En relación a Re: [CrashList] Re: Echoes of slavery as Bush nom,
el 13 Jan 01, a las 15:04, bon moun dijo:
> >
>
> "The Highest Stage of White Supremacy, the
> origins of segregation in South Africa and the American South," by John
> Cell (Cambridge Press) ... makes the case, as a historical materialist,
> that the South adopted a "Prussian" or "Japanese" model of capitalist
> development, which differentiated it from the more "classical" capitalist
> development of the North, and that this model catapulted the South forward
> in relation to the North from a position far behind it
Truly serious ruling classes do always keep a vigilant eye on the past. The
association of the South with the Prussian model, no matter how materialist,
even "Marxist" (particularly so if "Marxist") the analysis may sound, look or
even _be_, fits like glove to hand with the historic (that is, past, present
and _future_) interests of the English bourgeoisie.
Because what is lacking in the Prussian model is the foreign power leading the
march of the South towards full fledged slavery engaged in production of cotton
_for the British mills_, that is, in the end, as an export oriented economy.
The confusion is not an innocent one, as we shall see later.
The reactionary features of the Prussian model, of course, and particularly
some aspects of the relation between Junker and peasant, can sometimes appear
to be formally similar to those of the Antebellum South (mention not made of
the fact that German peasants were _not_ property of the Junker).
The objective situation and the consequent culture of the ruling classes,
however, are absolutely different. The Southern gentleman (particularly the
lady) was an admirer of French culture in the classical division of labor of
mid 19th. Century Europe (while the British made business, they kept themselves
in hiding, smartly allowing the French to gather the glory of European spirit,
and the hatred of the oppressed masses when they realized the facts of European
domination, such as was the case in the River Plate Basin!).
This was a direct consequence of the obvious fact that this class depended on
British manufacture to realize their capital. The Junker, much to the
contrary, depending primarily on the consumption of German towns, developed a
strong German chauvinism on which, at a particular historic circumstance,
modern Germany was built. The South would have never been able to generate a
Bismarck, nor the local dinasty that put Shogunate to an end in Japan. Much to
the contrary, its nearest neighbours are the rotten, semi-feudal, old regimes
of Austria or the pre-Meiji Japan.
Marx's ideas on the American Civil War and the German Unification are very
important here. When this point is missed, then one easily falls into the (of
course, never outspoken, but always lurking) association of "non-Anglo
capitalism" and "authoritarian state". This is precisely why this thesis,
which puts into a dark shade the essential role played by the British
metropolis in destroying not only any trace of humanity but also large tracts
of natural landscape in Antebellum South, is so favored with British academics.
Let us transport the equation to our own times. What the author states, if
valid at all, means that there is ONLY ONE "SANE" WAY INTO MODERNITY, which is
the way that was followed by Britain. Other ways, which may of course bring a
country to modernity, will do so but at the terrible price of some horrendous
dictatorship (Hitler, Mussolini, the Japanese "Fascists", even De Gaulle if you
press me too much!) and of course World War.
In fact, the actual simile for the Southern planters is not to be found in
Europe, not even in Eastern Europe, but further South, in the West Indies and
in tropical Latin America. But of course, this way to look at the thing implies
to lay the fault of the tragedy at the adequate door, that of the then only
hegemonic, now imperialist, bourgeoisies at the core.
That is, it implies to return (once back again!) to Vladimir Illitch Lenin. Too
much for Cambridge, I presume.
Néstor Miguel Gorojovsky
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
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