: : My attacks on those who champion private property of the means of production and support institutional inequality (i.e. Rawlsian 'justice')... : SDF: Please read "Critique of the Gotha Programme" on institutional "equality".
AND you'll notice a 'higher phase of communist society, after the enslaving subordination of individuals under the division of labor, and therewith also the antithesis between mental and physical labour, has vanished' (International 1938, p. 10).
This, after all, IS the communism to be achieved---NOT the 'first phase' where the DANGER of bureaucratic usurption is most likely! I STILL don't trust anyone who defends 'some' private ownership of the means of production---or 'some' privilege. DO YOU?
: And let's look carefully at this idea that Engels counseled achieving unity with "liberal parties". It is the habit of sectarian Marxists to call everyone who doesn't agree with them in every way "liberals," as Marcos did. That's just delusion.
You STILL haven't dealt with Marx's Address of the Central Committee from March 1850!
Is that because your revisionist author left it out?
: I challenged this "Russia" thing in several ways. Some empiricism!
Some post, Sam. Pretty pale.
: : And, finally, you insist on a future ecological crisis of apocalyptic proportions which will act as midwife to a mass commune movement (which will engender socialism).
: SDF: You really don't know what the Green Party is, do you?
No---just what YOU are blabbing about.
: : Perhaps a party devoted to the elimination of private ownership of the means of production should accept into its ranks 'fellow-travelers' who believe that 'some' members of society should own some means of production.
: SDF: Marx apparently had a definition of "socialists" that was broader than "all those who agree with me on every point."
Well, if you'll look at the final paragraphs of The Communist Manifesto, you'll see that he (and Engels) said communists 'bring to the front, as the leading question in each case, the property question, no matter what its degree of development at the time' (Internaional 1948, p. 44).
Does that sound like Marx embraced 'private property socialists'(like NJ) to you?
: : Perhaps a party devoted to the elimination of hierarchy should accept into its ranks 'fellow-travelers' who wouldn't discount the 'possibility' of benevolent authoritarianism.
: SDF: I guess any historical-materialist analysis of the connection between "benevolent authoritarianism" and the means of production is out of the question. NJ was defending "the lesser of two evils," peasant production as opposed to capitalist wage-slavery. His argument wasn't a very important one, as he didn't really give it much substance, but neither was it any indication of his own authoritarian tendencies.
So someone who supports 'benevolent authoritarianism' (under 'some' circumstances) is OK by you---while someone who supports job rotation and complete economic equality is an authoritarian (as you imply I am)?
: : And perhaps a party devoted to the economic equality of all citizens should accept into its ranks 'fellow travelers' who believe that 'some' inequality is inevitable or even acceptable.
: SDF: Go back and read "Critique of the Gotha Programme" on "equality," "right," and other bourgeois values.
See above point regarding the 'Gotha Programme.'
: : THERE is your dreaded 'vanguard'!
: SDF: Nope, M & E's quote is too vague [?] to establish a direct clash with Braunthal's assertion. And Marx isn't asserting "communists" as some sort of vanguard, as he is not claiming HIS GROUP to be the ONLY GROUP of REAL communists, just the BEST one...
What a fine distinction you are making!
Isn't that ALL I have been saying?
