On Oct 23, 7:40 am, "Lance Corporal \"Hammer\" Schultz"
 wrote:
> On Mon, 22 Oct 2007 16:19:20 +0200, Aleks A.-Lessmann wrote:
> > I take it you haven't read Lenin - even in excerpts?
>
> Sure I have.
>
> > If you did, then you didn't understand diddly about what he wrote or
> > what he did.
>
> > Matthews post is, like Josh rightly said, mostly centre, leaning a bit
> > to the right.
>
> My problem here is that I latched onto "and so are in
> effect bludging off the union without contributing" which reminds me
> of Lenin's philosophy of society which included the wrongful notion
> that nobody can separate themselves from the society they live in.
>
> It was a bit of a knee-jerk reaction on my part.  My apologies,
> Matthew.

I'm replying late here to say "no problem" and add a few comments.

I did not have Lenin or any other Russian politician in mind when
making my comments, nor do I subscribe to the economic views of any
Russian politician. I do like a lot of the ideas held by the European
academics whom the concept of socialism originated from (Marx, Engels,
etc.) but I don't subscribe to socialism based on how the word is
commonly defined today.

To further clarify my position on unions, I believe that ideally they
should be voluntary in order to reduce the risk of bureaucracy and
corruption in unions, and because unions are held more accountable to
the interests of workers if those workers have a choice to not join.
However, I also think that compulsory union membership can be the
lesser of two evils, depending on the degree that it's necessary in
order to protect workers from exploitation. Here in New Zealand, there
are fairly solid laws protecting the basic rights of workers, and so
voluntary union membership seems to work best here. In the US,
compulsory union membership may work better where there are not
sufficient laws to protect workers, though better laws is the ideal in
my view (I realise you'd likely disagree).

It is not my view that the solution to workers being exploited is for
individuals to be hot-shots and negotiate their own terms whilst
letting everyone else eat cake. My reasons for thinking that union
membership should ideally be voluntary are unrelated to this issue.

As for whether an individual can separate themselves from the society
they live in, I believe that they can to a large degree although there
are some aspects in which it's tricky to be freed from socialisation
altogether (for example, we almost invariably *think* in a language
that's been taught to us by others). Certainly, I don't agree with
what Lenin meant by his views on the matter, and I believe that
individuals should aspire to think independently from the society
around them. I very much enjoyed these themes being explored in The
Matrix, and various parts of the show (e.g. Comes the Inquisitor).

Matthew
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