- 08 Jun 2023 03:47
#15276228
@Potemkin , @Tainari88 , @noemon , @Wellsy , and others here my friends:
I want to thank everyone for their commentary, truly.
@Potemkin :
I truly am a Socialist, I guess because I've seen too much myself. I've no illusions about any true progress in this world it has always come by way of compulsion . " Tough love", if you will.
For me then I understand that the law protects the wealthy and the powerful, that in this day and age there is little jurisprudential reference to natural law or divine law anymore. Of course I don't believe in natural law either, as it's a reflection of the divine law which I do believe in. The legal positivists have all but won.
But there's still love, and virtue is it's own reward for those for whom government means little because they don't need it, having conquered their own self lawlessness, yet submit to government nonetheless. To command one must obey.
In any case, love. If we truly loved one another, truly formed a true society in the world, we'd have Socialism tomorrow. It wouldn't change human nature, but it would be a good part of a better life, like the toothbrush, electricity, and indoor plumbing. And perhaps we might lose those things someday if we don't adopt Socialism.
Potemkin wrote:There is not and has never been an absolute right to strike. We are, after all, living in a capitalist society, under laws created by and for the capitalist class. The Teamsters Union should have been aware of this fact, and acted accordingly. The Teamsters are not, after all, revolutionary communists. The employers have a legal right not to have their property wilfully destroyed, just as the workers have a legal right to withdraw their labour power if they so wish. This legalistic balance between the workers and their employer is essentially what Marx called “bourgeois right” and would of course be rejected by any revolutionary Marxist, as it is based on the idea that the workers and their employer both freely entered into a legal contract and ignores the actual and inevitable power imbalance between the parties. But most of the striking workers are not revolutionary Marxists, and neither are the leaders of the Teamsters Union. Given this fact, the refusal of the Teamsters to allow the cement trucks to complete their deliveries before going on strike seems to have been motivated by little more than petty spite. They should have expected to experience some legal difficulties as a consequence. And if they’re not happy with that, then they should draw the appropriate conclusions and go over to the cause of revolutionary communism. Because without a revolution, the employers will always have the law on their side. It is naive to think otherwise. Democratic socialism is impossible within the framework of the capitalist mode of production; at best, you will have what Marx called “bourgeois right”, which you call “legal positivism”.
@Potemkin , @Tainari88 , @noemon , @Wellsy , and others here my friends:
I want to thank everyone for their commentary, truly.
@Potemkin :
I truly am a Socialist, I guess because I've seen too much myself. I've no illusions about any true progress in this world it has always come by way of compulsion . " Tough love", if you will.
For me then I understand that the law protects the wealthy and the powerful, that in this day and age there is little jurisprudential reference to natural law or divine law anymore. Of course I don't believe in natural law either, as it's a reflection of the divine law which I do believe in. The legal positivists have all but won.
But there's still love, and virtue is it's own reward for those for whom government means little because they don't need it, having conquered their own self lawlessness, yet submit to government nonetheless. To command one must obey.
In any case, love. If we truly loved one another, truly formed a true society in the world, we'd have Socialism tomorrow. It wouldn't change human nature, but it would be a good part of a better life, like the toothbrush, electricity, and indoor plumbing. And perhaps we might lose those things someday if we don't adopt Socialism.