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

[Timothy Baldwin <nospam [at] comp.leeds.ac.uk>]

On Tue, 31 Oct 2000, Will Newton wrote:
> On Tue, 31 Oct 2000, Timothy Baldwin wrote:
> 
> |THis is very off topic. Sorry.

IMHO this is more on-topic than questions purely about Windows. (IMO free
software is a key part of socialism.)

> > 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.

Russia Oct 1917 - approx 1920:
This did indeed happen.

There have been no other socialist republics, the so called USSR (along with
Cuba and Chille) was in fact state capitalist.

> > 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.

What do you say is completely theoretical about it?

> > 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.

I did not say life would be nice in a such a society, I was merely using it as
an example that soc-economic systems can have a dramatic effect on personality.

> 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.

If personality was indeed tightly controlled by instinct then a stratergy of
cooperating with people who cooperate, as has been demonstrated by various
computer simulations. However this would not allow for the existence of
capitalism, or that of Bill Gates, therefore one must conclude that personality
is not genetically determined. At least 2 books have been written in support of
this argument.

[ Will Newton's original text reinserted after being snipped by himself ]
> > > Naomi Klein is a fuzzy minded bandwagon jumper IMO. Stop buying her books
> > > and I'm sure she'd start wishing her publishing company had taken out a
> > > few more ads.

> > 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.

So why then do you consider her as a bandwagon jumper?

I do agree that she is fuzzy minded.

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

Her speech and "No Logo" were not contradictory. So what do you mean?

-- 
Timothy Baldwin
Member of Leeds SWP
Opinions expressed within are likely to be those of the SWP.
Vote Socialist Alliance!  Victory to the Serbian revolution!

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