Newsnight on 'responsible capitalism', Prof Eric Hobsbawm (19Jan12)

Professor Eric Hobsbawm is interviewed on the so called 'Responsible capitalism.'

Recorded from BBC Newsnight, 19 January 2012.

Category:

News & Politics

Tags:

• Prof
• Professor
• Eric
• Hobsbawm
• bbc
• newsnight
• debate
• responsible
• irresponsible
• capitalism
• corporate
• fascism
• fascist
• policies
• greed
• fraud
• defraud
• 19
• january
• 2012

[lukevcollison]

Interviewer really seems to miss the point of what he's saying quite a bit here.

[mrfresh976]

Looks like a character out of a Roald Dahl book.

[rata9009]

top 10 thinker from 20 century top 1 thinker from 21 st

[Bastiat90]

And how do you measure its support if it refuses elections. None of the 20th century communist rulers subjected their parties to genuinely free elections

[Bastiat90]

Then how is it a Vanguard party? Communism is inimical to democracy. Both are shit but democracy less so

[nocturnezero]

@Bastiat90 The Vanguard party is kind of contingent upon being the political front for a *mass* movement or a *popular* uprising. It doesn't really have a reason for existence if it's not supported by an active majority of the people in question. But, if it fails, it gets taken out of power like any other party, unless it's in the USSR and sinks its teeth into the government, but that's not what Leninist theory calls for, which is what we're discussing.

[nocturnezero]

@Bastiat90 Vote it out of office? The same way the Greek Communist Party gets taken out of office when people don't like shit it does?

[Bastiat90]

How can it not? How do you remove a Vanguard party?

[nocturnezero]

@Bastiat90 How does the Vanguard party in a democratic state governed by Soviets (clearly not what the USSR was, but that's what the theory calls for, which is what you cited) remove of a democratic solution?

[Bastiat90]

Whether the workers wanted capitalism is irrelevant to this debate: did the workers want communism? Leninist theory justifies the Vanguard party, thereby taking away from the workers a democratic solution to their troubles; that is totalitarianism. How do you know they didn't want capitalism if they weren't allowed to vote on it?

[nocturnezero]

@Bastiat90 What if the workers in the Soviet Union didn't want capitalism? They didn't, by any means, whether or not they were standing in bread lines or starving on collectivized farms. Central to Marxist interpretation is that economic conditions shape thought.