Re: [Sheflug] OT: Human nature, capitalism, socialism and NaomiKlein (was Re: RMS Talk)

[Will Newton <nospam [at] misconception.org.uk>]

On Tue, 31 Oct 2000, Timothy Baldwin wrote:

|THis is very off topic. Sorry.

> a. Under socialism such a despot would quickly get voted or thrown out of
> office. (Note that I was commenting on Microsofts's beahviour, not Bill
> Gates)

No. See any socialist republic in history.

> b. Do you think Bill Gates could become the head of the world's largest
> software company (under capitalism) without such evil practices?

Yes. If his software was very very good indeed. Theoretically.
But then you are talking about a completely theoretical system of politics
anyway.

> c. Such beahviour does not occur in pre-class societies, for example:
> 
> An early 18th century observer wrote:
> > If a cabin of hungry Iroquois meets another whose provisions are not entirely
> > exhausted, the later share with the newcomers the little which remains to them
> > without waiting to be asked, although they expose themselves thereby to the
> > same dangers of perishing as those they help...

"If we lived in mudhuts life would be peachy". Please, spare me.
Humans have the same animal instincts of every creature on earth, the
instinct to survive. To pretend to be Kant's "moral man" is, frankly,
barking up a tree that does not even exist but in the minds of people with
too much time on their hands and too little sense in their heads.

> So what other bandwagons has she jumped on? My only contact with Naomi Klein

Just the one as far as I know. Enough for me.

> is though reading her book "No Logo", and her speech at the opening rally of
> Marxism 2000.

Make that two then.




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