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The Obsolescence of Political Definitions (1991)
14 Aug. 2025 I am not qualified to translate German, much less technical philosophical texts.
So long as definitions are living and afforded gravity in the social sphere, they can be positive or negative, narrowly or widely interpreted, varied according to particular strategic or tactical necessities, ultimately, however they refer explicitly or implicitly to an identifiable bearer. On the other hand, the communist use of “conservatism” or “reaction” to describe the system of “state-monopoly capitalism,” that, in their view, was not capable of material progress and instead condemned to perpetual crisis and sacrificed the development of society and the individual to blind striving for profits for the ruling cadre. These events occurred with a large-scale democratization in all areas and with the emergence of new elites in both industry and politics who largely displaced or took over; their own composition, by the way, changes much more quickly than earlier ruling groups as a result of generally increased social mobility.
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