On 22 Sep 99, at 8:36, Chris Burford wrote: > It is quite true that the reformatory strategies under consideration are in > themselves inadequate, partial and limited. Like all reforms they have a > dialectical dual aspect - they may help the onward process of change, or > they may restabilise the basic structures... > It is true the "breaking of the chains of debt" campaign is in one sense > reformist. It does not address the process of the uneven accumulation of > capital which perpetually enforces these debts, but patronisingly seeks to > annul them every so often. No, I would say a dramatic debt cancellation with no strings attached -- qualitatively different than the WB/IMF/Clinton HIPC schemes (including the $1 bn announced yesterday) -- could be a profound non-reformist reform, in the spirit of the first 'graf above. But the various times this has periodically happened in world history have been times of revolt from below, with nation-state elites declaring default against weakened, often fragmented creditors. For that to happen in the near future -- incidentally, a demand for an African debtors' cartel came through strongly in the May 1999 "Lusaka Declaration" of leading NGO/church debt activists, and will probably be amplified at the Jubilee Southern Hemisphere meeting in Johannesburg in a couple of months -- requires a dramatic lessening of global financial power, especially the power of the two coordinating institutions, the IMF and WB. > Indeed the petition had some unhappy phrase about putting the past behind > us as if charitable blindness could solve the problems of capitalism. My > petty bourgeois squeamishness about political purity made me hesitate to > sign, and in fact I never did. No Chris, it's J2000 North's dalliance with Jeff Sachs -- including at a meeting with the Pope yesterday -- that should have brought up the bile. The religious angle and some of the associated rhetoric are the least of the problems; again, check Dot Keet on the divergent campaigning principles and strategies (http:\\aidc.org.za). > However, that campaign opened the political space for a more determined > group of campaigners who laid siege to the City of London itself on June > 18. I'm curious about the connection to J2000. Was there one, seriously? > ... Well I missed that debate, and I appreciate you linking this thread up to > it. I can see it is an arguably effective political stance to rally opinion > around an abolition of the IMF and the World Bank and calling for a > people's global network. Good. Shall we leave it there then? Others seem disengaged... (By the way, Chris, the beltway is the ringroad around Washington. Buckled inside, awed by that ghastly city's phallocentric power structures, and aware of ancient but increasingly public traditions of cocksucking, many previously good people part with previously strong principles... present PEN-L company excepted of course.)
