H O M E - C R Y P T - L I N K S - B I O

The dream of equality
is the great socialist dream
"From each according to ability,
to each according to needs."

The Young Hegelians closely resembled Saint-Simonians in that they included both Jews and non-Jews, they came from middle class backgrounds and they sought to replace Christianity with a new humanist ideology.

"According to the Young Hegelians, if individuals recognize what kind of creatures human beings truly are, they will see that existing institutions are incompatible with realizing our nature--incompatible with the conditions and/or the activities constitutive of the good life for human beings given the essential nature of human beings--and then they will change those institutions."
Daniel Brudney, "Marx's Attempt to Leave Philosophy"
Harvard University Press, 1998

Leftists tend to come mostly from the enlightened middle-classes and from wealth. The masses generally line up on the side of the oppressors. This is why it was believed that a vanguard of enlightened elite would have to lead the masses with proper re-education.

Young Hegelians defined themselves as atheists or pantheists who intended to replace Christianity not with a religion but with "philosophy". They called themselves "Young Hegelians" because it was Hegel who in Germany had popularized the idea that it was the destiny of philosophy to replace religion as the ethical basis of modern society.

Jews and Socialism
and the alleged "Great Jewish Conspiracy"

The "Great Jewish Conspiracy" was disseminated in the U.S. by Henry Ford in his Dearborn Independent and in Europe and frequently quoted by antisemites. John Spargo, who was not Jewish, describes this slanderous attack on the Jews in a book published in 1921. John Spargo says this about his book:

"This little book was written without the knowledge of any Jew. It is not a defense of the Jew. It is not a pro-Jewish argument. It is a defense of American ideals and institutions against anti-Semitism; a plea for Christian civilization."

John Spargo, "The Jew and American Ideals"
Harper & Brothers, 1921
The following quotes are from the same source..
" JUST as in the case of the British antiSemitic press, the Jew-baiting campaign in the Dearborn Independent and other newspapers makes much of the so-called "protocols" of the Wise Men of Zion, first published in Russia in 1905, but lately translated into English and published in England and the United States. In a sense it is not my business to expose the dubious origin and history of these documents. That is a Jewish task, to which various Jewish scholars have devoted their attention. In the London Spectator Mr. Lucien Wolff has performed it with distinction. I am not a Jew, racially or otherwise, and can lay no claim to any special ability or knowledge which would impose such a task upon me."

"There are, however, some things which must be said concerning the above-mentioned protocols, things which do not require specialized scholarship, and which even the non-Jew can say with confidence."

"These protocols are offered as evidence of the existence of a world-wide conspiracy far more serious and extensive than anything else of the kind recorded in history. By comparison, the greatest conspiracy hitherto revealed seems like a kindergarten game. It is charged, and these documents are submitted as evidence in support of the charge, that there exists, and has existed for centuries, a Jewish imperialistic program; that Jews in all lands have been and are united in a highly organized and subtly directed secret movement to bring about the overthrow of all non-Jewish governments, to substitute therefor a Jewish world government, to obliterate all national boundaries, and to destroy all religions other than Judaism. This, it is alleged, is the concrete form in which the Jews visualize their destiny as the Chosen People. In order to attain this grandiose ideal, every means to weaken the non-Jewish elements and institutions in civilization is encouraged by the invisible Jewish government, the leaders of this vast conspiracy."

"If we are to place credence in these documents, the principal agency through which the Jewish conspirators have worked is Freemasonry. The Masonic orders throughout the world have been the blind dupes and tools of this superimperialism of the Jews, if the statements made in these protocols are true. Indeed, there can hardly be any question at all that if the truth of these documents can be established, there is, to say the least, quite as much reason for suppressing Masonic lodges, and making them illegal, as there is for suppressing Bolshevist or other conspiratory organizations. I should just as little expect to find sympathy for Bolshevism in a Masonic lodge as in the College of Cardinals, or in the Union League Club, let us say. When we enter into the mysteries of this "Jewish conspiracy" we encounter many surprises."

"According to the statements made in these protocols, practically all the revolutionary movements of modern times have been instigated and directed by Jews. They have caused the assassination of rulers and heads of states, so that behind the murderous fanaticism of individuals there has generally been the cold calculation of the most cunning and unscrupulous intellects of the human race. According to the same evidence, the wars which have drenched the world with blood and rent it with passion, including racial wars in Asia and Africa, the Franco-Prussian War of 1870, the RussoJapanese War, and the recent World War, were all brought about deliberately by Jewish cunning, for the purpose of weakening the fabric of non-Jewish states and providing the Jews with new sources of strength and power to be used to establish their universal dominion."

