Saturday, August 7, 2010

Market greed or a planned economy for human need?

by Dave Holmes from Socialist Alliance (Australia). 

Although I don't agree with some of the details of this lecture, it does provide a good discussion of the flaws of capitalism and the virtue of a system that is based on democratic planning to meet social needs. You can see why the ruling classes of capitalism so aggressively attack any hint of ideas that suggest public ownership of the economy to serve the needs of all people in society. 

Broadly speaking, where I differ is related to what I perceive to be a weakness of those coming from the Marxist-Leninist tradition. They give far too much lip service to "democratic" features of socialism and neglect the real substance of inclusive democratic participation of ordinary people in all the social arrangements. Their ideas seem to me to be too stuck in the ideas of that tradition.