I'll be brief for the sake of my sanity, your sanity, and the sanity of anyone who happens to stumble upon this.
The US Civil War wasn't about slavery, it was about states rights. Southern states felt they had rights the federal government was denying them.
Sure, the issue of federalism was important, but the idea that it was the main issue is an after-the-fact rationalization. It's not a coincidence that it was the slave-states against the non-slave states. If it had really been about "states' rights" and the nature of federalism, then the lineup would have been a bit more complicated than that.
On Jefferson Yes, I have no problem with Jefferson being a smart, progressive and good-hearted man. My point was simply this: slavery was not marginal to the period that you hold up as being a period of "true" capitalism. In fact, it was so important that even the person that you embrace as the main proponent of the kind of liberty that you are talking about nonetheless had slaves. Sure, we can qualify his individual slave-ownership in numerous ways. But at the end of the day, we are talking about a social system in which one of the primary forms of labor recruitment -- and one that was central to the social order as a whole -- was emphatically not one in which people were free to engage in "voluntary exchange." The example of Jefferson is just one more indication that the idealized vision that you have of the past is actually riddled with nasty things, and that these nasty things are hardly incidental to the period as a whole.
On Mother Teresa Charity might be noble, but charity does not solve the basic problem of the monopoly of resources by some to the detriment of the majority of humanity. Perhaps state action can't solve it either, but, when it represents the coordinated efforts of society, it sure seems like it would have a far better chance. That's why we have Social Security and don't just send all of our retirees to the Salvation Army.
On nuclear waste You wrote: I think you misunderstand me, or are engaging in purposely distortion. As I said earlier I don't believe in having no government, I'm not anarchist, what I want is as little as possible, and here in the USA one that follows the limits put on it by the USA Constitution.
I am going on what you stated in the first thread that I responded to, which was "where there is governmental intervention there is no capitalism." That is an absolute statement, one that does not take the form, purpose or intent of regulation into account, and I assumed that you meant it. It is now clear that you don't mean it and that you do, in fact, embrace some forms of "governmental intervention" as being consistent with the kind of libertarian, free-market capitalism that you embrace. That is a different position, and I will assume that you have either changed your views or did not express yourself clearly earlier.
On Marx and/or Marxism I have only argued for the coherence and power of Marx's analysis of capitalism. Nothing more, nothing less. I have only written about my own views of the past and of the present, not of the future. And yes, there are plenty of Marxists, like me, who are agnostic or even downright pessimistic on the prospects of socialism and/or communism. In fact, I would probably say that we constitute a majority of Marxists nowadays!
On State Terrorism and Capitalism
And we do have a few cases of attempts to undo all of this nonsense in order to create a free-market wet dream right in the Americas: Chile under Pinochet; Guatemala after 1954; Argentina, 1976 - 1979. What do these governments have in common other than their economic project? You guessed it: lack of democracy; state terrorism.
They all had another commonality, none of them were capitalist, not in a true freemarket sense. In each case the military tried to take control over everything, even trying to control the e
On Slavery You really underestimate the importance of the labor of the enslaved to the overall economy. In virtually any sector of the colonial/US economy in which you had large-scale production, slavery was the dominant form of labor recruitment. Sure, there were plenty of small farms, shops, etc., but its not until the northern states begin to really industrialize that you have wage labor (or what passed for wage labor at that time) in any are of the economy beyond the small shop, farm, port, etc. In fact, the centrality of slavery to the US economy precisely in the period that you hold as ideal (late 1700s to early 1800s) is obvious in the very fact of the Civil War. After all, if it wasn't important, half of the states wouldn't have tried to get out of the US in order to preserve it; and if it wasn't important, the other half of the states wouldn't have stopped them.
Ironically, the fact that slavery begins to break down as a form of labor recruitment just happens to coincide with the end of your ideal period. Coincidence? Not at all...
Along those same lines, it is more than ironic that you elevate Thomas Jefferson as the paragon of the kind of free-market libertarian capitalist virtue that you seem to be extolling. Just out of curiosity, were the people that Jefferson held in slavery engaged in a "free and voluntary exchange" of their labor with him? Because surely Jefferson would understand the importance of such a thing, because if he didn't, then that would mean that this whole "free and voluntary exchange" was dependent on -- like Jefferson -- on coercion in order to get off the ground...
That the development of capitalism undermined different forms of overtly coerced labor is actually something that Marx explained quite nicely, before historians even had a chance to think about it. Chew on the irony.
The fact that you bracket the period "late 1700s to the early 1800s [and] in some places until the US Civil War" is revealing, if you only pay attention. Put another way, you could say simply "capitalism didn't survive the process of its own development." This would be incredibly premature, but this is your argument, not mine.
On Theft Of course theft is not "free and voluntary exchange," and I never claimed that it was. You miss the point entirely. What I was saying was that private property is dependent in its orgin on state coercive action, and that the maintainance of private property is also dependent on the capacity of the state to coerce as well [legally, morally, physically]. So, to spell things out for you: once your car has been stolen, or your home occupied, how are you going to engage in "free and voluntary exchange" with these things? You aren't, unless you get the state to return it, or to stop it from being taken from you in the first place. Lesson: where there is private property, there is theft; the greater the inequality of distribution of property, the greater the likelihood of theft.
No state protection of private property, no private property; no private property, no "free and voluntary exchange" of property. And since the police need to be funded, laws need to be passed, regulations need to be imposed, etc., etc., there will be "governmental interference" in the affairs of property holders (sales tax, property tax, etc.) and, by your own definition, where there is "governmental interference" "there is not capitalism." IE, there is no such thing as capitalism. Never has been, never will be.
On Charity Well, your example of Mother Teresa in NYC is quite easy to read another way: that regulation in capitalist societies is a balancing act designed to protect people from the most egregious conditions created by capitalism not in order to undo capitalism, but in order to preserve it. Oh, and this is not some crazy Marxist position; this is what was the official Catholic position at least until recently (and may still be). Plus, just imagine: if everything really were based on absolute free-market capitalism,
I'm under no illusion capitalism exists in the US, or anywhere else. What we have is the corporate aristocracy Thomas Jefferson warned of. The US hasn't had a freemarket capitalism since Alexis de Tocqueville traveled the US in the 1830s inspiring him to write the book "Democracy in America."
Ah. I see the problem here. I was writing about the world as it actually exists, and you were writing about an abstract definition of capitalism that has not and will not ever exist.
Case in point: given that much of the labor force in the US was held in slavery in the 1830s, wouldn't it be fair to say that they were not, in fact, engaged in the free "voluntary exchange" of their labor? And wouldn't it be that it was laws, police and other forms of state power that ensured that this group of people remained held in bondage? Given that in some states of the US in the 1830s, the enslaved were actually a majority of the population, wouldn't that make your claim that the US hasn't had capitalism since the 1830s more than a bit sketchy (since it implies that the US had capitalism prior to that)? And even if you, through some kind of tortured logic, think that people who were in enslaved really were part of a "free market" because their labor (and lives) were bought and sold, does it really seem like the pre-1830s US was a very pleasant place for most people?
These examples of your's of government laws and regulations show just why the US is not capitalist.
Then there is no such thing as capitalism, never has been, and never will be. You seem to be under the illusion that somehow capitalism existed, but then along came the evil corporations, unions and state to mucky up the situation, and that the "one drop" rule applies: any state action, and it isn't capitalism. Nonsense. Markets are the product of state action; "free" labor is the product of state action; private property is a product of state action. And guess what? It all depends on state action. The enclosures in England; the colonization of the US; the recruitment of labor in your Utopian pre-1830s US; the dismantling of ejidos in Mexico; the so-called "War of the Desert" in Argentina; etc., were all dependent on state action. Studying history is worthwhile; I recommend it.
In fact, just a little common sense and open eyes will show you that even the private property that does exist now (and which is inevitably historically linked to state action) would cease to exist pretty quickly it you take away state power. This is why you don't leave your keys in the car, and why, if your car is taken from you, you file a report with a branch of the state. This is why people who have no home don't just come and take yours while you are away on vacation -- because the state will come in with laws (and guns if necessary) to protect your property. Market exchange is regulated by laws enforced by coercion (and always has been), resources are seized and/or protected by state power... At the end of the day, if we take away the state as you suggest, perhaps we have much to gain; but it won't be capitalism.
You seem to be saying that just because someone can't employ labor at $1.50/hr. to make lead-based marijuana cookies that they sell as infant food, or just because I can't turn my backyard into a nuclear waste disposal site even though it is my backyard, that somehow there isn't capitalism in the USA.
I'm saying no such thing, could you please point out exactly where I said such things? Or did you just pull that out of your ass?
Um, no, I'm pulling it out of your ass, so to speak. I am just taking you at your word, and if it sounds ridiculous to you, well, then, I can hardly be blamed for that. Here, I'll point it out as you asked:
As anyone who's read Adam Smith, especially "On Wealth of Nations" , should know there is not capitalism if there's governmental interfe
It's not that simple. Self-determination of nations, sure; but who's to say that the ruling class of a particular nation represents the entire nation for the purpose of self-determination, particularly in an oppressive regime (like, say, feudal theocracy)? One could argue from Marxist positions that it is not only a right, but a duty of a socialist country to help the oppressed proletariat in other countries on their way to revolution, with military force if need be. This reasoning was used many times already (for example, the USSR has supplied Marxist guerillas with weapons in the numerous civil wars in Africa, and even deployed troops in Angola, under this pretext), and once at least by Lenin himself, during the Polish-Soviet war of 1920.
