>>> "Carrol Cox" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> 08/22 5:12 PM >>>
The Chinese vocabulary is useful.
Imperialism is the primary contradiction in the world today.
And within that
contradiction, at this time, the core imperialist power (the
U.S. / EU /
Japan) is the dominant pole.
I think it is wrong to be fixated with this trite
formulation. The fact that it somehow guided a number of
'successful' revolutions, most notably that of China, does
not mean that it is anything more, epistemologically
speaking, than a useful heuristic at certain opportune
moments. It is just as easy to show that this particular
hook invites the worst forms of opportunism to be hung
thereupon, some of which have been extremely damaging to the
socialist cause - starting with Chinese foreign policy which
pronounced some of the worst third world dictatorships to be
'anti-imperialist' and therefore deserving of support, then
leading to Mao's abortion of a 'three worlds' theory, which
led in turn to Deng's turn towards an alliance eventually
with the US because of the greater threat of 'Soviet
imperialism'. If anti-imperialism is the "only freedom that
counts", as Nestor incredibly said, then this means that
even the most repressive regime that opposes imperialism
deserves some support from 'progressives'. But this strategy
has no way to get from anti-imperialism to anti-capitalism -
we are asked to take it on faith that the one is a
precondition for the other. However not only is there no
evidence that this strategy can work, but we are misled from
the start by a pseudo-epistemological category, that of the
'principal contradiction'. But the only freedom that counts
is humanity against capitalism. No-one should push the
responsibility for revolution onto the backs of third world
peoples - the way to help them is to unite with them to
destroy capitalism, in the US, in Japan, etc. The fact that
movements are springing up everywhere with just those aims
is a refreshing antidote to this threadbare form of marxism.
Tahir
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