"All this is terrible enough. But there is even worse to follow. We must remember that these documents were first published in Russia in 1905, and they purport to be the procès-verbaux of a conference held eight or nine years prior to that time. It is rather startling, therefore, to find outlined therein a program of revolutionary action, to be initiated in Russia and developed throughout the civilized world, remarkably like the Bolshevist program, not merely in the precise measures contained in the program, but also, and especially, in the general conception of policy underlying it. We find in this alleged Jewish program the same negation of all the accepted principles of law and honor and morality that the Bolshevist policy has so conspicuously manifested. It is brazenly stated that bribery, deceit, and treachery are to be used (Protocol 1). A vast army of spies and secret agents abundantly supplied with funds is to be relied on to promote revolt and dissension in all the principal countries (Protocol 2). "Ferments, discords, and hostility" are to be deliberately created and fostered throughout Europe and, through the international relations of the European countries, to the other continents also (Protocol 7). Efforts are to be made to compromise the honor and besmirch the reputations of the most influential statesmen and to use blackmail in order to make these statesmen serve the purposes of the conspirators (Protocol 10). Revolutionary movements, anarchistic, communistic, and socialistic, are to be fostered for the purpose of destroying nonJewish civilization (Protocol 3). In the event of unfavorable action by any power or group of powers, it is to be met by resistance in the form of universal war (Protocol 7). Disorganization of the economic life of the world through the debasement and ruin of the credit and currency systems, of the principal nations, and the creation of "a universal economic crisis" are also to be used to the same end (Protocol 3)."

"I have briefly summarized only a few of the more important items in this monstrous program. There is more of the same general type of fiendishness. Concerning the character of the program itself, there can be no difference of opinion between honest Americans. It is as diabolical as it is fantastic. What importance we ought to attach to it, however, must necessarily depend upon our judgment concerning its origin. If these protocols, and the program contained in them, are to be seriously accepted for what they pretend to be--namely, a deliberate statement of the purposes and aims of the leaders of the Jewish people throughout the world, with practically the entire Jewish race behind them--then the matter assumes enormous importance. If, on the other hand, there is no substantial evidence of this--and such evidence as is available indicates that the protocols are the product of a single diseased and depraved mind--the documents cease to possess any great significance and the terrible injustice and frightfully dangerous consequences of charging them against the Jewish people are obvious."

"We must, therefore, pay critical attention to the origin of the protocols and the circumstances surrounding their publication, as well as to any internal evidences of their genuineness or otherwise."

And of course the Protocols were fabricated and amazingly, as unbelievable as they appear to be to us now, they were widely believed by many who used this as a justification to fuel antisemitism on the planet and even today it is used and widely published in the Arab press and by White Supremacists and other antisemites. Much has been written about the origins of the "Protocols of the Elders of Zion", but much of it is speculative and there is no conclusive evidence as to the source. It really doesn't matter. It was simply a lie which has been repeated ad nauseum.

The "Protocols of the Elders of Zion" "is a fraudulent document that reported the alleged proceedings of a conference of Jews in the late 19th cent., at which they discussed plans to overthrow Christianity through subversion and sabotage and to control the world. The Protocols first appeared in their entirety in Russia in 1905. They were widely disseminated in the 1920s and became a classic defense for anti-Semitism. First published in the United States in 1920, the Protocols were championed by Henry Ford in his newspaper, the Dearborn Independent, and cited throughout the 1930s by some anti-Roosevelt and fascist groups. As early as 1921, the English journalist Philip Graves exposed the similarity between the Protocols and a political satire by Maurice Joly, Dialogue aux enfers entre Machiavel et Montesquieu (1864). Subsequent investigation showed the original document to be a forgery written by members of the Russian secret police."
See H. Bernstein, "The Truth about the Protocols of the Elders of Zion" (1935, 
repr. 1972); N. Cohn, "Warrant for Genocide" (1967, repr. 1970).
Encyclopedia.Com

The notion that the Jews invented socialism and later Bolshevism in order to undermine the status quo and to assume power over the naive and helpless gentiles became a staple of modern anti-Semitism, somehow coexisting with the view that Jewish bankers (the Rothschilds, Schiff, et al) controlled the world. The myth of a Jewish socialist conspiracy was an article of faith for some Poles, for Russian instigators of pogroms and for Adolf Hitler.

