- Capitalism and Alternatives -

the More serious analysis.

Posted by: Red Deathy ( Socialist Party, UK ) on May 04, 1999 at 12:10:14:

In Reply to: the problem with such speeches posted by Gee on April 30, 1999 at 17:15:49:

OK, so I decided to just kick this post into teh long grass last time, however, here's some serious nit-picking...
: I am against collectivists sacrificing the lives of other humans, for their own naked self-interest- when war comes, is each member of the collective consripted? Did they lose their power, the tribal leaders of death? No, but the people were conscripted, and were asked to give up their lives, more often than not, in a cause that stank of corruption more than of anything else.

How can a collectivist have a 'self-interest'? If not the whole collective is conscripted, it is not a collective action. If it were a collectivist action, it would occur in teh iterests of the whole collective, not just the leaders, otehrwise, what we are looking at is the interest of the leaders...

: War is collectivism carried on by other means, or rather, the redundant zero sum mindset is war itself, "we" are in a constant state of war against "them", and when we start to lose by political means, when our interests are deeply threatened, we revert to less...

What are 'our interest', who are 'they', the now, unless you are simply asserting a metaphysical drive of collectives to assimilate alterity, we must assume some internal need driving this motion forward, some material fact which designates 'u' and 'them' and which creates the conflict between us. Put simply, it must be a competition for resources, an economic competition- Capitalism and the market?




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