Re: Responding to proponents of (current) international trading regime

Serious problems in Geoff's argument.

On Thu, 20 May 1999, Institute for Global Futures Research (IGFR) wrote:

>Point taken.  I obviously would not want to recommend the North Korean 
>path, a failure by most accounts.

The point should not be taken. Most socialists do not advocate in their
critique of capitalism setting up a North Korean style socialist state
anymore than most capitalists advocate setting up a fascist state.
Socialists believe that capitalism is inherently flawed. But this does not
mean that North Korea invalidates either the socialist critique of
capitalism or the socialist way of life. In fact, answering critiques of
capitalism with examples of socialist states (with the assumption being
that the socialist state referenced is a "failure") is a completely
fallacious form of argumentation. It is analogous to noting Stalin's crime
in the context of a discussion of the Jewish Holocaust, which has the
effect (intended, I think) of diminishing the crimes of Hitler. I had a
recent experience with a journal referee who felt my criticisms of
elements of US domestic policymaking left out a critique of policymaking
in non-capitalists contexts. My paper had nothing to do with
non-capitalist contexts! The reason why this fallacy comes up is because
those who apologize for capitalism feel that any critique of capitalism
must be "balanced" by a critique of socialism. Poppycock. The whole
exercise is an ideological one.

>Perhaps it is not a question of denouncing capitalism per se but of 
>reviewing its direction.  

In what direction could capitalism go where it would not create
unacceptable levels of inequality and environmental devastation? Study
capitalism. But denounce it, too.

>Marxists and many others would blame global capitalism for creating and
>supporting the elites.  But this argument is lame because the same thing
>happens in Marxist governments.

Same error as above. Only this time Geoff takes over Pat's fallacious
form. Whether state socialism has created and supported elites is
irrelevant to whether Marxists have the right to, or are correct in their
critique of capitalism. The corruption of socialist states has no bearing
on the Marxist critique of capitalism. The argument is not "lame" or
otherwise, since no legitimate ground of critique of the Marxist view has
been presented. Moreover, while state socialism created elites, these
elites enjoyed nowhere near the opulence of capitalist elites. If fact,
the affluence of elites in state socialist societies was so minimal that
it is ridiculous to even compare them with capitalist elites.

Andy
http://web.utk.edu/~aaustin