The following was obviously intended for the list. -- JL.
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Date: Wed, 7 Aug 96 00:32:14 UT
From: andrew kliman <Andrew_Kliman@msn.com>
To: glevy@pratt.edu
Subject: RE: [OPE-L:2804] RE: socialism and planning
Jerry, in ope-l 2804, has told a great truth. His remarks bear repeating:
I think that making excuses for the actions of the
Soviet leadership and ignoring or defending some of the horrors of Soviet
society has discredited marxism far more than the writings of a few
contemporary current of former marxists on "market socialism." If you
don't believe this is the case, try asking your neighbors in a working
class community why they aren't socialists. I bet a lot will tell you
that the reason is that the Soviet Union was socialist and they don't
want to live like that.
An acquaintance of mine from Russia tells me the situation is about the same
there. Because neither in the West nor in Russia is an alternative conception
articulated, people end up accepting equating the "USSR" with socialism and
Marxism, "and they don't want to live like that." They don't want to live
like they're "living" now either. There's a crying need for the projection of
the *absolute* opposite, opposite to capitalism in both its private- and
state-property forms.
Andrew Kliman