At 02:03 PM 05/16/2000 -0700, you wrote:
>>Very nice article, Max. Brad tended to write about the Africa bill as if it
>>were choice between helping Africa or helping the United States. In fact, as
>>the article from the Progressive showed, the effect of the bill would be to
>>transform both Africa and United States to be more to the liking of capital.
>
>Keeping quotas on imports of African textiles will keep Africa poorer than
>it would otherwise be, yes. ...
I don't think it helps intellectual or political clarity to simply ignore
what other people say; it's a symptom of adhering to some sort of
non-falsifiable True Belief.
This comment does so, since it ignores points that were made before, i.e.,
that the actual "free trade" bill for Africa does not simply reduce quotas
on African textiles. (It's important to remember that just as "Democratic
Kampuchea" wasn't democratic, not everything labelled "free trade" actually
involves nothing but free trade. Hype rules!) Rather, it imposes an
IMF-style remodeling of African economies, with the usual destructive
effects, including making the vast majority of the people in the countries
poorer (though of course, the promise is that it will pay off "in the long
run," in which we're all dead, as Brad reminds us).
This comment also ignores the comment that this "free trade" bill isn't the
_only_ bill on the plate. There's also the bill sponsored by JJJr (Jesse
Jackson Jr.) which has a much greater emphasis on debt relief and AIDS relief.
Instead of scolding people for not endorsing _his_ pet bill, Brad might be
scolded for not endorsing the JJJr bill, because that's the one most likely
to help the poor people in Africa.
>But you have forgotten the object of the exercise. The object is not to
>keep Africans barefoot and under the thumb of corrupt despots and to cheer
>"hooray! It's not to the liking of capital!"
With this attribution of motives to his opponents, Brad zips into orbit,
talking to himself (and perhaps his students) more than to anyone else. And
in the mode that he established so well with this missive, he also assumes
-- contrary to the arguments that have appeared on pen-l (some by yours
truly) that he seems to willfully ignore -- that free trade automatically
helps the poor in Africa. He also ignores the arguments that (1) capital
_likes_ corrupt despots, such as the current rulers of China, who are
willing to "play ball" for a few side-payments; and (2) capital itself is a
despotism, as seen in microcosm in the form of the huge corporate
bureaucracies the increasingly rule our lives, including the lives of those
of us in the ivory halls of academe.
Jim Devine [EMAIL PROTECTED] & http://liberalarts.lmu.edu/~JDevine
