Matthjis alluded to China, Russia, India, and Japan in arguing that
anti-imperialist nations can become imperialist, which in theory is
incontestible. Jim said that made sense to him and added Vietnam and
Cambodia to the mix.
So, to be clear, which if any of these countries would either of both of you
today describe as "imperialist"? What defines them as such in
contradistinction to the others, and when did they cross that threshold?
I'm asking because, as with "fascism", there's a danger in using a term so
loosely that it creates a muddle which robs the concept of any analytical
power that it once had.
Marv G
----- Original Message -----
From: "Jim Devine" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: "Progressive Economics" <[email protected]>
Sent: Wednesday, June 25, 2008 9:19 AM
Subject: Re: [Pen-l] Labor aristocracy
this makes sense to me. Nationalism of any sort has two faces. In the
case of anti-imperialist nationalism, one face is the fight for
national self-determination, while the other involves the fight for
superiority vis-a-vis other nations. Vietnam ran the US off their
territory but immediately fought with Cambodia and China. Likely those
Vietnamese fights were justified, but the other sides (China,
Cambodia) also represented anti-imperialist nationalisms.
Perhaps it's like the fight of petty-bourgeois interests. They
sometimes look "progressive" vis-a-vis the big bourgeoisie but they
usually want to join the latter not abolish it. And they're not in
favor of empowering the working class.
Matthijs Krul wrote:
I don't see how the theory of imperialism necessarily presupposes that
the
imperialists are always the same people though. Not only are there and
would
there be anti-imperialist, particularly anti-colonial movements which
resist
the logic of imperialism, but there will also be struggle between the
various imperialist bourgeoisies over the hegemony over the system, and
the
bourgeoisies of the subjugated nations will at some point quickly tire of
their 'gatekeeper' position and want to stake out a claim of their own.
This
is how I interpret the developments since the 1960s, relying among other
works on Vijay Prashad's book on the Third World movement. The
anti-colonial
independence movements were clearly directly anti-imperialist, both on
the
part of the African and Asian workers involved as on their small local
bourgeoisie; but if the latter manage to defeat the former, as often
happened, there is every reason to expect the more powerful of those (or
the
ones in nations with more potential power) to start out an imperialism of
their own. One can see this perhaps with the Soviet Union (although
that's
contested), but certainly with Chinese activity in Africa today, with the
very traditional sort of territorial fights between Pakistan and India
and
between India and China, one sees this most famously with the modern
history
of Japan, and so forth. That formerly subjugated nations now become
powerful
does not to me indicate that imperialism is at an end, just that the
imperialists are less white, to put it bluntly.
As for your second point, that may well be true, especially once it
becomes
more clear that the color and language of the oppressor matters
practically
very little, and all the more now the Cold War is over. I sure hope that
this will lead to a reinvigoration of class struggle.
Matthijs Krul
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--
Jim Devine / "Segui il tuo corso, e lascia dir le genti." (Go your own
way and let people talk.) -- Karl, paraphrasing Dante.
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