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From: bprice@bmcg.UUCP
Newsgroups: net.philosophy
Subject: Re: Re: Re: Whither Are We Drifting?
Message-ID: <1110@bmcg.UUCP>
Date: Fri, 20-Jul-84 15:09:08 EDT
Article-I.D.: bmcg.1110
Posted: Fri Jul 20 15:09:08 1984
Date-Received: Sun, 22-Jul-84 06:09:28 EDT
References: <1005@ihuxq.UUCP> <88700003@hpfclk.UUCP>, <2294@mit-eddie.UUCP>
Organization: Burroughs Corporation, San Diego
Lines: 64

From mit-eddie!lkk:
_____________
>You're forgetting one very vital aspect of capitalism, namely IMPERIALISM.
We can all forget about that "vital aspect", since imperialism is contrary to
all the principles of capitalism.  Imperialism, in fact, is only a feature of
those philosophies which define their mission as control of the world.  Since
capitalism is solely concerned with control of one's life and results, the
phrase (so beloved of those who wish to control you) "capitalist imperialist"
is a prima facie oxymoron.
>There may indeed be political freedoms in the advanced industrial
>capitalist countries, but we are only able to maintain our high
>standards of living by keeping the third world in the state of fascist
>slave labor that you claim to detest [viz. Central America, South
>Africa].
Your choice of words tells me that you would prefer the third world to be kept
in the state of soviet slave labor.  Advice--when you're spouting this kind of
nonsense, at least choose words by their capitalist-society meanings, rather
than parroting the soviet propaganda phrases.  Those of us who care can spot
those propaganda usages a mile off.
>	These countries supply us with raw materials and cheap labor,
>while we supply them with weapons so that their governments may continue
>to keep their populations docile in the face of widespread hunger and
>poverty.
There are two fallacies here.  The first is that a capitalist trading partner
can and should control the government and philosophy of the 'supplier'
country--this is the imperialism that your teachers denounce so loudly and
practice so widely.  The second is that trade with a capitalist country causes
or exacerbates "widespread hunger and poverty".  The facts show that a
"third-world" country that adopts capitalism rather than repression improves
such problems.
>	You also ignore the role of economic coercion in capitalist
>societies.  Certainly in the US, nobody is physically forced to work
>behind a McDonalds grill for $3.35 an hour, or walk the streets for lack
>of adequate low income housing, but people do it anyway.  Do you think
>they LIKE doing that?  (Just contemplate for a second the idea of
>spending the rest of your life working at McDonalds, or some equally
>vile job). Of course not, but they are forced into that situation by
>circumstance, by the system which locks them into a dim future merely
>because of where and to whom they were born [the one out of a thousand
>who make it like horatio alger notwithstanding].  This kind of coercion
>is JUST as powerful as explicit physical force, and is more insidious
>since it is not as easy to realize even its existence.
>
Granted, it isn't easy to realize the existence of 'economic coercion in 
capitalist societies'.  That's not at all surprising:  it isn't easy to realize
the existence of any purely imaginary propaganda construct.  The people that I
know who work (or have worked) at MacDonalds, or who haved lived in the
streets, have preferred doing that to being told where they can work, or told
where they can live.  All the ones that I know who didn't LIKE doing that have
used those experiences to bootstrap their way up.  I don't know any pure
Horatio Alger people:  nor do I know anyone who is locked into a dim future
merely because of having been born in a Capitalist society.  That kind of
thing, again, is strictly contrary to all real versions of Capitalism and
exists only in the minds of antiCapitalist propagandists.


This reply will probably be rejected by some on the grounds that it does not
grant some of points made in the original article.  Just because the
propagandists have found partial acceptance of their "Big Lies" does not
require any of us to accept them.

-- 
--Bill Price    uucp:   {decvax!ucbvax  philabs}!sdcsvax!bmcg!bprice
                arpa:?  sdcsvax!bmcg!bprice@nosc