Jim Devine wrote: > > Carrol Cox wrote: > > In other words, the enemy is now the Empire of Capital, not the U.S. > > Empire or the British Empire, etc. > > isn't the U.S. simply the current hegemonic power within the larger > Empire of Capital?
This is true. But it is also, as it were, the designated Cop. Wood's argument (crudely condensed) is that (a) capitalism needs a state (b) a world state (or direct colonial rule) simply isn't possible (c) hence each nation has the "responsibility" to maintain a state policy friendly to capitalism but (d) nations are apt in one way or another not to fulfill this responsibility, or even to set themselves against it, so (e) such a nation needs to be punished, bringing it back inside the global capitalist order, thus constituting a warning to other states tempted tos stray, and (f) the United States is in effect the designated cop for such purposes. The result she labels "endless war." I think her analysis makes better sense of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars as well as recent events in Haiti and Honduras than do traditional accounts of empire, however adequate such accounts were in their own periods. There was a symposium on her book several yars ago in Historical Materialism, with critiques by a number of authors, including David Harvey, and Wood's response to the crtiics. I think it important. Carrol _______________________________________________ pen-l mailing list [email protected] https://lists.csuchico.edu/mailman/listinfo/pen-l
