity, Jerry
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Received on Wed May 4 07:17:28 2011