Walden Bello on the coming capitalist consensus
From: Patrick Bond Charles Brown wrote: ...the relevant section of Marx on capitalism's positive contribution is here: As soon as this process of transformation has sufficiently decomposed the old society from top to bottom, as soon as the laborers are turned into proletarians, their means of labor into capital, as soon as the capitalist mode of production stands on its own feet, then the further socialization of labor and further transformation of the land and other means of production into socially exploited and, therefore, common means of production, as well as the further expropriation of private proprietors, takes a new form. 'as soon as ... as soon as ... as soon as ... ' as if this is a linear process. ^^^ CB: Marx is setting out what he considers the objective processes or "immanent laws of developement " of capital. He almost definitely doesn't think it is a "iinear" process , in a straight line, but a "zig-zag", complicated, contradictory process, eh comrade ? Combined and uneven. dialectical , even. ^^^^ You have chosen to pull from Marx a moment within capitalism, in a pure form, ^^^^ CB: How do you mean "pure" form ? ^^^ and you fail to acknowledge that the maintenance of neocolonial systems - like migrant labour in this part of the world - and the articulation of modes of production mean that 'as soon as' is waiting for Godot. ^^^ CB: I don't know , for a moment I was thinking you were interpreting "as soon as" as meaning the same thing as "soon". You aren't doing that are you ? You haven't demonstrated how capitalism as imperialism today delays the process Marx described more than it delayed it in Marx's day. And Marx is the one who wrote what you quoted on slavery and colonialism in his day ( in the origin of the industiral capitalist section of the "So-called Primitive Accumulation.) relating it to your so-called pure capitalism thereby rendering the latter "not-pure." in his theory. If you are trying to say that Marx's conception of the historical tendency of capitalism , or Lenin's development of Marx's theory in _Imperialism_, or my application of their theory to today fails to take into account the existence of colonialism and the many other forms of existent specially oppressed and exploited labor that deviate from the "wage-labor/capital" structure elaborated by Marx, you better ask somebody, comrade. That's the meaning of the crude , faux mathematical "formula": Capitalism = wage-labor x specially oppressed and exploited labor ^^^^ . ^^^^^ If capitalism develops in an uneven/combined way, then expecting the capitalist system to generate the forces and relations of production for socialism in places like Southern Africa is myopic. ^^^ CB: But the unevenness is not equally uneven everywhere. For example, now that I think about it, South Africa is one of the several places in the world to which the US auto companies exported capital and built auto plants. We organized pressure against GM and Ford in the anti-apartheid boycott. What's up on that , mate ? ^^^^ Instead, the multiple oppressions capitalism-in-the-periphery visits upon a wide range of social actors have to be taken on board. ^^^ CB: Would seem like we want to throw them off board. ^^^^ We've had a very dubious run of 'neoMarxist' political economy in South Africa since the 1960s or so, because the multiplicity of surplus extraction methods (beyond the point of production, in primitive accumulation at the expense of black households, women, the environment, etc) was never taken sufficiently seriously. ^^^ CB: I'm guessing that here you mean there are some "neo-Marxists" who don't account for the special oppression and exploitation of labor in South Africa, as racist oppression. I don't know that the oppression of women is different there from most of the rest of the world. As to the environment, that's mostly not a special oppression, but a new objective condition ( global warming and oil depletion). As to pollution and dumping, there is some special oppression, but I'm not sure with all the polluting they've been doing in the imperials centers for many decades. Lets put it this way. You may have a long way to catch up to all the pollution in Detroit, for example, from the concentration of factories here for most of the twentieth factory. ^^^^ CB: Concretely, this aspect is not to the fore right now if the reference to "violence" is to use of violence by the special repressive apparatus, the state ( In Luxembourg and Lenin's day WWI was the expression of the imperialist crisis that was to the foreground) The crisis and "convulsion" right now in almost 2009 is in the "peaceful" realm of Wall Street, in the very House of the Financial Oligarchy. That is where imperialism's contradictions are erupting most drastically at the moment The capitalist crisis is in finance capital not militarism. ^^^^^ But there's a crucial link, which Naomi Klein's Shock Doctrine does quite a bit to reveal. Simply, capital in crisis turns to extraeconomic coercive processes. ^^^^ CB: Yes. "extra economic coercive processes" is a euphemism for "violence". See Lenin on that, too. Imperialism leads to war. That's been a fundamental of Leninist theory since at least 1916. But at this moment the crisis is not erupting as war, but as financial "meltdown". What are the workers of the world to do , right now in response to that ? The world's ruling class would seem to be in some level of crisis. Isn't that an opportunity for the workers of the world ? How about a march on Wall Street to see what they are doing with the $8 trillion of "taxpayers'" money that they got as a gift ? ^^^^^^^ ^^^ CB: All very true. Bravo Red Rosa. But right now the pertinent classics are those that examine the elementary structures and crises in the _financial sector_, not the military, or even the colonies and neo-colonies. There is no crisis of colonial debt repayment _right now_. ^^^^ Of course there is, looked at from this side of the equator. The Third World is still getting screwed by paying interest on interest. ^^^ CB: There is still unfair debt, but the explosion or crisis of it is now ten or twenty years ago, when Fidel Castro urged debtor nations not to pay it. We've been through the Argentinian non-payment since then. That debt as crisis for neo-colonial nations was central to so-called neo-liberalism, forced privatization, structural readjustment by debtors. But that seems to have reached its limit. It is going to be a lot harder to force all that on countries given that the US just treated itself in the exact opposite way, didn't force its own big banks corps and big industrial corps to suffer free market discipline. We'll see, but I predict "it'll be a hot time. " There is a crisis and _bankrutpcy_ among Biggest Banks, the Monopoly Creditors, the Financial Oligarchy. The Emperors themselves are naked. The "free" market is exposed as a monopoly system, dependent on "government" largesse, really large. The economic objective state's ends are not meeting. These objective tendencies of capitalism toward socialism, these "immanent laws of capitalism itself" are leaping to the fore. Ironically. it is US bourgeois politicians and media commentators who have suddenly in the last few months seen the return of the "Spectre of Socialism" in the explosions in the financial sector. And the US government _objectively_, through the operation of an immanent law of capitalism itself, by nationalizing some of the biggest banks _is_ laying the groundwork for socialism. I think this is really dangerous ^^^ CB:Nonsense. This is point is fundamental to Marx and Lenin, as in the passages I quoted. You might as well say Marx's thinking is "dangerous to the working class". ^^^^ wishful thinking (similar to Hilferding's mistake in Finance Capital: "You take over the six Berlin banks and you'll control all of German industry"). ^^^ CB: No it is "similar" to Lenin's (and Marx's) thinking. In fact, it _is_ Lenin's thinking. Lenin is not known for wishful thinking, though that doesn't mean he didn't think so. Basically, this just means you have a different conception of socialism than Marx and Lenin - which is fine. We are liberals in terms of opinions here. ^^^^^ Here's a recent argument against this kind of hubris, comrade Charles: www.counterpunch.org/bond12262008.html ^^^ CB: It's not hubris , my arrogant comrade. This message has been scanned for malware by SurfControl plc. www.surfcontrol.com _______________________________________________ pen-l mailing list [email protected] https://lists.csuchico.edu/mailman/listinfo/pen-l
