Beyond Capitalism – Beyond Belief

[alanjjohnstone]

Another defence of reformism from the 'radicals'. Even more confused on terminology than i have previously read. 

 

 socialism – a mode of production in which the state is an important vector in taking and providing resources. States can be more or less democratic, and so can socialism.

 

communism defines a society in which there are communal forms for dealing with resources. Many communal forms exist where there are not communist governments. The Mondragon cooperatives in Spain and the thousands of worker-owned cooperatives in the United States, are viable alternatives to capitalism.

 

"Anarchism as the name for an ideal total social form is a really complicated question. I have never found satisfying answers from anarchists about the definition of the state they are opposed to. Most are opposed to coercive forms of state power. Questions about large scale systems of organization and how they will be funded—those are questions it’s hard to get anarchists to give good answers to."

 No wonder if she lacks such an understanding by asking stupid questions.

Worse she goes on to say

 

" In Marxism there are some very unhelpful ideas about the need to push for a revolution that will overturn all of society. Marx gets that from Hegel, and it leads to some very bad politics, such as the hope that things must get worse because that will then turn into the antithesis and get better from there. A kind of wishful thinking then grows out of not seeing a realistic path forward."

 

DUH!!

 

Instead she offers up  "revolutionary reforms, meaning actions that we take in small ways to make the world a better place and disrupt some of the ways that capitalism is reproduced."

 

Her conclusion is  "One of the problems with traditional anti-capitalist thought is that it defines capitalism as a totality, which encourages us to imagine another totality, socialism, which we can try to replace it with. This totalizing perspective has colonized the imagination of anti-capitalism and left us waiting for a revolution we can never have…Also, when I talk about alternatives to capitalism, socialism is one thing we need to build among many. "

 

Her answer "The way we get past capitalism is by building on the healthy non-capitalist aspects of our world while we also do pitched battle with the capitalist ones that we have a fair chance of winning against. In that way we build a better world and shrink the destructive capitalist practices that are part of the social fabric."

 

UH-HUH, A reiteration of hollowing out the system , building the kernal of socilaism in the shell of the old  and other sidetracks.

 

[alanjjohnstone]

OOPS – the link  http://www.counterpunch.org/2014/02/04/beyond-capitalism/ And apologies for that formatting fuck-up that accompanies this forum sometimes and needs remedied. 

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