Sure, but this isn't necessarily inconsistent with Lenin's writings on self-determination (in particular, on the case of India). Unlike what the Chinese did with Tibet, none of these are cases of the Red Army marching in to "liberate" a country where no significant local struggle previously existed. What Lenin was arguing against was the type of thinking common among European socialists that somehow the colonialism of their country was good, because it would drag the colonized countries into the modern world and tie them politically to what they thought would be a socialist Britain/France/Germany, etc. Lenin said this was nonsense, and that anti-colonial movements should be supported regardless of whether they were socialist or not, worker-led or not (though better, of course, that they were worker-led, as this would signal ripeness for socialist transformation). His argument for this was part ethical (against chauvanism); part economic (breaking imperialism would sink capitalism); and part historical (former colonies that became independent capitalist nations would go through the same kinds of transformations that would bring socialism in the more advanced capitalist world). And in this he acted pretty consistently, either because he really believed it or because he had enough on his plate locally that he had no other option. Whether or not we can legitimately tie the rest of Soviet foreign policy around his neck posthumously is another matter.
Either way, for someone like Parenti, who embraces so much of Lenin's anti-imperialism, to portray the Chinese occupation of Tibet as some kind of great step forward (however flawed) stands in contradiction to virtually everything else that he (and Lenin) has written.
Which begs the question: why, when looking at Tibet, does Parenti suddenly find all kinds of good things in colonialism when he has failed to find it elsewhere? Why is this piece all about nuance, context, conditions, when he has painted military campaigns against Serbia in Bosnia and Kosovo as nothing but acts of aggressive imperialism? Why does Tibetan feudalism do so much to soften the colonialist edge of Chinese occupation, but ethnic cleansing in Kosovo does nothing to diminish military action against Milosevic?
My point was simply that any justification for this inconsistency really can't be found in the Marx and Lenin that ostensibly inspires Parenti's analysis. Something else is at work, and, as I wrote before, either Parenti isn't very smart or he isn't very honest. Or both.
I'm wonder if you know what capitalism is. As anyone who's read Adam Smith, especially "On Wealth of Nations" , should know there is not capitalism if there's governmental interference. Capitalism requires a voluntary exchange but when government is there there is no voluntary exchange. Government puts restrictions on all sorts of things.
Yes, I know what capitalism is; it seems that you have some illusions about it, though. If, as you say, "there is not capitalism if there's government interference" then I guess there really is no capitalism in the world at all, at least since the early 20th century. To just use one example: the United States is a country with a capitalist economy. There are minimum wage laws, workers' comp laws, anti-discrimination laws, safety regulations, ag. subsidies, state concessions, sales taxes, property taxes, health regulations, and, well, the list goes on. A political appointee sets interest rates, the federal government guarantees loans, and the government can close the stock market when it wants. Our tax dollars are used to build the roads that goods are transported on, to perform much of the research that the tech and pharma industries rely on, to fund the fire department that protects private property, and to compensate for property loss in events of national disaster. Is the US capitalist or not? You seem to be saying that just because someone can't employ labor at $1.50/hr. to make lead-based marijuana cookies that they sell as infant food, or just because I can't turn my backyard into a nuclear waste disposal site even though it is my backyard, that somehow there isn't capitalism in the USA.
Contrary to popular belief, capitalism since at least the mid-twentieth century is completely contingent on the power of state regulation. If that weren't the case, how do you explain the enormous budget deficits of even free-market governments like the Reagan and GW Bush administrations? Are you suggesting that somehow they are secretly building socialism?
as noted by a sibling, you're wrong: this wasn't in response to you at all, but my immediate parent. threading is useful.
Threading tends to be pretty tedious; nesting generally serves me better. But advice noted.
on the 98% figure, however: i think you're confusing the turnout with the results. the turnout for the 1973 plebiscite was about 58% (due at least in part to the boycott of a large portion of the Catholic population); the results were over 98% in favor of remaining in the United Kingdom. CAIN has a summary of the plebiscite. Catholics are still a minority in Northern Ireland today, so if you're correct about the population growing there (i have no idea) i imagine they still would've been trounced without the boycott. also of note is this more recent (but smaller) opinion survey showing that 40% of folks in Northern Ireland think of themselves as Unionist while only 22% think of themselves as Nationalist.
Why on earth you would bring up as evidence the results of a plebiscite in which nearly 100% of those on one side of the issue boycott it is beyond me. This is no small matter: you've got between 35-40% of the population actually refusing to recognize the right of the state to exist and thus boycotting the poll, but somehow this is a positive sign of support for union? As for the current status of things, there are plenty of reasons for why the Catholic population would grow, but the number of people considering themselves "Nationalist" not grow accordingly. The main one, obviously, would be the territories of the North and South being de facto united by common membership in the EU. There are others as well. But I don't think that a whole bunch of Irish Catholics suddenly considering themselves British is one of them.
the rest of your argument seems to mostly be trying to convince me to hold the position i'm already arguing for. so, um, good job!:-)
You agree that the Chinese occupation of Tibet is like a British re-occupation of Ireland. And you argue that this is somehow justified. So you are arguing that the Chinese occupation of Tibet is nothing but colonialism pure and simple? Really? I thought you claimed that the Chinese were justified because they were "re-assimilating a former province." Or I guess that you are saying that it is colonialism, and that that is cool with you. Interesting. Perhaps at some point you'll work your way up to the 20th century and at least claim that it isn't colonialism at all.
1. Because for the Marxist interpretation of the Labor Theory of Value to mean anything, there needs to be an objective "social value" to all goods, as the Marxist version the the Labor Theory of Value measures labor based on its 'social good'. Since 'social good' is a completly unquantifiable subjective value, and Marx never even bothered to try to create an objective system for measuring "social value", the labor theory of value is pretty much useless for state economic planning. In reality, planning for the "social good" helps the political elite (state capitalist class), because they get to decide what "social good" is.
It doesn't sound to me like you know what the LTV is. Marx's LTV does not "measure labor based on its 'social good.'" (Are you trying to say "socially necessary abstract labor"?) In fact, you have mangled up Marx's version of the concept so much (or the website that you gleaned this from did it for you) that its not really clear to me what you are talking about. Where did Marx write about "social value"? Where did he write about "social good" as something that would come from social planning? Sure, what you write sounds silly, but, frankly, what does any of what you write here have anything to do with Marx and/or the LTV? There are plenty of compelling criticisms of Marx's LTV, including some offered by Marxists. The difference is, they actually criticise Marx's LTV, rather than something that they made up and attributed to Marx.
2. Because Marxism is built on the assumption of historically inevitable economic changes. History goes from capitalism, to socialism, to communism, and only moves one way. Any revolution, according to Marx, is a "progressive" revolution, as it happens when it is nessicary to shift the economy from one form of economic production to the other. Revolutions happen when an economy is ready to shift from one stage to another, but the entrenched economic elite don't let it happen.
Some Marxists of the 2nd International had the view of "historically inevitable economic changes," and a partial reading of Marx could certainly lend itself to that. But certainly not all of Marx is teleological. Even something as blunt as the Manifesto has its caveats, and raises the possibility of the kind of catastrophic outcome that you mention. Also, Marx would hardly say that any revolution was "progressive" -- unless, of course, you define it as one that takes political power out of the hands of an elite and places it in the hands of the people. But, all of this really isn't saying much. Any good economic liberal would say that there are "historically inevitable economic changes." Hell, that's the entire reasoning behind capitalism! Ask someone like George Bush if he thinks that economic change is "inevitable" -- do you really think that he would answer "no"? Also, the idea that a revolution is progressive when it is an exercise of popular sovereignty is something that is so broadly accepted that it forms the very basis of the US constitution. In this Marx is perfectly in keeping with the tradition of the Enlightenment, the same strain of thought that gave us lunatics like George Washington, Thomas Paine and other deluded fools.
Also, the idea that Marx claimed that "Revolutions happen when an economy is ready to shift from one stage to another, but the entrenched economic elite don't let it happen" is a complete misunderstanding of Marx. That would be like saying "the French Revolution happened because the aristocracy didn't want a transition to capitalism." This is self-evident. What Marx said is something much, much more powerful, which is that the French Revolution happened because the transition to capitalism was taking place; that it was a manifestation of the link between economic power and political power. Very different story.
Emperical evidence of revolutions, including Marxist sort of revolutions,
Wow. Someone who actually reads! Nicely coherent, Mart, and I doubt that I can say anything satisfying for you (and I am getting a bit pressed for time). But here goes.
[snip...] I said that there is an implied assumption in his work that the proletarian State is necessarily better than the bourgeois State, and especially the assumption that it will voluntarily relinquish power. No amount of text criticism is going to polish that implication away. His behaviour in getting the Anarchists thrown out of the International tends to confirm the view that Marx was an authoritarian at heart.
Perhaps it was a bit naive on his part; again, he was an analyst of capitalism and not a theorist of socialism. With that said, its not like he believed these things without any good reason. First off, Marx viewed the state as an instrument of class power; i.e., of the domination of one class over others (Engels was even more blunt in this, and, if I understand correctly, this is not far from the basic anarchist view either). In fact, that is essentially his definition of "state." As direct producers in an already socialized system of production (thanks to capitalism), the proletariat has no objective interest in creating other classes. So, when the proletariat has state power, it should use that state power to dismantle social classes, creating a classless society. If there are no longer any classes in society, how can there be a "state" (defined as the instrument for the domination of one class over others)? That is not to say that there wouldn't be administration, etc., but "state" in the historical sense would no longer be a term that would adequately describe it.
