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On 3/12/2020 9:27 AM, RKOB via Marxism wrote:
As Ioannis commented, this is too abstract. If the character of states is "fluid", it is not really a character.
pb: Yes it is; at any given moment, the world capitalist system has had imperial powers. However, those imperial powers change over time; it's a fluid situation. That doesn't mean the system doesn't need to continue to build imperial power - or when it falls into dysfunctionality, to shift to a different hegemonic state coordinating bloc that is different to the prior one. This is the phenomenon of uneven and combined development, not so?
Of course, the character can change under specific conditions but these are rather exceptions and do not take place permanently.
pb: Ah, but you'd agree that we witnessed, over centuries, the permanent relative decline of Italy, the Netherlands and Britain, prior to the U.S.?
Likewise, the character of classes does not change permanently.
pb: Yes, if you mean during the era of the capitalist mode of production - but even so, certain people and even national proletariats find themselves in fluidity, in relation to others, moving up and down the ladder of relative privilege from lumpen to labour aristocracy and sometimes back. That's not controversial.
This is the whole point about scientific characterizations! Otherwise, we arrive to a post-modern approach where everything changes, nothing is clear!
pb: No, the categories I provided - again, just below - seem to have better depth and meaning than pomo diversions, surely?
* playing the role of a 'key nation' in imperialism's expansion (as Ruy Mauro Marini stressed), which in my view would entail substantial assimilation into the G20 (e.g. at capitalism's worst crisis moment, October 2008) and much greater financial subsidisation of (and greater voting power within) multilateral agencies that blatantly support corporate rule at the expense of poor countries, of peoples and of the environment (Bretton Woods Institutions, WTO, UNFCCC, etc);
* suffering a high degree of overaccumulated capital and needing to export it (as David Harvey alerts us to in The New Imperialism);
* regional 'deputy sheriff' duty when, e.g. in Latin America, Eastern Europe, South Asia, East Asia and Africa it is apparent that each of the BRICS' ruling classes has ambitious economic, geopolitical and often military ambitions; and
* within world-capitalist surplus flows, being unable to retain net multinational corporate profits and dividends at the same level the imperialist powers do (which is typically 150%+), and instead operating at a net surplus retention of just 20-80% (my data are unpublished dividend repatriation accounts compiled by the SA Reserve Bank so let me know if you'd like to see these, offlist, as they're in graphic format so can't be posted here).
Well, "siding with workers etc." is fine. But in the real world there are conflicts between states. Sometimes, Marxists side with some, sometimes they do not. Marxists defended the USSR against imperialists. Likewise they defended colonial or semi-colonial countries against imperialists. In 1991 and 2003 we defended Iraq (despite the bourgeois dictatorship of Sadam Hussein) against US imperialism. Today, we would would defend Iran against a similar attack. On the other hand, we don't side with China or Russia against the US.
pb: Obviously there are different views on this, depending upon the circumstances. When Washington bombs a Chinese embassy, we'd join the CCP and mass citizen protests, to express outrage, surely? During the U.S. bombing of Serbia that was a real option.
In short, clear class characterizations are important for political tactics. Saying only that we are "siding with workers" evades a central question of political tactics in the real world.
pb: Yes, each situation needs to be evaluated on its own merits. If China starts wrecking the environment in Ecuador (e.g. drilling the world's most biodiverse hotspot at Yasuni), for example, you can expect organisations like Accion Ecologica to be out protesting just as loudly (in one case doing a sit-in inside the Quito embassy) as if it were Chevron. We've yet to see sufficient international labour solidarity when Foxconn workers are demonstrating in Chinese cities, as another example, but I hope that's not too far off given the excellent labour networks that have been emerging, especially through Hong Kong marxists such as https://borderless-hk.com/
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