If you have already seen this message originally sent yesterday I apologise.

Graeme Imray wrote:

>Please forgive this intrusion from the UK
>
>You may or may not know that for the past 22 months there has been a
>lockout of approximately 500 dockers in the Port of Liverpool. I belong to
>the Liverpool Dockers support group and we organised a showing of Chomsky's
>'Manufacturing Consent' to some of the dockers, Women of the Waterfront and
>others.
>
>Afterwards, a wish was expressed that we should get in touch to further our
>understanding. Since I am connected to the Net, I undertook to subscribe to
>this list as a way of doing this. I did this about 3 weeks ago.
>
>My problem is I cannot make sense of the argument / discussion you are
>having in order to take it back to the supporters group. If someone would
>be kind enough to tell me why it matters if 'intellectual property' differs
>from any other kind of property in a capitalist society, or if there is a
>crisis of over production/ underconsumption and how either of these relate
>to any of Chomsky's ideas I would be very grateful.

As to intellectual property in capitalist society, it doesn't, we have
cleared that up. However economics is highly relevant to Chomsky's ideas,
even if economics are not his strong point. Simplisticly put, that is
because the fundamental causes of poverty and oppression are economic -
'money is the root of all evil'.

We were discussing property before we got sidelined onto intellectual
property, and of course property is fundamental to the whole problem. To
quote the Communist Manifesto:

        "In this sense the theory of the Communists may be summed up
         in the single sentence: abolition of private property."

As Don DeBar pointed out, the question of overproduction is fundamental to
whether there are any solutions to these problems within the current
economic system. If overproduction is inherent to capitalism (a FATAL FLAW)
then there is no possibility of solving economic problems (and hence all
problems of poverty, economic injustice and oppression) without ending the
capitalist system itself.

If you are looking for issues of relevance to workers' struggles, you can't
get more relevant than that. If you are looking for easy answers (and I
don't mean to imply that you are) I can't help you because I don't think
there are any. We don't seem to even agree on what the PROBLEM is.

Oh, and your contribution is not an intrusion just because you're a pom.
How about a quick run-down on the Liverpool dockers strike/lockout? Some
ratbag on this list reckons you have a socialist utopia there now - did he
get it wrong?

Bill Bartlett
Bracknell Tas.


        "If the voice of the people is heard, you'd better control what
        that voice says, meaning you have to control what people think.
        One of the ways to do that is to create a debate so that it looks
        like there are many opinions, but to make sure that the debate
        stays within very narrow margins." -Chomsky