Adolf Hitler wrote in Mein Kampf:

"If, with the aid of his Marxist creed, the Jew triumphs
over the peoples of the world, then his crown
will be the funeral wreath of humanity."

Even great friends of the Jews, such as Winston Churchill, worried about their dangerous left-wing proclivities and hoped that securing a national homeland for them in Palestine would wean the Jews away from such temptations.

Political Change in Israel

In Israel the left has remained an important facto, although it suffered a grievous blow in 1977 at the hands of the Likud Party, but its old ideological baggage has been almost totally abandoned. In post-1967 Israel to identify with the left has meant above all to favor territorial compromise with the Arabs, not to support the social and economic programs traditionally associated with pre-World War II European socialism.

The Labor Party, returned to power in 1992 but defeated again in 1996, has been the party of peace agreements with the Palestine Liberation Organization and with Jordan, not the party of social radicalism or even of social reform.

So far as economic and social issues are concerned, the Labor Party is hardly distinguishable from its main right wing adversary, the Likud.

Right wing politics had its turn and is not really working. Because of worsening of economic conditions and no peace, there appears to be renewed interest brewing for the Israeli left and increased polarization between the two extremes.

"After three years of suicide bombings, many Israelis see the Palestinians simply as terrorists, not as a people struggling for independence. The Israeli left has continued to advocate negotiations and Palestinian statehood, but until now, it had remained largely silent in the face of right-wing charges that there is no negotiating partner on the Palestinian side. But now a new unofficial peace plan negotiated over two years by former Israeli Justice Minister Yossi Beilin and former Palestinian Cabinet Minister Yasser Abed Rabbo has sparked a sharp debate in Israel. Polls say about a third of the Israeli public supports the plan, which calls for an almost complete withdrawal from the West Bank and Gaza and Palestinian sovereignty over part of Jerusalem. Beilin says that's a number beyond his wildest expectations, but even more important, he says, is that about a quarter of those who voted for Likud Prime Minister Sharon say they back the initiative."
NPR
10/24/2003

The struggle for social justice and the campaign against racial and other forms of prejudice can still count on considerable Jewish support. Historians are not prophets, but it is likely that the next round of radical left-wing activity in the Western world, whenever it comes, will once again find willing Jews to join the ranks of progressive organizations. Many Jews will always be in the forefront of enlightened social change.

In spite of Jewish attempts at assimilation, during the Second Reich, in the period, even after Jewish emancipation and the "Reformation", Jews were regularly excluded from full participation in European society and this was reflected in the emergence and development of various ideologies of which the Jews were also in no small part instrumental and prominent. However, as much as Jews were involved in these new philosophies, most were still outside the mainstream of those movements and to obtain acceptance many completely rejected their Jewish ancestry and traditions.

"Jewish assimilation and political emancipation resulted in diminishing knowledge and practice of Judaism within a growing segment of German Jewry. On the other hand, beginning in the 1870s, insurgent political and racial anti-Semitism created insuperable barriers to the complete acceptance of Jews by their gentile compatriots. Anti-Semitism could be found in every quarter of German society and had precursors in pre-Imperial Germany, as Schorsch observes:
Adam M. Weisberger, 
"The Jewish Ethic and the Spirit of Socialism"
Peter Lang, 1997
...the long controversy over equal rights had bequeathed a potent legacy of anti-Semitic sentiment and literature to the new Empire. Every sector of the German political spectrum from the Hegelian radicals to the Junker conservatives had at some time vented its deep-seated animosity to Jewish claims. Most of the arguments so fully developed by the anti-Semites of the Second Reich had already been fully articulated or adumbrated."
 Schorsch Ismar, "Jewish Reactions to German Anti-Semitism" 
Columbia University Press, New York and London, 1972, p. 55.
"The ideal of liberal German Jewry--to be Germans of Jewish faith--became increasingly difficult to maintain in the face of entrenched anti-Semitism. Jewish emancipation remained in many respects more nominal than real, since anti-Semitism proved itself protean and pervasive. Beyond political and racial anti-Semitism, Jews continued to face hostility and discrimination within a variety of institutional settings and social groups: from liberal Protestant theologians, eager to demonstrate the religious inferiority of Judaism, from the Prussian state and bureaucracy, which excluded Jews and were inimical to the concerns of Jews, such as equal state support for Jewish communal autonomy and punitive measures against expressions of anti-Semitism, from the reserve corps, which refused to appoint a Jew to the rank of officer, from the German university, where Jewish professors like Moritz Lazarus or Hermann Cohen were few and far between despite an abundance of qualified candidates, from Junkers, peasants and petit bourgeois groups susceptible to oversimplified anti-Jewish explanations of their misfortunes under emergent capitalism. The progressive parties, to which the majority of Jews tied their political fortunes, were willing in the end to compromise with the anti-Semitic parties."
(Weisberger)
"The steady barrage of anti-Semitic propaganda had made its mark; the same can be said of the anti-Semitic political parties, for, despite losing popularity toward the turn of the century, their repeated assaults on Jews helped to create an atmosphere of chilly, distant social relations between Jews and Gentiles. Even liberal, putatively philoSemitic intellectuals like Weber and Mommsen, supposedly more sympathetic to Jewish grievances and repulsed by anti-Semitism, were deeply hostile to a pluralist understanding of assimilation, which they instead took to mean the complete absorption of Jews into German society up to and including the dissolution of all traces of Jewish identity."
(Weisberger)