As for the proletarian state being naturally superior, perhaps that is just good, old-fashioned 19th-century optimism. If the bourgeois state was superior to the feudal state because it signified an expansion of political power to a far greater range of people (something that becomes clear with parliamentary democracy), why wouldn't the extension of political power to the majority (which, with the historical development of capitalism, Marx realized would soon be the proletariat) not be better still? Plus, the bourgeoisie needs to perpetuate the division of humanity into social classes (and, to a lesser degree, nations); the proletariat has no such need, since it depends on the subjected labor of no other social class. (And its not like capitalism was being very kind on the peasantry).
So, that is my understanding in a very small nutshell.
I guess then, that this leaves a few explanations for what happened with the bolches. Either they weren't really the embodiment of the proletariat (or ceased to be that at some point); the Russian proletariat simply wasn't developed enough to pull off the transition; Lenin and Trotsky used the circumstances of the war(s) to build an authoritarian state that did not place political power in the hands of the proletariat and/or that allowed for Stalinism (either intentionally or not); Russian nationalism overwhelmed the whole process; or, Marx simply underestimated the individual human drive for the accumulation of power and underestimated the ability of humans to collectively put a check on that. If any of the first of these is true, then we are simply talking about history being complicated. If it is the latter, then it becomes difficult to imagine how we will ever get along as a species.
As for Marx and the Anarchists, I'll have to admit ignorance on the specifics. As far as Lenin and the Anarchists are concerned, I have little problem in saying that Lenin was an authoritarian.
Second, his critique of capitalism falls flat, IMO, on his purely economic reasoning. Marx correctly deduces that material status correlates with power, and that capitalism brings power to different groups (the bourgeoisie instead of the feudal overlords), but then he continues on with a wholly economic analysis of the social ills of
Exactly. This is what I was referring to above. Its hard to take Parenti seriously when he can defend Milosevic without any qualifications, but when it comes to Tibet suddenly its all about subtlety, nuance, and the particular situation of Tibet at the time of the Chinese invasion. Parenti is either an idiot, a liar, or both.
Once again, the religious style reasoning... "if you don't agree with Marxism, obviously you don't know anything about Marxism, because of course everyone who reads Marx would see the undeniable truth of Marxism".
Um, please go back and read it again, because you are either missing something pretty basic or aren't being terribly honest. Here it is, in case that's too difficult: In responding to a piece by Parenti, I mentioned that very simply mentioned that I am a Marxist, since this is something relevant when making any criticism of Parenti. You responded with the complete non-sequitor "Marxism is dead." I asked you to explain, giving me something specific. You responded with vague generalities, rehashed slogans and stereotypes, and a link to wikipedia. I said that I found this unconvincing, since I had asked for a logical argument or evidence, and you didn't do that. Since you didn't give me anything but the generalizations and stereotypes of Marx that any highschool senior could produce, I stated simply that I found it difficult to take you seriously on this matter.
Let me repeat something very clearly. I never asserted the "undeniable truth of Marxism." (You are obviously projecting your stereotypes of Marxists on to me, rather than actually considering what I have said. An extremely narrow-minded thing to do, by the way.) I quite simply asked you to back up your claims that "Marxism is dead" and that Marx's critique of capitalism "was never valid." You are the one making the sweeping claims with no evidence (logical or textual). I am the one asking you to prove your claims. Clearly, what is happening here is not at all that I am claiming that you are an idiot for not seeing the "undeniable truth of Marxism;" instead, it is you claiming that I am an idiot (or religious zealot, actually!) for not accepting on faith alone the wisdom of your categorical assertions.
You made a claim, I asked for proof. You didn't give it, so I found it unconvincing. Explain to me how that makes me the closed-minded fanatic.
Pretty much everyone with an education has had to read the Communist Manifesto and Capital at some point, so please get off that trip. I read the CM and Capital... CM is sloganeering, and Capital is mid-19th century pseudo-science. I read the Bible too, but that doesn't make me a Christian.
Of course the Manifesto has a good, strong dose of sloganeering. You read the title, didn't you? You know what "manifesto" means, right? As for your having read Capital... let's just say that it strains credulity, especially since you still haven't mentioned even a single specific instance of what is wrong with his critique of capitalism. As for Capital being "mid-19th century pseudo-science," the same could be said for Darwin and Freud by today's standards. Yet, clearly they made an enormous contribution. Same is true for Marx, though arguably Darwin hit a bit closer to the mark on his first try -- but then again, Marx is dealing with the far slippier subject of human history.
Marx was a crappy economist, and it is tedious to go through page by page of his work pointing out flaws when so many people of many diverse political beliefs have already done that.
TRANSLATION: "I've actually never read Marx, but I hear that his writing is terribly dry. Plus, one time I heard someone say that he was wrong and a bad, bad man. And then someone standing next to that person nodded in agreement. I found this incredibly convincing, don't you? What?!? You don't share my opinion? You want some kind of explanation and evidence?!? What are you, some kind of closed-minded fanatic?!?
The fact that a 150 year old work is held as the paragon of economic and social understanding by some people. Psychologists understand the relevance of Freud, but only a dwindling few actually believe it is an accurate model of human behavior. Economists respect th
Marx has made some critical mistakes, but the main one IMO (as a Libertarian Socialist) is his assumption that the proletarian State after the revolution would not be subject to the same corruption of power as the bourgeois State. He does not say it out loud, but his vision of the State withering away (in the Manifesto) is a clear indication of his implied (mis)assumption.
Thank you for actually saying something specific, rather than trotting out the old "Francis Fukuyama read Marx so I don't have to" schtick.
Just two things, which you probably won't find satisfactory answers.
First, the "Manifesto" is a brilliant call to action, but, as a call to action, it really is an elaboration of intention and worldview rather than detailed, subtle and documented analysis. Just as the authors of the Declaration of Independence in the US invoked God but sensibly left it out of the Constitution, Marx's early view of the post-revolutionary state was left out of Capital.
Which brings me to my second "excuse" for Marx (and me). As much as he might have publicly appeared otherwise, Marx was above all an analyst of capitalism rather than a theorist of socialism. If nothing else, consider the number of words he devotes to what capitalism is and how it functions vs. what the future will look like. It is the three volumes of Capital vs. the 40 odd pages of the Manifesto, essentially. This is why, if you look at my post, I specifically asked the other poster what was wrong with Marx's critique of capitalism, rather than, say, what was wrong with socialism, etc. And in this, I really do find Marx much more useful than Bakunin and other anarchists, but hey, that's me.
As for a kind of "new feudalism" coming out of late capitalism, I'm not so sure. Wallerstein, of all people, actually has some really interesting thoughts along these lines (in a piece on "incomplete proletarianization" in a book he did with Balibar in the early 1990s). Interesting, but I think that there is something fundamentally different about capitalism (and the transformation of everything into an exchange value) that just isn't there in feudalism (though I understand that you are speaking in terms of analogy rather than literally).
Ah, my brain is dead. KROU is the public radio station in Norman, Oklahoma. Somehow I confused this with KQED, which is a public radio station in the Bay Area, where Parenti lives (or at least he used to... all becoming a blur now...). Um. nevermind!
That is a loaded question. Marx's critiques of 'capitalism' were never valid.
Really? Your statement sounds like a dodge to me. Anyone who has taken anything more than a cursory glance at Marx's economic writings wouldn't write such a sweeping generalization like that. I suspect that you are vaguely familiar with Marx from second, third or fourth-hand sources (he was killed by Stalin, right?), and find that good enough reason to dismiss him. And that's fine. Just don't think that I feel any obligation to take you seriously when you write something like that.br>
However, you misinterpreted what I am saying. I am saying that Marxism as a popular ideology is dead. Most so-called Socialists support the non-Marxist European model. Those who still claim to be Marxist are largely the diseffected bourgeois who are attracted to the 'Che Guavara' revolutionary chic of it all, and aren't really Marxists in any meaningful sense (maybe vaugly some sort of Socialist-Anarchist in ideology, and consumer capitalists in practice).
Much like I don't need to debate the 'spiritual truth' of Zoroastrianism to make the arguement that it is a dying or dead religion (compared to Christianity, Islam, Bhuddism, even Scientology or Mormonism), I don't need to argue the validity of Marxism to see that it is no longer one of the definitive world ideologies, the way it was in 1960 for example.
Sure, the number of Marxists is much smaller now than before. That is pretty obvious. Your claim was that "Marxism is dead," and you add to that by saying that his critique of capitalism was "never valid." Just because there are fewer Marxists around now doesn't make Marx any less wrong or correct. Just because you seem to not like those who you think are Marxists doesn't say anything about the veracity Marxist forms of analysis either. You may feel like you don't need to argue over its validity simply because fewer people see it as valid now. Fine, but again, if you claim that his critique of capitalism "was never valid," and use as your only supporting evidence the fact that fewer people accept it than before, it is pretty difficult to take you seriously. Wikipedia link notwithstanding.
