Lark: Oh indeed, I think they are all equally valid but constant referals to Kant etc. arent exactly stiring stuff for the passer by, in football factory, a more or less accurate portrayal of various working class people (including the mandatory football thugs), Flint: And how many working folks would just stroll on in to a debate forum called, "Capitalism and its Alternatives?" This debate room is dominated by folks who already have set ideologies that change very little (though sometimes!) throught he course of discussion. Further, besides some trite calls for revolution I see very little constructive action going on in terms of "Ye Olde Class War".
Folks who work don't have time to fuck around with Hegel, who's that? If they bother to think about "Capitalism" they either equate it with feeding their families and giving them a job... or with other institutions like banks, profit, bosses that are so far removed from their control, yet still in effect of their daily lives... they don't think of alternatives.
If they do think of alternatives... Communism, Socialism and various other schemes which when put into practice through the earlier models which claimed to be such... ended up being a worse tyranny. Anarchism, Libertarian Socialism, Autonomist Marxism, Council Communism ain't even on the map.
If most folks got a problem with McDonald's, they'll be hitting the other boards first. Maybe they get regularly shorted fries, they don't like the misleading health information, don't like the way the advertising is pitched at kids, don't like McDonald's recycling practices, or just had a bad day at work. "Capitalism and the Alternatives" got to be pretty far down on the list of areas to visit.
Most of the Communists here couldn't be troubled with taking the time to post on the "McJob and Workers" board. The only ones in my memory to do so are Red Deathy and Charlie Hoyt. Some, everyone else seems to have ditched the proletariat. You'd figure atleast the pro-capitalists would make the occassionaly foray over to tell the workers how they aren't being exploited and one day... they can be a manager like all the other managers who hang on that board trying to defuse and derail angry wage slaves.
I check this board, not because I'm looking for some interesting conversation against capitalism with the passerby who thinks the current system bites... but rather because I know if I want to have an indepth political discussion with a bunch of varied ideologies, I'll find exactly that.
Revolution won't come from the debates of intellectuals who some how show working people the light of their one true way, but rather through the self-activity of the masses. Sure, we can talk about ways to try and activate them, but if we want any real lasting change... the people (acting as individuals, and ultimately acting collectively through their individual acts) will make that change. You want to see McDonald's and other megacorporations act more responsibly with the environment, then their consumers will have organize a campaign of boycott or other pressuer to force the company to do it. You want to see the workers at McDonald's get a bit more of whats owed them and some benefits, they'll only get it if they are willing to organize and fight for improvements. You want to head towards your Utopia? Well, you can't do it alone and the move there can seem like an agonizingly slow process... but when change comes it will come like a storm and be uncontrolablle by all those who sought to control it in the first place. At best, we can try to do what is best in regards to our conscience and try and convince others to our sometimes unsure ideas of where we wish to go, and how to get there from here.
No Goverment Can Ever Give You Freedom!
Solid,
Flint