Marx was by his own pronouncements anti-Jewish. As an apostate, he tried harder, to be like everyone else in that. He may have been brilliant in a lot of ways but he was just as subject to prejudice as Darwin was in his time and many other great men were in their times.

Just how ill-informed Marx was in his slander of Jews is stated by Saul Padover:
 
"Marx's slander of Jews as hagglers and money-men by nature was factually as well as theologically inaccurate, and reflected nearly total ignorance, possibly willful, of the lives and faith of the people from whom he descended. In his time, the vast majority of Europe's Jews were neither capitalists nor merchants, but were poor, often pitifully exploited working people.
Paul Padover, "Karl Marx: An Intimate Biography" 
New York: 1978

Marx's anti-Semitism was by no means considered unusual in his day. The increasingly anti-Semitic tone of the European socialist movement from the 1840s onwards was in turn related the general climate of racism in which Europe became engulfed during the course of the 19th century as a consequence of its growing domination over Africa and Asia.

Marx tended to blame everything
on the power of money, which
he associated with the Jews.
"Even after Jews were legally emancipated, they remained outsiders: in German terms, gleichberechtigt, aber nicht gleichwertig, equal rights without equal value."
(Adam M. Weisberger)
What they thought they had "in common"

This term "communism" goes back to the era of the French Revolution and the "Society of the Equals" led by Gracchus Babeuf in the 1790s. Babeuf and his followers had constantly used the expressions, "commune" and "in common", to the point where they eventually became known as communists.

Many Jews could relate to socialism as a moral ideal, a continuation of the secular fruition of Jewish messianism, but Marx and Engels were not moralists. Marx and Engels had stated over and over again that unlike other ideological socialist philosophies and they were not moralists. They did not favor socialism because it was equitable but it was their view that socialism was inevitable. Karl Marx described capitalism as exploitive, irrational and also inequitable.

"Socialism, as it was expounded by its ardent advocates in the 19th century, sought to transform Western society through a new set of democratized institutions based on social solidarity. However, socialism has not been successful in meeting this goal, with the collapse of the USSR only emphasizing the weakness of the socialist position. In the face of capitalism's strengths, socialists should rethink their positions on issues of pressing concern to make them more relevant to the demands of the times."
Norman Birnbaum, "Socialism reconsidered - yet again"
World Policy Journal - 9/22/1996 - (Norman Birnbaum is University Professor, 
Georgetown University Law Center. His most recent book is 
"Searching for the Light: Essays in Thought and Culture")
"When we contemplate contemporary Western socialism (and its approximate American equivalent, the New Deal tradition of social reform), we must, it appears, put aside vain dreams for sober hopes. Socialism was born of the Enlightenment, had an ambiguous relationship to Christian doctrines of social transformation (partly antagonistic, partly fraternal), and drew from the idea of progress the conviction that history would eventually ensure its triumph."
(ibid)
"The socialist movement initially sought the total transformation of Western society, the subordination of the impersonal workings of the market to the demands of social solidarity, a radical practice of citizenship through the democratization of the institutional structure, and, finally, the creation of a new set of institutions. Domination, exploitation, and hierarchy were to disappear in a society of equals."
(ibid)

Socialism may work its way into the fabric of society as fullfillment of the "social contract", doing what is necessary to prevent rebellion, but also by mass pressure, to provide equity, but it will not all of a sudden with the ready demise of capitalism nor will it appear as a result of the end of capitalism. While it was once the prevailing view of many socialists and capitalists that capitalism could not coexist with socialism, this is not entirely true. If society creates conditions of fairness, socialism will appear, most likely along with capitalism, which it does not necessarily need to replace in order to become inherent and integral to the economic system. Rather it must appear in degrees in order to make life more humane.

