- Anything Else -

Butting in

In Reply to: Of Course... posted by Red Deathy on June 23, 1999 at 16:43:43:

: Some authors would be helpful, might have other works listed here....

Hi Deathly,
The book S.G. is refering to is titled le Livre noir du communisme, and the senior author is Stephane Courtois of the National Center for Scientific Research.
French Sparticist (http://home.bip.net/malecki/french.htm) does a decent critical analysis, but it's in French. There's also Daniel Bensaïd's critique of the English and Swedish versions (soon to be released), available at http://www.internationalen.se/sp/black.htm, (in case the link doesn't work).
The criticism in both these sites is that this is basically an appologetic for the bourgeoise. Rather than recognising that the existence of a centralised, and absolute, decision making authority is itself the problem, the book concentrates exclusively those state societies that were called "communists" (almost always, this label was not self-proclaimed, but imposed by outsiders, especially by the U.S.). I suppose that this focus would be fine, all well and good, but as you noted, this exclusive focus on self-proclaimed "socialists" (who were actually state-capitalists, despite their rhetoric) ignores the perhaps equal culpability of the self-proclaimed "capitalists" (who actually act quite "socialist" towards multinational corporations, at least here in the states). Stateism is, itself, the problem, IMRAO,S-RO (in my ranting and obnoxious, self-righteous opinion). It doesn't make a damned bit of difference to me whether I'm being scammed by someone waving a red flag or by someone waving green pieces of paper. Both "sides" in the cold war were simply reflections of each other, just like the rep's and dem's here in the states or the tories and labor in the UK. Can any of us really see the difference between Clinton/Blair and Reagan/Thatcher? Sure, Bill and Tony have better dress-sense, but otherwise...The same is true of the "state socialism" of the U.S.S.R. and the "state capitalism" of the U.S. Both rewarded those who didn't need any help, at the expense of those who need the most. Both, in short, broke the social contract that was supposed to be their justification for existence. This is, I believe, because order can never be forced "from above," but must be voluntarily chosen. Economic systems, when backed by force, are inherently corrupt, since the monopolisation of force is, itself, morally inexcusable. This statement holds, regardless of the color of the flag or the rhetoric used to justify the monopoly, I think.

-Floyd

• French Sparticist, Daniel Bensaïd's

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