I doubt I can change your mind, because Marxism is an all encompassing belief system, closer to a religion or philosophy than economic theory. People on both the left and right have been tearing apart Marxism for years, and so if you haven't heard at least some of the arguements, you are willfully oblivious to them.
In claiming that Marxism is somehow "closer to a religion," what are you talking about? Are you talking about Stalinism? If so, what relationship does that have to the actual critique of capitalism -- and method of investigation -- advanced by Marx? Or are you just trotting out a stereotype, because your world view doesn't permit you to think that maybe, in fact, Marx may have written a thing or two of some value, and that you just haven't read it? Oh, I have heard the arguments against Marx, and I am far from "willfully oblivious" to them. In fact, it strikes me that I am hardly the one who is "willfully oblivious" here. After all, I am the one who has read lots of Marx, lots of non-Marx, and lots of anti-Marx social, cultural and economic theory, evaluated them, found some wanting, some less wanting, and some incredibly insightful. Can you say the same?
I think that this was about an example that I raised, so I'll address it.
your Northern Ireland example is the best of the set, but that's still problematic. the last plebiscite on Northern Ireland's continued membership in the United Kingdom was overwhelmingly affirmative (>98%). while the fight has been bloody, it's a poor contemporary example of a foreign power occupying a nation that doesn't want them there (although that's certainly historically true if you go back one or two hundred years). rather, Northern Ireland is a cautionary tale to even well-intentioned would-be colonialists. it has a much greater similarity to what's going on in Israel and Palestine than any of the other examples cited so far, and is very dissimilar from Tibet.
First, the example that I used was "Ireland," not "Northern Ireland." In fact, I think that I specifically wrote "Ireland (all of it)."
The British occupied and colonized Ireland -- all of it -- for several hundred years, and for at least a century claimed that it wasn't a colony, but an integral part of Great Britain. This claim is still made about six of the counties, the "Northern Ireland" that you refer to, which is an entity dreamed up by British policy makers and has no precedent as having any existence at all prior to 1921.
Now, most of the island became independent. This, in the terms that you used before, makes it a "previous province," and, if the British were to re-take Dublin and the 26 counties, they would be "re-assimilating a previous province." This is the situation that you claim is the situation of Tibet. How the Irish situation would be different in legal or ethical terms is completely unclear to me. Please explain.
As far as the plebiscite in Northern Ireland, please give some citation for that bizarre statistic. Not only does 98% in favor of the North staying part of the UK bely all common sense, but I can find no reference to it. Sure, in 1973 there was a plebiscite limited to the North on the question of remaining part of the UK, and it held by 57%. The Catholic population has grown quite a bit as a percentage of the population since then. Where are you getting 98%?
There was another plebiscite, though, that simply backs up what I have been saying. When the Irish were given a vote on becoming an independent country, it was approved overwhelmingly. In fact, of the 32 counties in Ireland, it was only defeated in 4. That is a pretty clear-cut case in favor of national independence (actually self-rule), wouldn't you say? The British response: "well, we can't really undo the plebiscite without sparking an all-out rebellion, so we'll just take those 4 counties that voted against it, plus two more neighboring counties for good measure, democracy be damned." Et voila, they created "Northern Ireland," a political entity that had never existed in any form before that moment, and one that has been predictably unstable.
This also begs the question: why no plebiscite in Tibet? Surely, as good Chinese citizens, the Tibetans wouldn't want to break with the motherland! Or could it be, perhaps, that the Chinese know damn well that the Tibetans are not Chinese, and that they would assert that position given the chance? Could it be, perhaps, that the Chinese government has absolutely no illusion that it is a colonial power in Tibet, despite all the flowering rhetoric? Could it be that they cynically laugh at all those who are fooled by the rhetoric and can't see the Chinese occupation of Tibet for the colonialist land-and-resource grab that it so obviously is?
Well, a few things. First, I don't claim that Parenti is an "ardent supporter" of the Chinese occupation. Second, Parenti doesn't use the word "liberation," but it is implicit throughout -- the Tibetans suffered under terrible feudalism, after the Chinese came in, they had hospitals; and let's not forget that the Chinese call this the "peaceful liberation of Tibet," something that Parenti does nothing to challenge in his portrayal of the Chinese "intervention."
As far as the Dalai Lama's political stance. Let's keep in mind that he was not actually given traditional political authority until the Chinese invasion began. When he did take political authority, he embraced the Chinese reforms as they were presented to him. The Chinese practice of reform, of course, was very different from what was presented to him -- i.e., the Chinese treated Tibet like an occupied country, and treated the Tibetans as a colonized people. One other thing to keep in mind is that the Dalai Lama was still a teenager when he left for exile. Given all that, to somehow claim that his political positions are purely the result of the Chinese occupation seems really, really premature.
Would the Dalai Lama have been a great, reforming, benevolant, egalitarian force in Tibet without the Chinese colonization? Well, we'll really never know. And that is precisely the point. Tibetans were not allowed to take their situation into their own hands, something that Parenti (one would think) should recognize as their right -- a right negated by foreign occupation and colonization.
Interestingly, Parenti also paints the Khampa rebels as somehow this small, isolated force dreamed up and "massively" supplied by the CIA. Leave the fact of the Lhasa uprising out of it (or any of the numerous regional rebellions), since that would cloud Parenti's picture. Sure, the Khampas took CIA money, a few guns, and got some training in Colorado. This hardly makes them evil, or simple tools of US imperialism. Nor does it make the Tibetan resistance against Chinese rule, as Parenti suggests, simply one more CIA plot. The Khampas lost because they were outnumbered and outgunned. Plain and simple. They accepted CIA help because it was offered, plain and simple.
Why should the Khampas have taken the political sensitivities of US anti-imperialists into account when trying to liberate their country from foreign occupation? Should they have told the CIA, "Um, no thanks. We don't want your weapons because we prefer to take on a modern foreign army forged in decades of war that is also numerically superior to us -- we prefer to take them on with pointed sticks. Plus, we know what your going to do in Guatemala in a few years."
On the other point, yes, if I claimed that nobody every claims that Tibet was paradise prior to the invasion, then I misrepresented myself. What I should have expressed is that it is not trotted out as a reason for the end of Chinese rule. The reason for the end of the Chinese occupation, across the board, has always been national self-determination.
Even if we give Parenti the benefit of the doubt on all of this, the piece still strikes me as hypocritical. Having read a number of other things by Parenti on Vietnam, Bosnia and Kosovo, the sudden ambiguity in his stance against colonial aggression sticks out like a sore thumb. Suddenly, it seems, colonial aggression is all about context. Considering the omissions that he makes and the outright misrepresentations (if the Khampas got "massive" aid from the CIA, then my granny was Joan of Arc), this piece is pretty hard to take very seriously.
PS: KROU was on constantly in my apartment until I moved inland...
Marxism is dead. There are a small and ever-diminishing number of true old-school Marxists left, but most people who consider themselves "Marxist" nowadays are really just anti-Capitalist or anti-American reactionaries from the Western Bourgeois... or third world dictators like in Cuba or North Korea, who use Marxism as an excuse to justify their power.
Surely with such a strong statement like that you can tell just exactly which parts of Marx's critique of capitalism are no longer valid. Please be as specific as possible so that I can refer to the proper texts to check up on Marx's reasoning and find out exactly where he went wrong. I trust that you know what you are talking about, so please do fill me in and please do so in some detail. After all, I wouldn't want to come away thinking that you made a claim like this without having any idea of what you're talking about.
Also, if you can point me to some other thinker who has developed a more coherent and convincing explanation of exactly how capitalism historically works, that would be great. It would have to be able to explain things like the nature of profit, what labor actually is, what the root of value is, why cycles of accumulation happen rather than just straight-forward lifting of all boats, etc. And it should do that without appeals to intangible mucky-muck like "human nature," "desire," "greed," or anything else that is just a lazy way of saying "because."
Show me these things, and I'll consider them, and pronounce Marx dead as well if convinced. I can't imagine that you are simply working with stereotypical ideas of what you think Marxism is. Those are much to easy to dismiss. So please, bring me up to speed using some good, solid evidence of the errors of Marx and, if it exists, about a coherent alternative. I'd hate to have dead ideas floating around in my head, as convincing and coherent as their explanations of actually-existing reality are.
Parenti is against the Iraq War, and for the Chinese occupation of Tibet, because supporting both these positions is contrarian to U.S. foreign policy, not because he reasoned his opinions out according to some coherent ideological structure.
Now this I absolutely agree with. In fact, if you will re-read my post, that is pretty much exactly what it says. Funny how even someone clouded with "dead" ideas could figure that out, huh?
Which of these would you still defend? If not all, which ones and why not?
None of the examples you cited are similar to the Sino-Tibetan issue.
1. The British East India Company didn't set out to re-assimilate a previous province of England by creating the British Raj; they sought goods for trade and the expansion of power of the Crown.
Tibet was never a "previous province" of China. Sure, the Chinese can make the claim all they want, but it only makes sense if a.) you pick just one of the many political configurations of Central Asia; and b.) you assume that prior to the 20th century "China" was a modern national "state" with "provinces." Reading the same history, one would be on just as solid an historical footing to say that all the different parts of China are actually renegade Tibetan territory and should be under the authority of the Dalai Lama.
