- Capitalism and Alternatives -

Ditto (with a comment)

Posted by: Stoller on December 30, 1999 at 10:59:47:

In Reply to: Yours in solidarity posted by Nikhil Jaikumar on December 29, 1999 at 10:32:53:


Stoller:
Even if I was starving and living in a box, I would still consider you a greedy hypocrite to call yourself a Christian while denying your piecework employees health benefits.

Stoller:
If that makes you feel bad, then I'm doing them a service. And you.

: Excellent point! A selfish man, unltimately, cannot live a happy, rewarding life. But again, your own statement casts doubt on your Marxist materialism. In what sense does Stuart benefit from hearing what you ahve to say? If his statement is accurate, he won't benefit mayterially. (Nor would I, most probably). If the materialist view of humanity is true, he won't benefit at all, because tehre is no 'soul' or 'conscienec' that could psosibly benefit. (Correct me if I'm wrong).

: To say that Stuart benefits by doing what is right, then, is to suggest that there is a soul, or an innate morality, that transcends teh material world.

Well, you got me there, Nikhil. I WAS hoping that Gort could be shamed into granting health benefits to his employees.

But you know (here comes the materialism...), the chances of that are slim.

And you know that receiving health benefits does nothing to address workers' exploitation or alienation.

And even if Gort 'did the right thing' and allowed his employees the power to control their own work, chances are they all could not compete with all the other propeller manufacturers who would continue to use employee exploitation in order to undersell Stuart and his recently liberated comrades. Thus the 'free market' would punish them all with bankruptcy for 'doing the right thing.'

THAT is (only) one reason why charity cannot halt capitalism and its internal logic of exploitation.

Only a complete social transformation that smashes the 'free market' mechanism of institutionalized irresponsibility and competitive anarchy can possibly liberate the charitable inclinations of people on a MASS BASIS.




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