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Greenman
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 Posted:
01 Apr 2005 10:02 am Post subject: Who Is Daniel
De Leon?
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Perhaps a bit more history about Daniel De Leon is in
order considering that I came accross those who think of him as being
dogmatic, utopian and lacking scientific socialism.
Social
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davesearles
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Posted:
01 Apr 2005 12:22 pm Post subject:
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Great topic - I don't see a lot of bio info at the
SLP.
This is a poem that some SLP children learned at a
young age years and years ago. Nate Pressman told it to me:
Dare to be a Daniel
Dare to stand alone
Dare to have a purpose
Dare to make it known
Nate would teach this poem to his non-SLP nieces
and nephews much to the consternation of their parents:)
I see a bio of DeLeon listed on the net published
by Harvard University Press in 1979. Has anyone seen this?
Also, I recall seeing, maybe in the People, a
reprint of the story done on DeLeon's funeral in one of the big NYC newspapers,
apparently there was quite a turnout for for this unscrupulous person
(according to Ken) who pirated Engels' pamphlet and deprived Engels of
sales:)
As I have written before, that whole trove of
Petersen works on DeLeon ought to go right into the garbage. If anyone
sees any historical worth in any of it. please let me know. I long ago
gave up looking.
Whatever folks may or may not think about DeLeon -
I look at the SIU (the narrow minded, overly rigid person that I am) and
not so much DeLeon, if at all.
He may or may not have come up with the SIU first -
Ken thinks, I believe, that Mikhail Bakunin first came up with the
rudiments of it - but I'm not that much into the paternity of the thing.
Dave
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Social Greenman
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Posted:
02 Apr 2005 09:45 am Post subject:
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Yes, I nice bio of his life would do just fine. I do
believe the people who call him utopian and lacking scientific socialism
are none other than Marxist-Leninists. However, they themselves won't
admit that their Democratic Centralist way of running things is flawed.
Anyways, I would like to see more about who he was
instead of bits and pieces of his life as protrayed by a political
groups.
Social
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questing
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Posted:
09 Jan 2007 01:28 am Post subject:
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davesearles wrote:
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Great topic -
I don't see a lot of bio info at the SLP.
This is a poem that some SLP children learned at a young age years and
years ago. Nate Pressman told it to me:
Dare to be a Daniel
Dare to stand alone
Dare to have a purpose
Dare to make it known
Nate would teach this poem to his non-SLP nieces and nephews much to
the consternation of their parents:)
I see a bio of DeLeon listed on the net published by Harvard University
Press in 1979. Has anyone seen this?
Also, I recall seeing, maybe in the People, a reprint of the story done
on DeLeon's funeral in one of the big NYC newspapers, apparently there
was quite a turnout for for this unscrupulous person (according to Ken)
who pirated Engels' pamphlet and deprived Engels of sales:)
As I have written before, that whole trove of Petersen works on DeLeon
ought to go right into the garbage. If anyone sees any historical worth
in any of it. please let me know. I long ago gave up looking.
Whatever folks may or may not think about DeLeon - I look at the SIU
(the narrow minded, overly rigid person that I am) and not so much
DeLeon, if at all.
He may or may not have come up with the SIU first - Ken thinks, I
believe, that Mikhail Bakunin first came up with the rudiments of it -
but I'm not that much into the paternity of the thing.
Dave
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That "poem" is actually part of a
Congregationalist hymn called "Dare to be a Daniel." It's
actually "purpose FIRM," but no matter.
Bakunin came up with the SIU first? Bakunin the
anarchist? That would be enough to make any thoughtful person suspicious
of the whole matter.
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questing
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Posted:
04 Apr 2007 11:29 pm Post subject:
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So, is DeLeon a Bakuninist as well? :lol: :lol: :lol:
:lol:
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mikelepore
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Posted:
03 May 2007 10:19 pm Post subject:
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davesearles wrote:
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Dare to be a Daniel
Dare to stand alone
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That church hymn is discussed in this biographical
article: http://www.slp.org/De_Leon.htm
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The Greenman
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Posted:
13 May 2007 06:32 am Post subject:
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I have seen writings that accuse De Leon of just being
a reformer of capitalism through SIU program. The propose use of time
labor vouchers would pave the road back to capitalism.
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mikelepore
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Posted:
13 May 2007 07:22 pm Post subject:
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Might that be from the group who calls themselves the
World Socialist Movement? [ http:/www.worldsocialism.org/ ]
They believe that the motivation to work should
come solely from the knowledge that it needs to be done, and not from the
personal material motivation of getting paid to do it. To them, a labor
vouchers system would be just another kind of capitalist wage system. As
you already know, I think differently. I believe that workers have to
earn their standard of living with their work hours, otherwise, without
that accountability, too many people would easily have some kind of
excuse for never coming back from vacation.
Their criticism of the SIU program may be based on
misinterpreting the name. They see the word "union" in there,
and associate that with some kind of struggle, ergo, they conclude, such
a conception of socialism would have an ongoing struggle, with the
workers versus some kind of bosses. They don't get the point that, long
after all class division has been ended, a union of individuals at the
workplace would continue to be necessary so that the daily decisions can
be made.
