Re: [MLL] Lenin's Imperialism; Henry C.K., name calling and a self criticism
It's not fascism when the Bush Republicans inflict it, so that must be why it's not the rankest revisionist opportunism of the most classic kind when Waistline practically repeats all the classic opportunist reformulations of critical Leninist principles amidst some formally correct textual quotations... The moment a non-Marxist non-Leninist source is cited in a nominally M-L List as authoritative is yet another moment classical moment in revisionist opportunism. M-L grows by digging out and thrashing what is non- or anti-Leninist in the works of those who have acquired currency. The TML Daily, daily central organ of the CPC(M-L), regularly reproduces all these bourgeois authorities --- alongside trenchant critique of a number of their asserted assumptions. That's the best way to deal with bourgeois authorities who enjoy some cachet. Every February the Cuban Economists Association sponsors an international conference on globalisation. They invite the Stiglitzes and all the other liberal and neoliberal authorities including some near-Marxist ones - these guys speak in the morning, each morning of the four-day plenary session.. In the afternoon, the 1500-plus delegates from around the word tear the stuff limb-from-limb til there's almost nothing left. In the years before Fidel was sidelined from public participation by illness, he would show up on the evening of the last day's plenary session and deliver a barnburner x-hours-long speech reaffirming the fundamental Marxist-Leninist positions on the ruins of the now-demolished neoliberal compromise positions of the previous several days. But no one would ever think of just putting this non-ML stuff out there according to Waistline's logic that there's something progressive there or there's allegedly nothing comparable in quality from M-L sources. It's not name-calling. Waistline. It's political method. The issue is not that you don't have M -L views, nor is there some issue of which points is your view not M-L. The issue is your approach. There's no M-L method in it anywhere. Wishing for communism does not make it so, nor does it make the individual covering themselves in such wishes a communist or Marxist or Marxist-Leninist. Waistline is not atypical of a large swath of Left political opinion in the U.S., especially from a generation and level and years of movement experience and participation. This experience and participation has turned such individuals into a kind of cordon sanitaire against the spread / revival / renewal of the people's movement on the basis of modern communism. The experience of fighting for modern communism includes the last decade and a half of resisting in practical ways and situations the negative consequences of the collapse of the old Soviet-led camp. I neither see, hear nor otherwise sense such a treasury of experience, or even a hint of its existence, coming from Waistline. Instead, there's some recycling of hints of Left-ish consciousness popping up here or there in Henry Liu or this writer or that writer. So where are the shoots of modern communism to be found in North America? Try the commentaries of K.C. Adams in TML Daily. These are the summation of weekly discussions every Thursday among hundreds of industrial steelworkers at Canada's main industrial steel plant, Stelco Hilton Works, in Hamilton, Ontario (about 200 miles east northeast of Detroit/Windsor or 30 miles west southwest of Toronto). Regards It is characteristic of capitalism in general that the ownership of capital is separated from the application of capital to production, that money capital is separated from industrial or productive capital, and that the rentier who lives entirely on income obtained from money capital, is separated from the entrepreneur and from all who are directly concerned in the management of capital. Imperialism, or the domination of finance capital, is that highest stage of capitalism in which this separation reaches vast proportions. The supremacy of finance capital over all other forms of capital means the predominance of the rentier and of the financial oligarchy; it means that a small number of financially powerful states stand out among all the rest. The extent to which this process is going on may be judged from the statistics on emissions, i.e., the issue of all kinds of securities. (Lenin's Imperialism Chapter III. FINANCE CAPITAL AND THE FINANCIAL OLIGARCHY). 1). Imperialism, or the domination of finance capital, 2). is that highest stage of capitalism in which this separation reaches vast proportions. 3). The supremacy of finance capital over all other forms of capital means the predominance of the rentier and of the financial oligarchy; it means that a small number of financially powerful states stand out among all the rest. Lenin could not be clearer. * II) Name Calling: A cover for a lack of substance This round of discussion
Re: [MLL] Lenin's Imperialism; Henry C.K., name calling and a self criticism
In a message dated 7/5/2008 9:03:41 A.M. Pacific Daylight Time, [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: The moment a non-Marxist non-Leninist source is cited in a nominally M-L List as authoritative is yet another moment classical moment in revisionist opportunism. M-L grows by digging out and thrashing what is non- or anti-Leninist in the works of those who have acquired currency. Comment All of Marx sources where . . . well non-Marxist. In the context of this thread Lenin's sources in Imperialism - the economic data, are non-Marxist. The fact of the matter is that Marxists and people on this list do not have the ability to gather the data and facts themselves and by default must learn to sift through data provided by the bourgeois intelligentsia. It is in fact the decay within the bourgeois intelligentsia that provides fresh elements of enlightenment to the proletariat. Many of us are more than capable of shifting through this material. This thread is about the modern form of financial imperialism, the new financial architecture and its impact on the world. It this important? Yes. Why? Because every communist worth their salt understand that we can only really fight in the political arena and new forms of financial imperialism have their corresponding form of engagement called politics. The era of domination of the speculator - not simply banking capital over/fused industrial capital, must by definition produce a some what different form of social and class conflict. That is why we study these things. Put it this way, we are not going to re-fight the period of the rise of the industrial union form. Or the Civil Rights Movement or the long eras of the national and then national colonial revolutions. It is not well thought out to condemn non-Marxist sources without evaluating the value of the material presented. What is truly scary is the inability of some comrades to evaluate the environment of the class struggle in real time and instead rest upon ideological proclamation. The demand is for clarity. Here is an example. Why is current US policy a push for a unipolar world? The ideologue rest content with answering because the Soviet Union no longer exists. No, something else is taking place - and must be taking place, that expresses a new relationship within finance capital. In this respect I must offer a serious criticism of characterizing the essence of the financial era of Imperialism as monopoly capital without understanding financialization and how the financial industrial capitalist came to dominate capital on the basis of the consolidation of banking capital and centralization. That is why it was necessary to reprint Lenin so comrades could evaluate the material for themselves rather than rest content upon what some individual says. It is sinning against reality to pretend that there is nothing to be gained from studying non-Marxists. In fact it is childishness of the worse kind. WL ** It's not name-calling. Waistline. It's political method. The issue is not that you don't have M -L views, nor is there some issue of which points is your view not M-L. The issue is your approach. There's no M-L method in it anywhere. Wishing for communism does not make it so, nor does it make the individual covering themselves in such wishes a communist or Marxist or Marxist-Leninist. Waistline is not atypical of a large swath of Left political opinion in the U.S., especially from a generation and level and years of movement experience and participation. This experience and participation has turned such individuals into a kind of cordon sanitaire against the spread / revival / renewal of the people's movement on the basis of modern communism. The experience of fighting for modern communism includes the last decade and a half of resisting in practical ways and situations the negative consequences of the collapse of the old Soviet-led camp. I neither see, hear nor otherwise sense such a treasury of experience, or even a hint of its existence, coming from Waistline. Instead, there's some recycling of hints of Left-ish consciousness popping up here or there in Henry Liu or this writer or that writer. Comment Name calling is not a political method. Name calling is an ideological weapon. Generally, the name calling on this list is simply a cover for a lack of substance. I feel no need to continually label your particular theories on monopoly capitalism as thick ideology, imported directly from the CPUSA. For instance writing about the mean trend in the world being revolution is just ideological posturing with no substance. If the main trend in the world we are living is revolution then produce the facts. Has not the main trend for the past 100 years been revolution? Of course it has and this revolution was from agricultural relations to industrial relations with