Socialist Tendencies

The existence of two distinct tendencies on the socialist left-the anarchist and the Marxist were crystallizing into two separate and rival movements during the 1880s. Within the Russian-Jewish intelligentsia the Marxists and the anarchists increasingly competed with each other to demonstrate their complete commitment to the class war and to the cause of social liberation without regard to national differences. The most consistent in their rejection of Jewish particularism in every shape and form were the anarchists, who prided themselves on their total rejection of everything established. The movement henceforth became very anti-Zionist.

There are a lot more than just two tendencies on the left today, and some of it isn't socialist at all. There have evolved many views that are a result of previous right and left ideas, which has been referred to by some historians and philosophers as more of a "fusion" of left and right wing tendencies The left has become an amorphous entanglement and aggregate of ideas, some of it egalitarian, but some of it also prejudicial (antisemitic) and particularistic. Any definition of left and right in context of today's realities would be imperfect.

In a perfect world we can do without particularism. However, this is not a perfect world and Jews are blamed for Jewish particularism, while assimilated Jews in post-Reformation German Jews were rejected not because of Jewish particularism, but because of German particularlism and other ethnic and national particularlism.

"German particularism created a situation in which complete fusion, or harmonious coexistence, of Jewish and German cultures was highly problematic, if not downright impossible. Jews were increasingly faced with difficult either/or choices between Jewish or German identities. The contradictions of Jewish existence in modern German society became more acute following the 1873 depression, for which "unproductive Jewish capital" was widely perceived as responsible. The ensuing years witnessed the rise of modern racial and party-political anti-Semitism in Germany. The liberals, once staunch defenders of Jewish civil rights, were co-opted by Bismarck into an alliance with clerical, conservative and protectionist elements. Henceforth, the Liberal Party ceased to nominate non-baptized Jews for positions in the Reichstag and gave increasing evidence of a nationalistic anti-Semitism. Succumbing to feudalization, the Bildungsbürgertum retreated from progressive Enlightenment universalism by reinterpreting the Bildung ideal in conservative, romantic and privatistic terms ( Vondung, 1976). The liberal center, the piece of social terrain on which Jews believed it possible to harmonize their dual identities, collapsed. As one scholar has described the predicament of German Jewry, "The crisis of Jewish identity was caused by the loss of the historically preceding identity which, until then, had been taken for granted: the Jew's identity as a member of the body of Jewry or one of its sections, better still his identity, as a member of the Jewish community, within that community." Thus Jews found themselves increasingly isolated both socially and politically in an increasingly nationalistic and reactionary climate..."
(Weisberger)
"After the foundation of the empire, belief in the free development of the individual, which between 1830 and 1870 had been a significant element in the national programme of the middle class, became less important. Concern for the authority of the state as the guardian of order and as a power among the nations grew prevalent. But for the Jewish outsiders the call for an open society remained predominant as a necessary pre-condition of their existence."
 Liebeschütz Hans, "German Politics and Jewish Existence," in Leo Baeck 
Institute Yearbook, London: Secker & Warburg, p. 31. See also Mosse 
Werner E., "The Conflict of Liberalism and Nationalism and its Effect on 
German Jewry," Leo Baeck Institute Yearbook, London: Secker & Warburg.
Jews and the United States

Jews in the United States formed a good quarter to a third of the membership of the Socialist Labor Party, the Socialist Party and the Communist Party, forming the backbone of each of these major radical organizations. At the 1966 convention of the radical student group SDS, 46% of the delegates who identified themselves as having a religious background were Jewish, according to Arthur Liebman in "Jews And The Left" and beginning with the mass arrival of Russian and Eastern European Jews in the 1880s, Jews and their progeny have been the mainstay of the Left in America.

Jewish radicalism has made major contributions in social welfare and it embraced a wide range of tendencies which are usually not grouped together. For example, it would have to include both Marxism and Zionism. Karl Marx was but the first in a long line of prominent Marxist theoreticians of Jewish descent. Leon Trotsky, Rosa Luxemburg, Edouard Bernstein, Daniel DeLeon, George Lukacs, Herbert Marcuse, Deutscher would be some of the others. As for Zionism, it is undeniable fact that Israel was founded by socialists and led for nearly 30 years, from 1948 to 1977, by socialist governments.

