> > Perhaps we are talking at cross-purposes here. Doug, Steve, Joan > Robinson, etc. are saying that under capitalism it's better to be > employed than unemployed; Ali, Paul, etc. are saying that capitalism > on the periphery is very much worse than other modes of production & > especially so when compared to formerly existing socialism. > --
To be "unemployed" is to be within capital's orbit (ie it's a distinction that applies to populations constructed statistically by nation-states and super-national bodies.) Robinson is saying that being outside of that orbit is far worse than being in it. That is, even unemployment within the orbit of capital is better than whatever states of work life are available in other modes of production, given the encroachment of capital on those worlds. (As I recall, she is referring to Latin American "development" during the Cold War.) In that sense, I think Robinson would disagree with Ali, Paul etc., and probably argue that capital is a better mode of production even in its peripheral guises, given the misery entailed in being outside capitalist modernization when the forces supporting that modernization are at work. You might argue that Doug misapplied Robinson's idea, but he did so not to give sanction to capital, but to reinforce that the context in which one is "outside" of capital's circuits is one in which capital's existence next-door makes life worse than if there were no encroaching, competing social forces for capitalist modernization. You also might argue, pace Mark's comments, that Afghanistan and its shadow economies are perfectly good examples of Robinson's idea. Christian
