Hi Lou: Here is a note in response to Phillip Ferguson. Phillip was responding to, "Cullenberg et al" who are apparently some kind of postmodernists. In his response Phillip wrote, "Ironically, these days it is probably the squeeze on surplus-value and the stagnation of the productive sphere that is driving globalisation and communications development." I think that you are off about the "stagnation of the productive sphere". On the world scale the production of "old economy" commodities: steel, metals of all sorts, machinery of all sorts - especially consumer durables; energy - petroleum, natural gas, coal and electricity; and consumer non-durables - clthing, food products etc., has been over fifty years increasing with only minor ups and downs. The only real problems has come recently with fossil fuels - as exploration fails to find sufficient new reserves to continue the pace of the pumps - but still production keeps growing in the short run. (as others have pointed out before on this list.) There has however, been a shift of production from what people used to call "the first world" to what people used to call "the third world" of old economy production. Mexico and South Korea are now major exporters of automobiles to the United States - for example. Brazil is a major exporter of autoparts to Europe. Brazil is also an important exporter of airplanes. Britain has been "deindustrializing" since the Second World War. The United States since the 1970's. Their domestic economies however, can not be understood as "national" entites - but only as part of the already global economy. Where your postmodern opponents talk about the "creative" sector - other would have called that part of the economy the non-productive, and parasitical sector. I don't. But the shift to "service" economies - i.e. administrative, financial, research, military, and cultural centers is clear in all of the economies of the imperialist centers. You also wrote, "In any case, given the massive *potential* for IT, what is interesting is not the development that has taken place, but that such development is still quite slow and impaired. This is true even in the imperialist world. In the Third World, there is no sign of a mass computer culture. After decades of IT development, the vast majority of humanity is still excluded." I have to say, that while the potential of "IT" in terms of all humanity has barely been touched, more than 50% of all households in the USA now have access to PCs, and in many "third world" countries the petty bourgeoisie is computerized. This is certainly true of India and the Phillipines which supply all sorts of systems engineers to silicon valley. It is also true of Colombia, where I live. The only companies that have not did not see their sales fall during the current recession here, are the computer companies whose sales increased. In Bogota computer labs and computer classes are common in private schools except in the poorest neighborhoods - and in all public schools (even if they are outdated and inadaquate.) I think that it is true in Argentina, Chile, and Brazil. Earlier today I looked at a map of the world IT market - and it showed Brazil ranking higher than some European countries as an IT market (the map was dated 1997, however.)" Anthony P.S.: You also wrote, "It has always seemed to me that postmodernist intellectuals' understanding of the world is limited to what they can see in their own university departments and out their windows. Their worldview is often less broad than that of the small shopkeepers of their class. At least the shopkeepers deal in the real world." I think you are being generous to the postmodernists. Louis Proyect Marxism mailing list: http://www.marxmail.org/
