David Cromwell wrote:

> As you may well know, Murray Bookchin was an insightful pioneer in 
> issues directly relevant to the Crisis Forum......
>
> . . . Born in the Bronx in 1921 to Russian immigrants, themselves 
> radically politicised by the social upheavals of revolutionary Russia, 
> Bookchin cut his teeth as a political activist and public orator on 
> the streets of the working-class districts of New York. At the age of 
> nine, he joined the Young Pioneers, the youth section of the American 
> Communist Party.
>
>  ". . .  capitalism today has become a society, not only an economy".



Very interesting.

For many years I have focused on finding the ROOT causes of war (if you 
are anti-war, then it seems you should be acquainted with the CAUSE of 
war, right?), and now, from Bookchin's era I find this:


  - - -
[He's talking about Europe's hostility to Russia]

. . .  democracy has in the meantime outgrown the Mid-Victorian scheme 
of personal liberty and has grown into a democracy of property rights. 
. . . these paramount demands of absentee ownership are at the same 
time incompatible with the humane principles of Mid-Victorian 
Liberalism. [...] Bolshevism is a menace to absentee ownership; and in 
the light of events in Soviet Russia it became evident that only with 
the definitive suppression of Bolshevism and all its works, at any 
cost, could the world be made safe for that Democracy of [Absentee] 
Property Rights on which the existing political and civil order is 
founded. So it became the first concern of all the guardians of the 
existing order to root out Bolshevism at any cost, without regard to 
international law.

In effect, in their efforts to safeguard the existing political and 
economic order -- to make the world safe for a democracy of investors 
-- the statesmen of the victorious Powers have taken sides with the 
war-guilty absentee owners of Germany and against their underlying 
population.
  - - -


 From Thorstein Veblen's review of JM Keynes' article "Economic 
Consequences of the Peace"
http://socserv2.socsci.mcmaster.ca/~econ/ugcm/3ll3/keynes/vebrev
No date on this, but safe to say its early 1900s.


It seems the best argument I have heard yet.

The key word/phrase is "absentee" or "absentee ownership" as found in 
feudalism and all forms of domination. By falling for the "property 
rights" argument, and who hasn't, centuries of laborers of the world 
have fought and died to protect the property rights of their feudal 
masters. Duh.


So - to be more clear, what I see is Capitalism demanding UNLIMITED 
property rights, and Communism demanding  NO property rights . . . 
neither of which fit the bill. But what can you expect; they are both 
dominators and hierarchies. Meanwhile laborers merely want property 
rights WITHOUT absentee ownership (did I here someone say 
"localization"?).



Thing is ... for me, this is a major hurdle. A revelation. It answers a 
30 year-old question for me. It finally pinpoints EXACTLY what the 
problem is with the anti-commie/neocon crowd. And it all fits 
perfectly: corporations in their modern incarnation are nothing more 
than legal feudal estates, answerable to no one, but now they have 
international powers to rape and pillage as they please. Capitalism 
inevitably leads to feudalism; slavery.


> Bookchin began to see that no matter how full a revolution based on 
> the Marxian model might be, there would be a whole range of 
> hierarchies that would be left untouched.


In a book by his daughter, Caroline, I found that Marx was constantly 
fighting hierarchies that would evolve from his attempts to organize. 
He finally left the communist party in protest of them complaining of 
an "irrational belief in authority."


Walt