Hi Eliott:
I also had to chuckle at David's claim that the division between social
and intellectual level is the same as the division between someone
reading about events and some reading about what someone else
wrote. Your exposure of his logic which led instantly to infinite regress
was devastatingly accurate.
You asked:
> And Platt, are you sure your not confusing Marx with Lenin? the Vanguard
> party was Lenin's idea and he had to reject many of the basic principals of
> Marx to come up with it. Marx had the utmost respect for lay men.
No, I'm not confusing Marx with Lenin. The "Communist Manifesto" by
Marx and Engels clearly elucidates Marx's belief in the supremacy of
the state which liberals like DMB tend to approve of. It was that basic
concept which gave Lenin the authority to commit Russia to an era of
unspeakable horrors. Here is an illustrative passage of what I mean from
the "Manifesto."
Q. What kind of a new social order will this have to be?
A. Above all, it will generally have to take the running of industry and of
all branches of production out of the hands of mutually competing
individuals and instead institute a system in which all these branches of
production are operated by society as a whole, that is, for the common
account, according to a common plan and with the participation of all
members of society. It will, in other words, abolish competition and
replace it with association. Moreover, since the management of industry
by individuals has private property as its inevitable result, and since
competition is merely the manner and form in which industry is run by
individual private owners, it follows that private property cannot be
separated from the individual management of industry and from
competition. Hence, private property will also have to be abolished, and
in its place must come the common utilization of all instruments of
production and the distribution of all products according to common
agreement -- in a word, the so-called communal ownership of goods. In
fact, the abolition of private property is the shortest and most significant
way to characterize the transformation of the whole social order which
has been made necessary by the development of industry, and for this
reason it is rightly advanced by communists as their main demand.
Nevertheless, in most advanced countries, the following will be pretty
generally applicable.
1. Abolition of property in land and application of all rents of land to
public purposes.
2. A heavy progressive or graduated income tax.
3. Abolition of all rights of inheritance.
4. Confiscation of the property of all emigrants and rebels.
5. Centralization of credit in the banks of the state, by means of a
national bank with state capital and an exclusive monopoly.
6. Centralization of the means of communication and transport in he
hands of the state.
7. Extension of factories and instruments of production owned by the
state; the bringing into cultivation of waste lands, and the improvement
of the soil generally in accordance with a common plan.
8. Equal obligation of all to work. Establishment of industrial armies,
especially for agriculture.
9. Combination of agriculture with manufacturing industries; gradual
abolition of all the distinction between town and country by a more
equable distribution of the populace over the country.
10. Free education for all children in public schools. Abolition of
children's factory labor in its present form. Combination of education
with industrial production, etc.
Platt
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