Chris Burford
Sun, 27 Feb 2000 13:12:30 -0800
At 02:35 27/02/00 +1100, Rob wrote:
>G'day Chris,
>
>>"Sovereignty carries with it many rights, but killing and torturing
>>innocent people are not among them."
> Guess Unca Sam is just that extra bit
>sovereign.
Of course. But he is also vulnerable to the criticisms you make, and that
is the strategic advantage of taking this battle on.
>>I suggest this hegemonism must be fought on the merits of the case and not
>>on any abstract principle that national sovereignty is sacrosanct. There is
>>no materialist basis for such an approach.
>
>Er, yeah ... Is this Burford of Kosovo speaking? Christopher nemesis of
>Luxemburgian state theory? What's happened to ya, mate? Whatever it is, I
>like it.
Rob, I can't say 'Touché!' because I cannot work out what point you are
making. Haven't a clue about the allusion to Luxemburg on the state. As for
Kosovo my position is consistent. Like Ken Livingstone and quite a section
of left Labour, the Guardian and the Observer, I thought there had to be
intervention of some sort in Kosovo, like I thought there should be in East
Timor and should have been in Chechnya.
I am not a pacifist.
>From that position it is easier to criticise the imperialist nature of the
intervention that did take place. The war should have been restricted to
Kosovo, the KLA should have been supported on certain conditions, instead
of disarmed as they have now been, and international troops should have
been prepared to get killed. Rather than just bombing infrastructure from
30,000 feet, claiming to avoid deliberate deaths.
>>Clearly we contest the bourgeois, fragmented and individualist version of
>>human rights that is promoted by US imperialism.
>
>Demanding that these fragments be afforded material content is an apposite
>start, I reckon. I still maintain that exposing the formalism of bourgeouis
>rights, and demanding they be given the content their essence requires, is a
>good way to push 'the idea' towards the already pulling material relations
>of our day.
Absolutely. In taking up a democratic demand the difference between the
marxist contribution to a broad movement and that of liberals or
conservatives, would be that the marxists would bring to the fore the
social context. In essence argue for social human rights, and not just
individual human rights.
As the penultimate thesis on Feuerbach puts it:
"The standpoint of the old materialism is 'civil' society; the standpoint
of the new is *human* society, or associated humanity."
> I maintain it's not wise to
>content ourselves with a 'dissolution of the state' descriptor-du-juour.
>What the state's doing is transforming. From the proletariat/petit
>bourgeouis/lumpen-point of view, it looks to be dissolving. To some it
>already looks completely alienated from them. But, from the point of view
>of the haute-bourgeoisie, it's as crucial as ever, although now an ally who
>asks much less for its services than it used to.
>
>I still think Seattle can best be read as a demand for democratic
>involvement in the polity. Which means, and must mean already to a lot of
>the protesters, that the contradiction between high capitalism and
>humanly-authored human existence has shown its face. The broadly-animated
>quest to reassert the enlightenment conception of the state (a la
>Galbraith), or an enlightenment notion of transnational democratic
>accountability and guidance (a la Habermas), should, with a bit of luck, be
>most enlightening for people, as the very idea of 'liberal/democratic
>capitalism' becomes harder and harder to envisage.
Yes again. There are of course anarchist responses to the contradictions of
late capitalism. They added to the movement against finance capital that
came to a head on June 18 in London, and was carried on in Seattle. But
with courage and revolutionary phrases alone they will run out of steam.
They need to be part of a wider movement, some elements of which they would
regard as reformist. And the whole movement needs marxist analysis to see
the objective points of unity and common interests and the areas of
weakness in the defences of global finance capital.
This is one of the best countermoves to the Albright Doctrine of Limited
Sovereignty.
Chris Burford
London
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