And even today, about 40% of the Israeli economy is still state owned, with another 20% run by cooperatives affiliated the Histadrut, the Israeli trade union organization. Were it not for the weight of anti-Semitism on the left, Israel would undoubtedly be viewed as a model of democratic socialist development by the American and European left.

Just as Jews in left wing groups everywhere have been critical of Zionism, so were Jews in the Russian Revolution not supportive of particularism and in favor of internationalism. Jews have always made the mistake of thinking they could assimilate and even as they closed ranks with others on the Left to combat injustice, they were often singled out as Jews who were suspect because of their attachment to things Jewish. Yet Jews have been on the front lines for justice and fairness for others including Palestinians. It has always been part of Jewish radicalism to protest injustice and comes directly out of the Torah and the "Ethics of the Fathers".

Jews murdered by anti-communists

More than 100,000 Jews were murdered by the anti-Semitic (anti-communist) White armies during the Civil War in Russia in 1918-20 because the Russian, Ukrainian and Semites held the Jews responsible for the Russian Revolution, the role Trotsky and the Jews played was more than one quarter of the membership all the revolutionary parties in Russia during this period. Of all the political prisoners deported to Siberia after the defeat of the Revolution of 1905, 37% were Jews.

Jewish radical elements of modern times include Marxism and Zionism the Jewish and the cultural radicals - the Fraudians, Feminists, Anarchists, Bohemians and free love of the radical counter-culture, Jewish Bundists, who were in the forefront, led the fight for worker's rights for Jews and non-Jews, and Jewish Revolutionaries in Russia.

That is not to suggest there were not difficulties for the Jews in the revolutionary movement. One component, the Bolsheviks were hostile to Zionism in general and to socialist Zionism in particular. The Third International declared as their viewpoint that Zionism was fraudulent. It claimed the aim of Zionism was the exploitation of a majority of Arab workers by a minority of Jewish workers. This was a period of much disappointment and "Zionist socialists" had to decide as some of them did to quit Zionism in order to remain part of the great revolution.

Ben-Gurion was interested in establishing a dialogue with the Soviet Union because of the importance of Soviet Jewry to the Zionism cause - and their pioneering potential for Israel (Palestine). But, also he wanted more than anything to have legitimation for socialist Zionism from leaders in the new Russia. And to some extent he was successful by enlisting members of Hashomer Hatzair and the Hehalutz. If Ben-Gurion had not been successful there probably would not be a state of Israel today.

Ben-Gurion also opened an initiative for trade with the Soviet Union and Histradrut. The bigger problem wasn't the government. Most of the Soviet Union and government were open to these efforts but the awkward reality is where Ben-Gurion experienced most of his problems as did other Zionists; it was not with Russian Revolutionaries, but with Russian Jews in the Communist Party who were vehemently anti-Zionist. When Israel became aligned with capitalist countries, Russia became antagonistic and the hostility of the Soviet Union was reflected in positions it took in the United Nations.

Israel sided with the capitalists. Those nations which chose the socialist path have all failed, with the exception of a few which seem to be in their final days. Socialism may be the ideal but it has not been attainable. The debate rages over why capitalism wins. Many attribute the victory of capitalism to greed and think it is an inherent natural inclination of our species. That may be so. It may be that power redistributed in socialist experiments weaken the center whereas capitalist empowerment strengthens those with the guns and there will always be great disparities between those in control and those who are controlled.

What new world do we inhabit, and on whom may we count if we seek to pursue the goals of the Enlightenment? Suppose we ascertain that the world is almost totally inhospitable to our traditional ends. What then? Toward the end of his life, Trotsky said that even if the goals of a socialist revolution were unattainable, it would remain the duty of socialists to defend the interests of those he described as the slaves of capitalism, an eternal proletariat. Admirable as this thought is, the slaves do not think of themselves as such. Those on the peripheries of the capitalist world system, Brazilian shanty-dwellers, Chinese peasants, Indian clerks, and South African miners seem intent on joining the system. It is also true that they appear to have very little choice."
(Norman Birnbaum - ibid)
Hank Roth

All Excerpts provided herein are pursuant to the Fair Use Doctrine
for educational and discussion purposes per
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