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James K. Baxter Complete Prose Volume 3

Letter to a Young Marxist

Letter to a Young Marxist

1. You said a while ago, ‘Baxter is the best defence of the bourgeoisie.’ The remark was penetrating. I would like to dig around the problem it implies, as a man digs under a gorse root.
2. The schools and the universities offer no roads to a workable society, because the instructors and students work with the mature content of the existing society. White sheep on green hills. A conflicted culture, or one where conflicts can be resolved by a blind opponent. I think that is why only a militant approach can do any good. But I doubt if any of the Marxists have a pragmatism subtle enough to overthrow and mend the structures of affluent capitalism. page 416
3.

In Calcutta people die of hunger in the streets. In Wellington the [destitute?] go to jail or to the mental hospitals. I could imagine a successful Communist revolution in Calcutta, but not in Wellington. . . . Indian capitalism fails to provide sustenance for the . . . people [incomplete].

1972 (675)