Actually, the World Socialists don't even believe
in having the workplace-based level of control. For example, when I tell
them that the staff of a computer factory is best qualified to be the
primary management of that of that computer factory, they actually
disagree on that point. They tell me that the management should be
"society as a whole." Yeah, right, as if a general public
representative is going to know the difference between a field effect
transistor and a bipolar junction transistor.
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The Greenman
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Posted:
14 May 2007 06:35 am Post subject:
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Sorry for the delay in response. This computer is
doing a freeze up when on-line. Off line it works just fine. That would
be those on rev-left that accuses De Leon of being a reformer of
capitalism. I agree that people would stay on vacation if they did not
earn their living. People have been doing that for thousands of years. It
just common sense to have a system that reflects labor in every product
produced. I am writing something off line and will post it later on. I
believe I am done with rev left.
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mikelepore
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Posted:
14 May 2007 06:49 pm Post subject:
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John,
But what I asking is, who else besides the World
Socialist group has been heard to say that De Leon's ideas are a reform
of capitalism?
I've heard Communist Party types criticize De Leon
and his supporters, but they didn't put it that way. Their criticism of
him went somehting like this instead -- they (the Communist Party) are
willing to apply the term "socialism" to any old corrupt
system, as long as the government has taken over the factories, and De
Leon says the name "socialism" isn't deserved unless a number
of conditions are met, and so far no society has ever met those
conditions. So their criticism is is that the De Leonist idea of
socialism is something "up in the clouds" instead of anything
that can "really exist."
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The Greenman
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Posted:
16 May 2007 03:09 am Post subject:
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Not really sure at the moment. Perhaps the WSM is all
over the net. To say De Leon is a reformist of capitalism is simply not
true or to say that his way was already tried and failed without anything
to back those claims up. Vauge phrases as free association of producer,
to each according to their ability to each according to their need, if a
baker baked bread he would also bake one for his neighbor. These
so-called communist have a Anarchist twist to them and I am sure we would
all live like the Anmish and Mennonites with out the religion but with a
gun pointed at ya.
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mikelepore
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Posted:
16 May 2007 04:30 am Post subject:
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A couple years ago we had a lively discussion in the
WSM's yahoo forum. They were saying that people will volunteer to do all
of the types of necessary work, and, for those who want to make it
something fun like playing music, that would be okay too. One guy came
along and told them: you're crazy if you think I'm going to pound nails
into your roof so you can relax inside and play the guitar!
:o)
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davesearles
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Posted:
11 Dec 2007 03:34 pm Post subject:
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Mike would you please add this to our inventory of
DeLeon editorials? The SLP site doesn't have it. I OCR ed it from the SLP
boklet Constitution of the United States. It contains this and another
Deleon editorial that I will OCR later. I would like this up so that I
can link to it in a post that I want to make to the socialst unmoderated
discussion list. Thanks.
Funny, Deleon recognized the amending of the
Constitution as a possible tactic but of course the SLP never ran with
the idea.
Dave
ELIHU ROOT'S CORRECT INSTINCT.
By Daniel De Leon.
(Daily People, March 10, 1911.)
-------------------------------------------------------------
Post edited by M.L. on 12/11/07
Text moved to file
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mikelepore
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mikelepore
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Posted:
11 Dec 2007 08:49 pm Post subject:
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The SLP ran with the idea only insofar as, when the CP
and IWW members were going to prison for advocating the overthrow of the
government, during the Palmer and McCarthy eras, the SLP made it a point
to clarify "we advocate implementing the amendment clause". The
tactic worked -- it made the SLP immune from legal prosecution. But
that's different from actually writing the text of a proposed amendment
and campaigning for it. I wonder why they didn't. They should have.
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davesearles
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Posted:
11 Dec 2007 09:43 pm Post subject:
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Ironic that within the editorial Deleon talked about
intellectual inertia.
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davesearles
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Posted:
11 Dec 2007 10:03 pm Post subject:
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Thank you Mike. SLP's Constitution of the United
States" was first printed in 1937, before the red scare of te 50s
and well after the red scare of 1919.
To read the posts of the socialist unmoderated
group go to:
http://pinko.net/pipermail/socialistsunmoderated/
Dave
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mikelepore
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Posted:
12 Dec 2007 03:05 am Post subject:
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Reading some of your post there. They will be easier
to read if you add "carrriage returns" to make shorter lines.
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davesearles
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Posted:
27 Dec 2007 06:41 pm Post subject:
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Mike:
Is there some word processor or the like that I can
use that will automatically generate the returns after a certain length
of text?
Thanks,
Dave
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mikelepore
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Posted:
27 Dec 2007 11:32 pm Post subject:
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Not that I know of, if the text is already in a file
and now you want to process it. But if you mean the text that you type
into a forum, people ordinarily can just press the enter key.
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davesearles
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Posted:
24 Jun 2008 02:21 am Post subject:
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The
great conspiracy:
I found a biographical dictionary at the transfer
station the other day from 1966 published by Merriam Webster. Morris
Hillquit has an entry but not Daniel DeLeon. No wonder we don't have socialism
:-)
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