To follow your own logic a bit further: if the English decide to up and invade Ireland (all of it), send in colonists to outnumber the local population (try again, that is), then that really is a matter for the English to worry about. Why should the Irish be considered anything but a "previous province" of Britain, as long as the English consider it to be so? After all, they speak the same language (now) and, unlike the Tibetans and the Chinese, they even use the same script to write it. To trump up any differences between the Irish and the English would be to ignore just how culturally and linguistically diverse England really is (not to mention Britain as a whole).
Let's re-work a few other maps, using your reasoning.
Buenos Aires was the capital of the Viceroyalty of the Rio de la Plata. (Sure, we aren't talking about a modern nation-state, but then again, you really aren't either.) Now, when the Argentines go ahead and invade Uruguay, Bolivia, and Paraguay claiming that they are just "re-assimilating previous provinces" I assume that that is cool with you. Oh, and then let's have the present-day modern nation-state of Peru go ahead and invade and occupy everything that the Argentines just did, throwing in Ecuador, Colombia, Panama, Chile and Venezuela for good measure. After all, these were all part of the Viceroyalty of Peru, ruled from Lima. Cool with you? Great. Our maps are getting much cleaner, without all those nasty lines and varieties of names.
Of course, that would be stupid. It is a question of national self-determination, plain and simple. It doesn't matter if the Chinese think that the Tibetans are really Chinese. It matters what the Tibetans think.
As a good, conscientious Marxist myself, I can confidently say that Parenti is not too bright. He is not even consistent for that matter. He is opposed to the Iraq war (as am I), and argues that it was the invasion of one sovereign country by another. Yet somehow he supports the Chinese invasion and occupation of Tibet, because, well, somehow they deserved it because Parenti didn't like the particular form of oppression there. Oh, and plus the Chinese claim to be Marxists, so I guess that that makes it OK. He is against the Israeli settlements and says the UN specifically bans population transfers to occupied territories; yet he has no problem when the Chinese do this on a far, far greater scale in Tibet.
Its pathetic, really. Either you are (like Lenin) for the self-determination of nations regardless of their stage of economic and social development; or you support some variant of nationalism. Either you are against colonization, or you are for it. If Parenti were at all consistent or intellectually honest, he would say: "I support the Chinese invasion and colonization of Tibet because China is more progressive. I also support the US invasion of Iraq and Afghanistan because, as much as it pains me to say it, the US is the more progressive side in those conflicts. Israeli settlements in the West Bank are wrong, and so is the Chinese population transfer to Tibet." But he doesn't. And he doesn't because he either isn't that bright or isn't that honest. Take your pick.
And let's not be naive -- the Chinese invasion and continued colonization of Tibet has nothing to do with "liberation," socialism, or anything noble. This is about aggressive nationalism plain and simple, and now it is also about capitalism. It seems that the Chinese just can't imagine having a neighbor without Kentucky Fried Chicken, McDonalds, Budweiser, and a good Chinese-owned mining company digging up whatever it can dig up.
Of course Tibet was no paradise before the invasion. The only times that I have ever heard this claim is when pro-Chinese-invasion people say things like "supporters of the Dalai Lama claim that Tibet was a paradise before the Chinese came, but it really was a nasty place." Other than that, I have only heard supporters talk about this as an issue of national self-determination. Why is that something so hard to understand?
One other thing to consider about the Dalai Lama. Like his predecessors, he is way out ahead of the dominant class of Tibet in political terms. He demanded a constitution that would limit his political authority, and then called all Tibetans to vote on it. He wants to retire as anything but ceremonial head of state, or at least have his successor do this. The programs that he has called for in a truly autonomous Tibet make Dennis Kucinich look like Dick Cheney. And, of course, he also considers himself a Marxist. http://hhdl.dharmakara.net/hhdlquotes1.html#marxis m
Given that the Dalai Lama is more politically progressive than the current Chinese government; given that the Chinese occupation of Tibet is illegal; given that the Chinese colonization of Tibet is a violation of United Nations regulations on occupation; and given that the majority of Tibetans recognize him, not the Chinese government, as the legitimate ruler of the country -- given all that, why on Earth would anyone support the Chinese position on this?
There is one reason: Chinese nationalism. It really is that simple.
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The US Civil War wasn't about slavery, it was about states rights. Southern states felt they had rights the federal government was denying them.
Sure, the issue of federalism was important, but the idea that it was the main issue is an after-the-fact rationalization. It's not a coincidence that it was the slave-states against the non-slave states. If it had really been about "states' rights" and the nature of federalism, then the lineup would have been a bit more complicated than that.
On Jefferson Yes, I have no problem with Jefferson being a smart, progressive and good-hearted man. My point was simply this: slavery was not marginal to the period that you hold up as being a period of "true" capitalism. In fact, it was so important that even the person that you embrace as the main proponent of the kind of liberty that you are talking about nonetheless had slaves. Sure, we can qualify his individual slave-ownership in numerous ways. But at the end of the day, we are talking about a social system in which one of the primary forms of labor recruitment -- and one that was central to the social order as a whole -- was emphatically not one in which people were free to engage in "voluntary exchange." The example of Jefferson is just one more indication that the idealized vision that you have of the past is actually riddled with nasty things, and that these nasty things are hardly incidental to the period as a whole.
On Mother Teresa Charity might be noble, but charity does not solve the basic problem of the monopoly of resources by some to the detriment of the majority of humanity. Perhaps state action can't solve it either, but, when it represents the coordinated efforts of society, it sure seems like it would have a far better chance. That's why we have Social Security and don't just send all of our retirees to the Salvation Army.
On nuclear waste You wrote: I think you misunderstand me, or are engaging in purposely distortion. As I said earlier I don't believe in having no government, I'm not anarchist, what I want is as little as possible, and here in the USA one that follows the limits put on it by the USA Constitution.
I am going on what you stated in the first thread that I responded to, which was "where there is governmental intervention there is no capitalism." That is an absolute statement, one that does not take the form, purpose or intent of regulation into account, and I assumed that you meant it. It is now clear that you don't mean it and that you do, in fact, embrace some forms of "governmental intervention" as being consistent with the kind of libertarian, free-market capitalism that you embrace. That is a different position, and I will assume that you have either changed your views or did not express yourself clearly earlier.
On Marx and/or Marxism I have only argued for the coherence and power of Marx's analysis of capitalism. Nothing more, nothing less. I have only written about my own views of the past and of the present, not of the future. And yes, there are plenty of Marxists, like me, who are agnostic or even downright pessimistic on the prospects of socialism and/or communism. In fact, I would probably say that we constitute a majority of Marxists nowadays!
On State Terrorism and Capitalism
On Slavery You really underestimate the importance of the labor of the enslaved to the overall economy. In virtually any sector of the colonial/US economy in which you had large-scale production, slavery was the dominant form of labor recruitment. Sure, there were plenty of small farms, shops, etc., but its not until the northern states begin to really industrialize that you have wage labor (or what passed for wage labor at that time) in any are of the economy beyond the small shop, farm, port, etc. In fact, the centrality of slavery to the US economy precisely in the period that you hold as ideal (late 1700s to early 1800s) is obvious in the very fact of the Civil War. After all, if it wasn't important, half of the states wouldn't have tried to get out of the US in order to preserve it; and if it wasn't important, the other half of the states wouldn't have stopped them.
Ironically, the fact that slavery begins to break down as a form of labor recruitment just happens to coincide with the end of your ideal period. Coincidence? Not at all...
Along those same lines, it is more than ironic that you elevate Thomas Jefferson as the paragon of the kind of free-market libertarian capitalist virtue that you seem to be extolling. Just out of curiosity, were the people that Jefferson held in slavery engaged in a "free and voluntary exchange" of their labor with him? Because surely Jefferson would understand the importance of such a thing, because if he didn't, then that would mean that this whole "free and voluntary exchange" was dependent on -- like Jefferson -- on coercion in order to get off the ground...
That the development of capitalism undermined different forms of overtly coerced labor is actually something that Marx explained quite nicely, before historians even had a chance to think about it. Chew on the irony.
The fact that you bracket the period "late 1700s to the early 1800s [and] in some places until the US Civil War" is revealing, if you only pay attention. Put another way, you could say simply "capitalism didn't survive the process of its own development." This would be incredibly premature, but this is your argument, not mine.
On Theft Of course theft is not "free and voluntary exchange," and I never claimed that it was. You miss the point entirely. What I was saying was that private property is dependent in its orgin on state coercive action, and that the maintainance of private property is also dependent on the capacity of the state to coerce as well [legally, morally, physically]. So, to spell things out for you: once your car has been stolen, or your home occupied, how are you going to engage in "free and voluntary exchange" with these things? You aren't, unless you get the state to return it, or to stop it from being taken from you in the first place. Lesson: where there is private property, there is theft; the greater the inequality of distribution of property, the greater the likelihood of theft.
No state protection of private property, no private property; no private property, no "free and voluntary exchange" of property. And since the police need to be funded, laws need to be passed, regulations need to be imposed, etc., etc., there will be "governmental interference" in the affairs of property holders (sales tax, property tax, etc.) and, by your own definition, where there is "governmental interference" "there is not capitalism." IE, there is no such thing as capitalism. Never has been, never will be.
On Charity Well, your example of Mother Teresa in NYC is quite easy to read another way: that regulation in capitalist societies is a balancing act designed to protect people from the most egregious conditions created by capitalism not in order to undo capitalism, but in order to preserve it. Oh, and this is not some crazy Marxist position; this is what was the official Catholic position at least until recently (and may still be). Plus, just imagine: if everything really were based on absolute free-market capitalism,
Ah. I see the problem here. I was writing about the world as it actually exists, and you were writing about an abstract definition of capitalism that has not and will not ever exist.
