Tahir,
>This unfortunately is turning out
>to be as true of Cuba as it is of China. It has been claimed
>that this is the only viable model of development that
>emerged in the twentieth century. It is not
>...
>a rate of environmental
>degradation which is possibly even worse than that of
>western capitalism; a repulsive emphasis on national
>interests masquerading as anti-imperialism.
I don't know much about Cuba, but this looks unfair. Remember that forwarded
piece about organic farming in Cuba?
>Capitalism on a world scale develops by feeding off the
>non-capitalist world until there is nothing of that left.
>This is the way that the fall of the rate of profit is
>delayed or retarded - I have no doubt.
May I ask you how do you measure the rate of profit for starters? I don't want to
put doubt where there is none for you, but I'm not sure to understand what
you're talking about.
>Actually an excellent example is Iran. ...
Good point, although I'm far from sure that the Iranian situation is worse than
the one of other muslim countries. And is it really worse than under the Shah?
Anyway, I know so few about that...
> 1. Only where the direct, head-on struggle against
>capitalism is possible can the end to class society (and by
>implication imperialism) be brought a little nearer in time.
Only? Well, we discussed that enough already, I guess.
>2. It IS necessary to point out that this is not possible in
>all places and times. In some contexts the working class and
>the revolutionary people need instead to fight for bourgeois
>democratic freedoms, better working conditions and the
>strengthening of civil organisations that are beneficial to
>the people. This situation is typical of countries that are
>backward in those particular respects. The point of this is
>not reform but strengthening of the conditions that are
>necessary for socialism.
Tahir, when I said that you don't need to abandon marxism to support
something else, you laughed. But here you are arguing just that! In case you
still don't see the connection, do do what you say, who will you support? Not
insurrectional groups, I guess.
And, would you also say that subversion of capitalism is also to be supported
in such situations which are in fact by far the most frequent? What I mean?
Cooperatives, fun cultural subversion, etc.
>As Bordiga says:
>Capitalism is the agrarian revolution.
So I'm not the only one talking about the importance of land ownership
structures. Interesting.
>It doesn't require bourgeois democracy at all. It can be done
>by authoritarian rightists just as well as by authoritarian 'leftists'.
Or anarchists, but I don't want to restart the spanish thread.
>It says that national liberation through
>the struggle against imperialism is a precondition for
>socialism. It never suggests, however, that the dismantling
>of nation states is itself a precondition for socialism. And
>this is where its fundamentally bourgeois nature is exposed.
>In other words socialism can be achieved within the context
>of the state (forgetting entirely that the state is the
>instrument of class domination in marxist theory).
Good stuff here.
>But what then happens is a
>theoretical conflation of the dictatorship of the
>proletariat with socialism itself. So you then have the
>bastard theoretical notion of the "socialist state".
And what about the theoretical conflation of dictatorship of the proletariat with
dictatorship over the proletariat which lead to a police state?
>... The "highest stage"
>notion is an attempted freeze frame: Let's stop the dance so
>that we can watch it more clearly!
Could you explain that more clearly?
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