Re: violence, dictatorship and markets

----- Original Message -----
From: <John_R_Groves@ferris.edu>
To: WORLD SYSTEMS NETWORK <wsn@csf.colorado.edu>
Sent: Saturday, November 27, 1999 11:15 PM
Subject: violence, dictatorship and markets


> I take it we have agreement that Stalin was a nasty
> fellow and that Stalinism is a bad system. If not, we are beyond the 
>realm of
> reasoned argument

No, we don't have such an agreement. Perfectly rational arguments can and 
have
been made for not only the historical inevitability of the Stalinist system
emerging in the given circumstances, but also for its moral viability. 
Lunatic
statistics for the alleged death toll of Stalinism have been thrown around 
even on
this list (where some people seem unable even to spell the names of 
historical
personalities like the Mahatma Gandhi (1869-1948)) which have their 
provenance in
the deranged fantasies of red-baiters and the inventions of paid hirelings 
of
western
intelligence - but this kind of substitute for actual reasoned debate only
proves how completely people still are in the grip of a Cold War mindset
which owes almost everything to perceived ideological necessity and
almost nothing to actual historical fact or logic.

This is about the third time that attempts have been made to launch a 
debate on
WSN about Warren Wagar's notion of a World Party; and by some almost occult 
chain
of collective reasoning, it always comes around to the issues and 
problematics
launched by Marx and developed politically by Lenin and others - whereupon 
the
debate always founders upon the mental blocks of folks who really do not 
wish to
or are simply aferaid to, examine the premises of their own positions too 
closely
or follow out their own logic to what might prove dangerously Bolshevik
conclusions.

Pity.

Mark Jones