Andrew,
Having lived for a time in a post-revolutionary state which, at the time,
came nowhere near the totalitarianism of Russia under Stalin I remain
unconvinced by your reply to Nikolai Rozov. I don't think it's at all
possible for anyone to be "fully aware" of the excesses of Stalinism, and
the tendency among the Western left to discount the significance of such
excesses by thinking that we're necessarily somehow better than the
revolutionary experimenters of the past sends a chill down my spine. It
seems rather likely that there are very real trade-offs involved between the
various systems of production and distribution which have been manifest
in all human societies and that Utopia is Illusion. Societies will
always require systems of production and distribution, so we're left with
the question of whether the principle of "from each according to ability to
each according to need" is even viable for a human population under any
circumstances whatsoever (short of infinite prosperity, perhaps). At the
same time, there isn't a system of production and distribution which
can't be improved upon. Recognizing that paves the way for pragmatic
reformism. Gotta run, I'm late for work!
Sincerely,
Bill Haller
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Bill Haller ^ University Center for
Department of Sociology ^ Social and Urban Research
University of Pittsburgh ^ 121 University Place
Pittsburgh, PA 15260 ^ Pittsburgh, PA 15260
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