[MD] grmbl

[plattholden at gmail.com]

On 2 Jun 2010 at 18:42, X Acto wrote:

> Platt to Andre:
>
> '...S/O began to preserve social values and then took off
> on purposes of its own, becoming the intellectual level (better named the
> individual level because it because it opposes collectivist values.)
>
> Andre:
> Thanks for clarifying this Platt. I should have known better. I thought the
> intellectual level held values such as human rights, freedom of speech,
> freedom of assembly, of travel, trial by jury, habeas corpus, government by
> consent. And these are not 'collectivist values' then?
>

>From Merriam-Webster: "collectivism -- 1 : a political or economic theory
advocating collective control especially over production and distribution;
also : a system marked by such control"

In other words, communism/socialism, opposed to individual rights, also
condemned by Pirsig for blocking DQ. .


"I am convinced there is only one way to eliminate (the) grave evils (of 
capitalism), 
namely through the establishment of a socialist economy, accompanied by an 
educational 
system which would be oriented toward social goals. In such an economy, the 
means of 
production are owned by society itself and are utilized in a planned fashion. A 
planned 
economy, which adjusts production to the needs of the community, would 
distribute the 
work to be done among all those able to work and would guarantee a livelihood 
to every man,
 woman, and child. The education of the individual, in addition to promoting 
his own 
innate abilities, would attempt to develop in him a sense of responsibility for 
his 
fellow-men in place of the glorification of power and success in our present 
society."
Albert Einstein, Why Socialism?, 1949


Ron,

You left out Einstein's final paragraph:

"Nevertheless, it is necessary to remember that a planned economy is not yet 
socialism. A planned economy as such may be accompanied by the complete 
enslavement of the individual. The achievement of socialism requires the 
solution of some extremely difficult socio-political problems: how is it 
possible, in view of the far-reaching centralization of political and economic 
power, to prevent bureaucracy from becoming all-powerful and overweening? How 
can the rights of the individual be protected and therewith a democratic 
counterweight to the power of bureaucracy be assured?"

And, remember Pirsig's observation about socialism:

"But what the socialists left out and what has all but killed their whole 
undertaking is an absence of a concept of indefinite Dynamic Quality." (Lila, 
17)

Europe is no experiencing the death throes of socialism. As Margaret Thatcher 
predicted, it's running out of other people's money.  

Platt