Case in point: given that much of the labor force in the US was held in slavery in the 1830s, wouldn't it be fair to say that they were not, in fact, engaged in the free "voluntary exchange" of their labor? And wouldn't it be that it was laws, police and other forms of state power that ensured that this group of people remained held in bondage? Given that in some states of the US in the 1830s, the enslaved were actually a majority of the population, wouldn't that make your claim that the US hasn't had capitalism since the 1830s more than a bit sketchy (since it implies that the US had capitalism prior to that)? And even if you, through some kind of tortured logic, think that people who were in enslaved really were part of a "free market" because their labor (and lives) were bought and sold, does it really seem like the pre-1830s US was a very pleasant place for most people?
Then there is no such thing as capitalism, never has been, and never will be. You seem to be under the illusion that somehow capitalism existed, but then along came the evil corporations, unions and state to mucky up the situation, and that the "one drop" rule applies: any state action, and it isn't capitalism. Nonsense. Markets are the product of state action; "free" labor is the product of state action; private property is a product of state action. And guess what? It all depends on state action. The enclosures in England; the colonization of the US; the recruitment of labor in your Utopian pre-1830s US; the dismantling of ejidos in Mexico; the so-called "War of the Desert" in Argentina; etc., were all dependent on state action. Studying history is worthwhile; I recommend it.
In fact, just a little common sense and open eyes will show you that even the private property that does exist now (and which is inevitably historically linked to state action) would cease to exist pretty quickly it you take away state power. This is why you don't leave your keys in the car, and why, if your car is taken from you, you file a report with a branch of the state. This is why people who have no home don't just come and take yours while you are away on vacation -- because the state will come in with laws (and guns if necessary) to protect your property. Market exchange is regulated by laws enforced by coercion (and always has been), resources are seized and/or protected by state power... At the end of the day, if we take away the state as you suggest, perhaps we have much to gain; but it won't be capitalism.
Um, no, I'm pulling it out of your ass, so to speak. I am just taking you at your word, and if it sounds ridiculous to you, well, then, I can hardly be blamed for that. Here, I'll point it out as you asked:
Sure, but this isn't necessarily inconsistent with Lenin's writings on self-determination (in particular, on the case of India). Unlike what the Chinese did with Tibet, none of these are cases of the Red Army marching in to "liberate" a country where no significant local struggle previously existed. What Lenin was arguing against was the type of thinking common among European socialists that somehow the colonialism of their country was good, because it would drag the colonized countries into the modern world and tie them politically to what they thought would be a socialist Britain/France/Germany, etc. Lenin said this was nonsense, and that anti-colonial movements should be supported regardless of whether they were socialist or not, worker-led or not (though better, of course, that they were worker-led, as this would signal ripeness for socialist transformation). His argument for this was part ethical (against chauvanism); part economic (breaking imperialism would sink capitalism); and part historical (former colonies that became independent capitalist nations would go through the same kinds of transformations that would bring socialism in the more advanced capitalist world). And in this he acted pretty consistently, either because he really believed it or because he had enough on his plate locally that he had no other option. Whether or not we can legitimately tie the rest of Soviet foreign policy around his neck posthumously is another matter.
Either way, for someone like Parenti, who embraces so much of Lenin's anti-imperialism, to portray the Chinese occupation of Tibet as some kind of great step forward (however flawed) stands in contradiction to virtually everything else that he (and Lenin) has written.
Which begs the question: why, when looking at Tibet, does Parenti suddenly find all kinds of good things in colonialism when he has failed to find it elsewhere? Why is this piece all about nuance, context, conditions, when he has painted military campaigns against Serbia in Bosnia and Kosovo as nothing but acts of aggressive imperialism? Why does Tibetan feudalism do so much to soften the colonialist edge of Chinese occupation, but ethnic cleansing in Kosovo does nothing to diminish military action against Milosevic?
My point was simply that any justification for this inconsistency really can't be found in the Marx and Lenin that ostensibly inspires Parenti's analysis. Something else is at work, and, as I wrote before, either Parenti isn't very smart or he isn't very honest. Or both.
Yes, I know what capitalism is; it seems that you have some illusions about it, though. If, as you say, "there is not capitalism if there's government interference" then I guess there really is no capitalism in the world at all, at least since the early 20th century. To just use one example: the United States is a country with a capitalist economy. There are minimum wage laws, workers' comp laws, anti-discrimination laws, safety regulations, ag. subsidies, state concessions, sales taxes, property taxes, health regulations, and, well, the list goes on. A political appointee sets interest rates, the federal government guarantees loans, and the government can close the stock market when it wants. Our tax dollars are used to build the roads that goods are transported on, to perform much of the research that the tech and pharma industries rely on, to fund the fire department that protects private property, and to compensate for property loss in events of national disaster. Is the US capitalist or not? You seem to be saying that just because someone can't employ labor at $1.50/hr. to make lead-based marijuana cookies that they sell as infant food, or just because I can't turn my backyard into a nuclear waste disposal site even though it is my backyard, that somehow there isn't capitalism in the USA.
Contrary to popular belief, capitalism since at least the mid-twentieth century is completely contingent on the power of state regulation. If that weren't the case, how do you explain the enormous budget deficits of even free-market governments like the Reagan and GW Bush administrations? Are you suggesting that somehow they are secretly building socialism?
Threading tends to be pretty tedious; nesting generally serves me better. But advice noted.
Why on earth you would bring up as evidence the results of a plebiscite in which nearly 100% of those on one side of the issue boycott it is beyond me. This is no small matter: you've got between 35-40% of the population actually refusing to recognize the right of the state to exist and thus boycotting the poll, but somehow this is a positive sign of support for union? As for the current status of things, there are plenty of reasons for why the Catholic population would grow, but the number of people considering themselves "Nationalist" not grow accordingly. The main one, obviously, would be the territories of the North and South being de facto united by common membership in the EU. There are others as well. But I don't think that a whole bunch of Irish Catholics suddenly considering themselves British is one of them.
You agree that the Chinese occupation of Tibet is like a British re-occupation of Ireland. And you argue that this is somehow justified. So you are arguing that the Chinese occupation of Tibet is nothing but colonialism pure and simple? Really? I thought you claimed that the Chinese were justified because they were "re-assimilating a former province." Or I guess that you are saying that it is colonialism, and that that is cool with you. Interesting. Perhaps at some point you'll work your way up to the 20th century and at least claim that it isn't colonialism at all.
It doesn't sound to me like you know what the LTV is. Marx's LTV does not "measure labor based on its 'social good.'" (Are you trying to say "socially necessary abstract labor"?) In fact, you have mangled up Marx's version of the concept so much (or the website that you gleaned this from did it for you) that its not really clear to me what you are talking about. Where did Marx write about "social value"? Where did he write about "social good" as something that would come from social planning? Sure, what you write sounds silly, but, frankly, what does any of what you write here have anything to do with Marx and/or the LTV? There are plenty of compelling criticisms of Marx's LTV, including some offered by Marxists. The difference is, they actually criticise Marx's LTV, rather than something that they made up and attributed to Marx.
Some Marxists of the 2nd International had the view of "historically inevitable economic changes," and a partial reading of Marx could certainly lend itself to that. But certainly not all of Marx is teleological. Even something as blunt as the Manifesto has its caveats, and raises the possibility of the kind of catastrophic outcome that you mention. Also, Marx would hardly say that any revolution was "progressive" -- unless, of course, you define it as one that takes political power out of the hands of an elite and places it in the hands of the people. But, all of this really isn't saying much. Any good economic liberal would say that there are "historically inevitable economic changes." Hell, that's the entire reasoning behind capitalism! Ask someone like George Bush if he thinks that economic change is "inevitable" -- do you really think that he would answer "no"? Also, the idea that a revolution is progressive when it is an exercise of popular sovereignty is something that is so broadly accepted that it forms the very basis of the US constitution. In this Marx is perfectly in keeping with the tradition of the Enlightenment, the same strain of thought that gave us lunatics like George Washington, Thomas Paine and other deluded fools.
Also, the idea that Marx claimed that "Revolutions happen when an economy is ready to shift from one stage to another, but the entrenched economic elite don't let it happen" is a complete misunderstanding of Marx. That would be like saying "the French Revolution happened because the aristocracy didn't want a transition to capitalism." This is self-evident. What Marx said is something much, much more powerful, which is that the French Revolution happened because the transition to capitalism was taking place; that it was a manifestation of the link between economic power and political power. Very different story.
Perhaps it was a bit naive on his part; again, he was an analyst of capitalism and not a theorist of socialism. With that said, its not like he believed these things without any good reason. First off, Marx viewed the state as an instrument of class power; i.e., of the domination of one class over others (Engels was even more blunt in this, and, if I understand correctly, this is not far from the basic anarchist view either). In fact, that is essentially his definition of "state." As direct producers in an already socialized system of production (thanks to capitalism), the proletariat has no objective interest in creating other classes. So, when the proletariat has state power, it should use that state power to dismantle social classes, creating a classless society. If there are no longer any classes in society, how can there be a "state" (defined as the instrument for the domination of one class over others)? That is not to say that there wouldn't be administration, etc., but "state" in the historical sense would no longer be a term that would adequately describe it.
