Dear Diana and Squad,
Diana I loved your post. I had the feeling that the discussion about the morality of
communism and capitalism was somewhat biased.
In the end it would always be capitalism to 'prevail'.
About the other posts:
I like the direction of the postings of the last days. I think in discussing morality it's intresting and fun to discuss concrete examples like the communism/capitalism-question,
but in my h-opinion this serves the purpose of constructing a more abstract overal view.
So we use the concrete to built the abstract.
and test the abstract with the concrete.
I hope I'll find some time to built further in this direction and respond to some great posts.
dtchgrtngs
Walter
-----Oorspronkelijk bericht-----
Van: Diana McPartlin [SMTP:diana@hongkong.com]
Verzonden: dinsdag 10 november 1998 22:31
Aan: moq_discuss@moq.org
Onderwerp: MD Communism and capitalism
Dear squad
On communism and capitalism.
There is room for Dynamic quality in both systems if they are practised
with care.
At the time communism was introduced in China it was the dynamic thing
to do, and in spite of all the later problems, initially it did do some
good: China's enormous heroin problem was cleaned up, women were
liberated, the division of wealth was narrowed, and China began to move
from a feudal to an industrial society. The rest of the world had left
China behind and it had become obvious that China needed to modernize
FAST and they had to figure out a way to do it. It genuinely seemed
like the way to a brave new China: everyone would be equal, helping each
other out, making steel, moving forward together - there's tons of
dynamic quality in that.
And if all the communists had continued to hold to these ideals and
conscientiously build that society then that brave new world might have
been achieved. But of course they got selfish and greedy and they let go
of the Dynamic Quality that had initially inspired them, and then it all
went wrong.
I realize that Pirsig's official line does not credit communism with any
dynamic quality and that he casts his vote for capitalism, but IMHO he
got it wrong. Any endeavour exercised with care and love can be dynamic
and I see no reason why the creation of an egalitarian society should be
an exception to that. There is nothing in Marx that says that a
communist society should not adapt and change. There is nothing that
says education is wrong. There is nothing that says that people should
be forced to do work they don't want to do. In the Paris Manuscripts
Marx writes:
"The worker is not at home in his work which he views as only a means of
satisfying other needs. It is an activity directed against himself, that
is independent of him and does not belong to him." -- could be straight
out of ZMM
The immorality of the Chinese situation is that they didn't create their
system with care. They separated themselves from it. It's immoral in the
same way that sloppy motorcycle maintenance is immoral. However just
because you meet a few immoral mechanics, it doesn't make the activity
itself immoral. Communism and capitalism are possible ways of allocating
resources, they are moral to the extent that they are appropriate to the
situation (most households are communist societies) and to the extent
that they are exercised with care.
So to the question "Which is more moral communism or capitalism?",
the answer is: "Whichever one is more moral."
Diana
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