My discomfort and criticism is not your junior imperialist liberal stance but your non-Marxist standpoint.
I am sorry but I absolutely do not accept that I have a junior imperialist liberal stance.
I quite understand that some people may think that I either have such stance, or that my stance is indistinguishable shall we say from such a position, or they may choose to imply by innuendo that is my position. But I do not accept it is my stance.
After a long description of changes in the relations of production, with which I largely agree, you write:
Comrade Chris, everything you write is devoid of this elementary truth and this is the elementary truth that has to be taught - yes taught, to the world's people and especially the peoples in the imperial centers of the world.
Indeed I have the feeling you are teaching me or us. I do not see the relationship between theory and practice as one mainly to be resolved through teaching.
I agree overwhelmingly with your description of the changes in the economic base, except, and this is important for the war, I do not equate imperialism only with a policy of war and coercion, and that as being separate from the changes in the economic base. I think political power and oppression is inseparably linked with the imperialist economic base. And, this is important, there is more than one political policy for imperialism. There is a political clash going on now as well as a clash between imperialisms in different geographic centres (USA and France)
I think that you and Lou are wrong because if one indexes everything both of you have written, nothing is said concerning insight to this stage of the development of the material power of the productive forces. The ideology at each stage in the expansion and transition in the material power of the productive forces is important.
I note your impartiality between Louis Proyect and myself on this point, but I would be surprised if that makes you right in your claim. Both of us have been foolish enough to have been contributing to internet debates for at least 6 years. I would be very surprised if I have not alluded to the changes in the economic structure that you refer to, and Louis Proyect has written much more than me.
Bottom line, everything you write is devoid of the Marxist standpoint of changes in the mode of production.
Really?!?! I can only note your opinion to which you are entitled.
your phone dialectics,
dialectics are usually difficult, but I do not see the point of asserting my dialectics are phoney, without challenging an example of my using them so I or other people can see how, in your opinion, the dialectical method could be used better.
the abstraction called hegemony. Hegemony is not the problem because someone is always one amongst equals.
I think this is a big political error in the actual situation at the moment, and suggests to me an idealist rationalisation away from the urgent reality. The imperialist power with forces equivalent to the next ten, or some say 27, most powerful countries in the world, has gone to war with the support of a lesser imperialist power, in contemptuous disregard of the need for global consensus to justify such a measure.
It is not just me, it is part of the political currency of world politics that the USA is a hegemonic power or a hyper power.
The "number one amongst equals" has the most responsibility to do right because they are in possession of the administration of the vastest productive forces.
What worries me about your position is that it appears to give a theoretical argument for taking the heat off the current hegemonic bloc.
My discomfort and criticism is .... your non-Marxist standpoint.
We can always apparently authoritatively accuse another correspondent of not being marxist. And sometimes we might be right. But in my experience there is little to be gained by what has to turn into a ritualised squaring off against one another. It is better IMHO to accept that if marxism philosophically is an approach to a truth, through a dialectical and materialist method, - a truth that is always relative and incomplete, it is better to accept that the consciousness of each one of us will be limited, and we have more to gain by debating collectively, sometimes pooling wisdom, sometimes arguing.
You pretend that advanced robotics is not undermining the value system. If I am wrong please show me where you have written anything to this fact.
I see the marxian law of value as related to the exchange of human labour power as a commodity. I believe that law of value is not undermined, but takes account of changes in the other forces of production, whether it is the use of animal or other forms of power, or new technologies.
I do not "pretend". I resent the provocative and unnecessary innuendo.
I hold the views I have stated.
I feel you have been trying to draw me into a long polemic. Other commitments will be unlikely to allow me to give as much attention to a reply. As someone who writes rather long contributions like yourself, I would suggest that long contributions however good, are more likely to get skipped over. That limits the scope of relying on teaching and ideological argument on an email list. We are in an urgent world situation, in which the most relevant contributions may be thought to be ones that combine theory with practice.
Chris Burford London
