RE: Historic spirals

On Thu, 20 Jan 2000, Broome P wrote:

>Mind you, I don't hear much about dogmatic capitalists - does anyone 
>suppose
>there is such a thing?

This reminds me of Parenti's argument concerning the "moderate extremist."
We hear in the mass media the terms "rightwing extremist" and the "radical
left," but never about the "radical center" (although the term radical
only fits well with the left, in my biased view).

I understand that when a person is dedicated to principle she may be
characterized either in a positive light by being a person with
"conviction" or in a negative light as a "dogmatist."

I suppose that if a dogmatist will accept nothing less than the abolition
of an exploitative-oppressive economic system then the person who is
willing to cling to some part of that system has conviction?

The real question is, why should advocating the elimination of capitalism
be a dogmatic position? Isn't the purpose of such characterizations to
cordon off from debate the possibility of building a different societal
system?

Of course, skipping the answer and rejecting the question does make life
difficult for those advocating a reformist version of the status quo (not
that there isn't merit in reform).

Andy Austin