As for the proletarian state being naturally superior, perhaps that is just good, old-fashioned 19th-century optimism. If the bourgeois state was superior to the feudal state because it signified an expansion of political power to a far greater range of people (something that becomes clear with parliamentary democracy), why wouldn't the extension of political power to the majority (which, with the historical development of capitalism, Marx realized would soon be the proletariat) not be better still? Plus, the bourgeoisie needs to perpetuate the division of humanity into social classes (and, to a lesser degree, nations); the proletariat has no such need, since it depends on the subjected labor of no other social class. (And its not like capitalism was being very kind on the peasantry).
So, that is my understanding in a very small nutshell.
I guess then, that this leaves a few explanations for what happened with the bolches. Either they weren't really the embodiment of the proletariat (or ceased to be that at some point); the Russian proletariat simply wasn't developed enough to pull off the transition; Lenin and Trotsky used the circumstances of the war(s) to build an authoritarian state that did not place political power in the hands of the proletariat and/or that allowed for Stalinism (either intentionally or not); Russian nationalism overwhelmed the whole process; or, Marx simply underestimated the individual human drive for the accumulation of power and underestimated the ability of humans to collectively put a check on that. If any of the first of these is true, then we are simply talking about history being complicated. If it is the latter, then it becomes difficult to imagine how we will ever get along as a species.
As for Marx and the Anarchists, I'll have to admit ignorance on the specifics. As far as Lenin and the Anarchists are concerned, I have little problem in saying that Lenin was an authoritarian.
Exactly. This is what I was referring to above. Its hard to take Parenti seriously when he can defend Milosevic without any qualifications, but when it comes to Tibet suddenly its all about subtlety, nuance, and the particular situation of Tibet at the time of the Chinese invasion. Parenti is either an idiot, a liar, or both.
Um, please go back and read it again, because you are either missing something pretty basic or aren't being terribly honest. Here it is, in case that's too difficult: In responding to a piece by Parenti, I mentioned that very simply mentioned that I am a Marxist, since this is something relevant when making any criticism of Parenti. You responded with the complete non-sequitor "Marxism is dead." I asked you to explain, giving me something specific. You responded with vague generalities, rehashed slogans and stereotypes, and a link to wikipedia. I said that I found this unconvincing, since I had asked for a logical argument or evidence, and you didn't do that. Since you didn't give me anything but the generalizations and stereotypes of Marx that any highschool senior could produce, I stated simply that I found it difficult to take you seriously on this matter.
Let me repeat something very clearly. I never asserted the "undeniable truth of Marxism." (You are obviously projecting your stereotypes of Marxists on to me, rather than actually considering what I have said. An extremely narrow-minded thing to do, by the way.) I quite simply asked you to back up your claims that "Marxism is dead" and that Marx's critique of capitalism "was never valid." You are the one making the sweeping claims with no evidence (logical or textual). I am the one asking you to prove your claims. Clearly, what is happening here is not at all that I am claiming that you are an idiot for not seeing the "undeniable truth of Marxism;" instead, it is you claiming that I am an idiot (or religious zealot, actually!) for not accepting on faith alone the wisdom of your categorical assertions.
You made a claim, I asked for proof. You didn't give it, so I found it unconvincing. Explain to me how that makes me the closed-minded fanatic.
Of course the Manifesto has a good, strong dose of sloganeering. You read the title, didn't you? You know what "manifesto" means, right? As for your having read Capital... let's just say that it strains credulity, especially since you still haven't mentioned even a single specific instance of what is wrong with his critique of capitalism. As for Capital being "mid-19th century pseudo-science," the same could be said for Darwin and Freud by today's standards. Yet, clearly they made an enormous contribution. Same is true for Marx, though arguably Darwin hit a bit closer to the mark on his first try -- but then again, Marx is dealing with the far slippier subject of human history.
TRANSLATION: "I've actually never read Marx, but I hear that his writing is terribly dry. Plus, one time I heard someone say that he was wrong and a bad, bad man. And then someone standing next to that person nodded in agreement. I found this incredibly convincing, don't you? What?!? You don't share my opinion? You want some kind of explanation and evidence?!? What are you, some kind of closed-minded fanatic?!?
Thank you for actually saying something specific, rather than trotting out the old "Francis Fukuyama read Marx so I don't have to" schtick.
Just two things, which you probably won't find satisfactory answers.
First, the "Manifesto" is a brilliant call to action, but, as a call to action, it really is an elaboration of intention and worldview rather than detailed, subtle and documented analysis. Just as the authors of the Declaration of Independence in the US invoked God but sensibly left it out of the Constitution, Marx's early view of the post-revolutionary state was left out of Capital.
Which brings me to my second "excuse" for Marx (and me). As much as he might have publicly appeared otherwise, Marx was above all an analyst of capitalism rather than a theorist of socialism. If nothing else, consider the number of words he devotes to what capitalism is and how it functions vs. what the future will look like. It is the three volumes of Capital vs. the 40 odd pages of the Manifesto, essentially. This is why, if you look at my post, I specifically asked the other poster what was wrong with Marx's critique of capitalism, rather than, say, what was wrong with socialism, etc. And in this, I really do find Marx much more useful than Bakunin and other anarchists, but hey, that's me.
As for a kind of "new feudalism" coming out of late capitalism, I'm not so sure. Wallerstein, of all people, actually has some really interesting thoughts along these lines (in a piece on "incomplete proletarianization" in a book he did with Balibar in the early 1990s). Interesting, but I think that there is something fundamentally different about capitalism (and the transformation of everything into an exchange value) that just isn't there in feudalism (though I understand that you are speaking in terms of analogy rather than literally).
Ah, my brain is dead. KROU is the public radio station in Norman, Oklahoma. Somehow I confused this with KQED, which is a public radio station in the Bay Area, where Parenti lives (or at least he used to... all becoming a blur now...). Um. nevermind!
Really? Your statement sounds like a dodge to me. Anyone who has taken anything more than a cursory glance at Marx's economic writings wouldn't write such a sweeping generalization like that. I suspect that you are vaguely familiar with Marx from second, third or fourth-hand sources (he was killed by Stalin, right?), and find that good enough reason to dismiss him. And that's fine. Just don't think that I feel any obligation to take you seriously when you write something like that.br>
Sure, the number of Marxists is much smaller now than before. That is pretty obvious. Your claim was that "Marxism is dead," and you add to that by saying that his critique of capitalism was "never valid." Just because there are fewer Marxists around now doesn't make Marx any less wrong or correct. Just because you seem to not like those who you think are Marxists doesn't say anything about the veracity Marxist forms of analysis either. You may feel like you don't need to argue over its validity simply because fewer people see it as valid now. Fine, but again, if you claim that his critique of capitalism "was never valid," and use as your only supporting evidence the fact that fewer people accept it than before, it is pretty difficult to take you seriously. Wikipedia link notwithstanding.
In claiming that Marxism is somehow "closer to a religion," what are you talking about? Are you talking about Stalinism? If so, what relationship does that have to the actual critique of capitalism -- and method of investigation -- advanced by Marx? Or are you just trotting out a stereotype, because your world view doesn't permit you to think that maybe, in fact, Marx may have written a thing or two of some value, and that you just haven't read it? Oh, I have heard the arguments against Marx, and I am far from "willfully oblivious" to them. In fact, it strikes me that I am hardly the one who is "willfully oblivious" here. After all, I am the one who has read lots of Marx, lots of non-Marx, and lots of anti-Marx social, cultural and economic theory, evaluated them, found some wanting, some less wanting, and some incredibly insightful. Can you say the same?
First, the example that I used was "Ireland," not "Northern Ireland." In fact, I think that I specifically wrote "Ireland (all of it)."
The British occupied and colonized Ireland -- all of it -- for several hundred years, and for at least a century claimed that it wasn't a colony, but an integral part of Great Britain. This claim is still made about six of the counties, the "Northern Ireland" that you refer to, which is an entity dreamed up by British policy makers and has no precedent as having any existence at all prior to 1921.
Now, most of the island became independent. This, in the terms that you used before, makes it a "previous province," and, if the British were to re-take Dublin and the 26 counties, they would be "re-assimilating a previous province." This is the situation that you claim is the situation of Tibet. How the Irish situation would be different in legal or ethical terms is completely unclear to me. Please explain.
As far as the plebiscite in Northern Ireland, please give some citation for that bizarre statistic. Not only does 98% in favor of the North staying part of the UK bely all common sense, but I can find no reference to it. Sure, in 1973 there was a plebiscite limited to the North on the question of remaining part of the UK, and it held by 57%. The Catholic population has grown quite a bit as a percentage of the population since then. Where are you getting 98%?
There was another plebiscite, though, that simply backs up what I have been saying. When the Irish were given a vote on becoming an independent country, it was approved overwhelmingly. In fact, of the 32 counties in Ireland, it was only defeated in 4. That is a pretty clear-cut case in favor of national independence (actually self-rule), wouldn't you say? The British response: "well, we can't really undo the plebiscite without sparking an all-out rebellion, so we'll just take those 4 counties that voted against it, plus two more neighboring counties for good measure, democracy be damned." Et voila, they created "Northern Ireland," a political entity that had never existed in any form before that moment, and one that has been predictably unstable.
