Re: philosophical/theoretic explanation

A quick response.. to Richard

THE VIEWS IN THIS POST ARE THOSE OF THE WRITER AND NOT THAT OF HIS
EMPLOYERS

The private message you mentioned was sent to the entire list - I think so
- but all it said was, yes, when read in isolation, you are correct...
Sabri accept this, too. The document has to be read in its entirety (as
Sabri suggested). So, it's not like I secretly agreed with you, let me
state this clearly:

The Communist Manifesto is, to me, probably the best analysis of capitalism
(including very much its history). Whereas predictive analyses are often
very weak, the Manifesto has stood up rather well, in spite of attempts to
roll-back, censor, or discredit its central ideas. My personal problems
with it is that it does not focus, specifically, on issues like ethnicity,
race, nationalism, the environment international politics - but (BUT)
successive Marxists (HAVE). With International Politics and Political
Economy, for instance, Lenin picked up the slack and published Imperialism.
Also, like most documents of this nature, there are weaknesses, and
shortcomings, having said that, I believe Adam Smith's work is relatively
weak, it is based on a society that predates the advanced capitalism that
has crushed or worked, small businesses out of the system.

Also, very personally, I really can't support a system that places profit,
commerce and economic activity at the centre of human endeavour - Marx,
too, is weak, teleologically.

Still personally: As for revolution, I want to make a bald statement, (and
I would love to discuss this further) there can be no real true
anti-capitalist revolution, not in this life (not that there is another):
We need to overturn every, single aspect, the good and the bad of
capitalism, and spawn a child (as a metaphor) that has no conception of
greed, money, ambition, industry, competition,  ethnicity, race, sex,
religion (even the structure of the calendar we use in the west - indeed
Islam and Judaism have calandars of its own but, it can be argued that the
one that we use in the world is structured around capitalism - and some
pagan, or national holidays) - or life, in general, as we know it, today.
To be sure, there is very, very little of our lives, today, that has not
been made possible (or impossible, for that matter) by capitalism. Consider
a world without capitalism...

Ismail

Ismail Lagardien
World Bank Institute
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