Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site bbncca.ARPA Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!burl!ulysses!mhuxj!ihnp4!bbncca!rrizzo From: rrizzo@bbncca.ARPA (Ron Rizzo) Newsgroups: net.politics Subject: Re: reply to Henry Spencer {socialism and such} Message-ID: <962@bbncca.ARPA> Date: Tue, 25-Sep-84 12:20:02 EDT Article-I.D.: bbncca.962 Posted: Tue Sep 25 12:20:02 1984 Date-Received: Thu, 27-Sep-84 03:37:59 EDT References: <2769@mit-eddie.UUCP> Organization: Bolt, Beranek and Newman, Cambridge, Ma. Lines: 18 One more comment on Henry Spencer's assertion that small-s socialism stands for the government as sole employer: even when socialism does advocate central coordination of economic life etc., it doesn't nec- essarily mean state control. The "utopian socialist" Charles Fourier envisaged large factory-centered communities that would be effectively or actually (can't recall for sure) self-governing. What categorizes this scheme as socialist is coordination of the whole economy for a communal purpose; the "political" means for doing this could conceivably range from direct democracy to representation to committees. What seemed to distinguish Fourier from contemporaries that were given or adopted the label small-c communism is the smaller scale and greater intimacy and demands of the communistic societies. The socialists had a more public and impersonal interest in administration: they were promoting schemes for the organization of entire nations; the communists were primarily interested in small communities and the character of daily life and personal relations.