This also begs the question: why no plebiscite in Tibet? Surely, as good Chinese citizens, the Tibetans wouldn't want to break with the motherland! Or could it be, perhaps, that the Chinese know damn well that the Tibetans are not Chinese, and that they would assert that position given the chance? Could it be, perhaps, that the Chinese government has absolutely no illusion that it is a colonial power in Tibet, despite all the flowering rhetoric? Could it be that they cynically laugh at all those who are fooled by the rhetoric and can't see the Chinese occupation of Tibet for the colonialist land-and-resource grab that it so obviously is?
Well, obviously.
Well, a few things. First, I don't claim that Parenti is an "ardent supporter" of the Chinese occupation. Second, Parenti doesn't use the word "liberation," but it is implicit throughout -- the Tibetans suffered under terrible feudalism, after the Chinese came in, they had hospitals; and let's not forget that the Chinese call this the "peaceful liberation of Tibet," something that Parenti does nothing to challenge in his portrayal of the Chinese "intervention."
As far as the Dalai Lama's political stance. Let's keep in mind that he was not actually given traditional political authority until the Chinese invasion began. When he did take political authority, he embraced the Chinese reforms as they were presented to him. The Chinese practice of reform, of course, was very different from what was presented to him -- i.e., the Chinese treated Tibet like an occupied country, and treated the Tibetans as a colonized people. One other thing to keep in mind is that the Dalai Lama was still a teenager when he left for exile. Given all that, to somehow claim that his political positions are purely the result of the Chinese occupation seems really, really premature.
Would the Dalai Lama have been a great, reforming, benevolant, egalitarian force in Tibet without the Chinese colonization? Well, we'll really never know. And that is precisely the point. Tibetans were not allowed to take their situation into their own hands, something that Parenti (one would think) should recognize as their right -- a right negated by foreign occupation and colonization.
Interestingly, Parenti also paints the Khampa rebels as somehow this small, isolated force dreamed up and "massively" supplied by the CIA. Leave the fact of the Lhasa uprising out of it (or any of the numerous regional rebellions), since that would cloud Parenti's picture. Sure, the Khampas took CIA money, a few guns, and got some training in Colorado. This hardly makes them evil, or simple tools of US imperialism. Nor does it make the Tibetan resistance against Chinese rule, as Parenti suggests, simply one more CIA plot. The Khampas lost because they were outnumbered and outgunned. Plain and simple. They accepted CIA help because it was offered, plain and simple.
Why should the Khampas have taken the political sensitivities of US anti-imperialists into account when trying to liberate their country from foreign occupation? Should they have told the CIA, "Um, no thanks. We don't want your weapons because we prefer to take on a modern foreign army forged in decades of war that is also numerically superior to us -- we prefer to take them on with pointed sticks. Plus, we know what your going to do in Guatemala in a few years."
On the other point, yes, if I claimed that nobody every claims that Tibet was paradise prior to the invasion, then I misrepresented myself. What I should have expressed is that it is not trotted out as a reason for the end of Chinese rule. The reason for the end of the Chinese occupation, across the board, has always been national self-determination.
Even if we give Parenti the benefit of the doubt on all of this, the piece still strikes me as hypocritical. Having read a number of other things by Parenti on Vietnam, Bosnia and Kosovo, the sudden ambiguity in his stance against colonial aggression sticks out like a sore thumb. Suddenly, it seems, colonial aggression is all about context. Considering the omissions that he makes and the outright misrepresentations (if the Khampas got "massive" aid from the CIA, then my granny was Joan of Arc), this piece is pretty hard to take very seriously. PS: KROU was on constantly in my apartment until I moved inland...
Surely with such a strong statement like that you can tell just exactly which parts of Marx's critique of capitalism are no longer valid. Please be as specific as possible so that I can refer to the proper texts to check up on Marx's reasoning and find out exactly where he went wrong. I trust that you know what you are talking about, so please do fill me in and please do so in some detail. After all, I wouldn't want to come away thinking that you made a claim like this without having any idea of what you're talking about.
Also, if you can point me to some other thinker who has developed a more coherent and convincing explanation of exactly how capitalism historically works, that would be great. It would have to be able to explain things like the nature of profit, what labor actually is, what the root of value is, why cycles of accumulation happen rather than just straight-forward lifting of all boats, etc. And it should do that without appeals to intangible mucky-muck like "human nature," "desire," "greed," or anything else that is just a lazy way of saying "because."
Show me these things, and I'll consider them, and pronounce Marx dead as well if convinced. I can't imagine that you are simply working with stereotypical ideas of what you think Marxism is. Those are much to easy to dismiss. So please, bring me up to speed using some good, solid evidence of the errors of Marx and, if it exists, about a coherent alternative. I'd hate to have dead ideas floating around in my head, as convincing and coherent as their explanations of actually-existing reality are.
Now this I absolutely agree with. In fact, if you will re-read my post, that is pretty much exactly what it says. Funny how even someone clouded with "dead" ideas could figure that out, huh?
Tibet was never a "previous province" of China. Sure, the Chinese can make the claim all they want, but it only makes sense if a.) you pick just one of the many political configurations of Central Asia; and b.) you assume that prior to the 20th century "China" was a modern national "state" with "provinces." Reading the same history, one would be on just as solid an historical footing to say that all the different parts of China are actually renegade Tibetan territory and should be under the authority of the Dalai Lama.
To follow your own logic a bit further: if the English decide to up and invade Ireland (all of it), send in colonists to outnumber the local population (try again, that is), then that really is a matter for the English to worry about. Why should the Irish be considered anything but a "previous province" of Britain, as long as the English consider it to be so? After all, they speak the same language (now) and, unlike the Tibetans and the Chinese, they even use the same script to write it. To trump up any differences between the Irish and the English would be to ignore just how culturally and linguistically diverse England really is (not to mention Britain as a whole).
Let's re-work a few other maps, using your reasoning.
Buenos Aires was the capital of the Viceroyalty of the Rio de la Plata. (Sure, we aren't talking about a modern nation-state, but then again, you really aren't either.) Now, when the Argentines go ahead and invade Uruguay, Bolivia, and Paraguay claiming that they are just "re-assimilating previous provinces" I assume that that is cool with you. Oh, and then let's have the present-day modern nation-state of Peru go ahead and invade and occupy everything that the Argentines just did, throwing in Ecuador, Colombia, Panama, Chile and Venezuela for good measure. After all, these were all part of the Viceroyalty of Peru, ruled from Lima. Cool with you? Great. Our maps are getting much cleaner, without all those nasty lines and varieties of names.
Of course, that would be stupid. It is a question of national self-determination, plain and simple. It doesn't matter if the Chinese think that the Tibetans are really Chinese. It matters what the Tibetans think.
As a good, conscientious Marxist myself, I can confidently say that Parenti is not too bright. He is not even consistent for that matter. He is opposed to the Iraq war (as am I), and argues that it was the invasion of one sovereign country by another. Yet somehow he supports the Chinese invasion and occupation of Tibet, because, well, somehow they deserved it because Parenti didn't like the particular form of oppression there. Oh, and plus the Chinese claim to be Marxists, so I guess that that makes it OK. He is against the Israeli settlements and says the UN specifically bans population transfers to occupied territories; yet he has no problem when the Chinese do this on a far, far greater scale in Tibet.
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Its pathetic, really. Either you are (like Lenin) for the self-determination of nations regardless of their stage of economic and social development; or you support some variant of nationalism. Either you are against colonization, or you are for it. If Parenti were at all consistent or intellectually honest, he would say: "I support the Chinese invasion and colonization of Tibet because China is more progressive. I also support the US invasion of Iraq and Afghanistan because, as much as it pains me to say it, the US is the more progressive side in those conflicts. Israeli settlements in the West Bank are wrong, and so is the Chinese population transfer to Tibet." But he doesn't. And he doesn't because he either isn't that bright or isn't that honest. Take your pick.
And let's not be naive -- the Chinese invasion and continued colonization of Tibet has nothing to do with "liberation," socialism, or anything noble. This is about aggressive nationalism plain and simple, and now it is also about capitalism. It seems that the Chinese just can't imagine having a neighbor without Kentucky Fried Chicken, McDonalds, Budweiser, and a good Chinese-owned mining company digging up whatever it can dig up.
Of course Tibet was no paradise before the invasion. The only times that I have ever heard this claim is when pro-Chinese-invasion people say things like "supporters of the Dalai Lama claim that Tibet was a paradise before the Chinese came, but it really was a nasty place." Other than that, I have only heard supporters talk about this as an issue of national self-determination. Why is that something so hard to understand?
One other thing to consider about the Dalai Lama. Like his predecessors, he is way out ahead of the dominant class of Tibet in political terms. He demanded a constitution that would limit his political authority, and then called all Tibetans to vote on it. He wants to retire as anything but ceremonial head of state, or at least have his successor do this. The programs that he has called for in a truly autonomous Tibet make Dennis Kucinich look like Dick Cheney. And, of course, he also considers himself a Marxist.
http://hhdl.dharmakara.net/hhdlquotes1.html#marxi
Given that the Dalai Lama is more politically progressive than the current Chinese government; given that the Chinese occupation of Tibet is illegal; given that the Chinese colonization of Tibet is a violation of United Nations regulations on occupation; and given that the majority of Tibetans recognize him, not the Chinese government, as the legitimate ruler of the country -- given all that, why on Earth would anyone support the Chinese position on this?
There is one reason: Chinese nationalism. It really is that simple.