Italy, May 25-June 9, 2008
The most unusual, and unexpected, comment came from a good friend of Sam’s, Fabio, who is a solid leftist economist working on themes embedded in the Marxist tradition, like the labor theory of value and things like that. He basically said the following, “Isn’t all of this pretty trivial? Why are you going in to all this – it seems completely obvious. Who could disagree with this?” This wasn’t said in a snide voice or even a very aggressive voice; it was more spoken with a tired shrug of the shoulders. I was a bit taken aback, naturally. I told him that usually when I present these arguments about social empowerment I am met with pretty strong skepticism, so I was surprised that he found this trivial.
