[R-G] Howard Zinn interviewed by La Jiribilla in Havana

[Macdonald Stainsby]

Richard Menec wrote:

> You can praise all you want about the glories of production-for-profit, but
> there are limits.  Much of what you say historically is correct; but now
> we're faced with a different set of problems, and far more urgent ones.

I'm with Richard on this. For all the hand wringin that revolutionaries and 
left radicals exhibit over the inevitable failures of "socialism in one 
country", we spend way too much time ignoring that you can't have the kind 
of glorious bounty of capitalism in one country that Bill expresses without 
a dozen or so manufacturing countries, resources that cannot be even sold 
at a fraction of their actual value, etc.

In other words, the fantasy development of the USSR is nothing compared to 
the lie of a global market. And, in so far as the USSR would bleed from the 
centre out (in contradiction to the global capitalist world market before, 
after and time immemorial) it goes to logic to point that the isolation, 
blockading, disruption, sabotage, etc of any alternative market (whether 
run by Mother Teresa or Satan) played a much greater role in keeping only 
the very small heartland of capitalism plentiful and the USSR not as much so.

Compared to all other countries that did not force their satellites to pour 
  wealth into their social and economic vaults, state (as Parenti calls 
them, "Siege") socialist experiments have produced higher standards of 
living than all others. Brazil and India are far better examples to compare 
to the USSR or China than anything to do with the US or Europe. Comparing 
imperialist countries to socialist ones is like comparing the standards of 
living amongst brokers on Wall St to rank and file members of the AFL-CIO 
and thinking that you have proved something.

-- 
Macdonald Stainsby
http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/listinfo/rad-green
In the contradiction lies the hope
		--Brecht.