- Capitalism and Alternatives -

So who's exchanging ideas?

Posted by: Samuel Day Fassbinder ( Citizens for Mustard Greens, USA ) on April 08, 1999 at 19:17:56:

In Reply to: Competition od ideas posted by Crimson Tide on April 07, 1999 at 10:24:10:

: I like this forum, its a competion of ideas, a market place of thought (hehe)

SDF: Who is to say there's any EXCHANGE of ideas here? Posters may just be stating their ideas without persuading anyone.

: Free speech is the vital ingredient in a worthwhile society, yet i remember some 'reds' i used to know wanting to ban works by people like von mises, rand, friedman and others - so as not to 'poison' the purity of socialist teachings.

SDF: Why ban them? Von Mises and Rand are full of falsehoods, the stamp of Friedman upon a society can be seen in today's Chile...

: If free speech stays in a hypothetical socialist society isnt there a risk of people re-discovering the 'great works' of pro capitalists and starting a movement much like yours, until the collective class gain individual consciousness and turn over the socialist ways?

SDF: Socialist societies would be made up of individuals anyway, so what was it you were asking? That people would rediscover reasons for not working together to make things better, and start a movement to make them worse? Together?

Let's ask this: Why is the model for the "individual" under capitalist society always the white, European, property-owning (see C.B. MacPherson's POSSESSIVE INDIVIDUALISM), dominant male, swathed in a mythology of "rugged individualism" (see Stephanie Coontz' THE WAY WE NEVER WERE)?



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