G'day Erik,
You write:
> If we were really going to put your statement into practice, we
>would have to go to the "newly industrializing nations" (I believe that is
>the P.C. term for Third World nowadays) and attempt to direct them towards
>revolutionary consciousness (since they are far more exploited than most
>Western workers and thus far more likely to revolt)..
The thrust of this argument is certainly tenable, but it is my understanding
that it is in fact the western worker who is the more exploited. Working
with state-of-the-art technology puts the western worker in the position of
creating many times the value of one's wage (more surplus value is extracted
per worker). Of course, many NIC workers do work with up-to-date technolgy,
but definitively most do not. Though their lives are often brutalised and
impoverished by the exploitative relationship that pertains between employer
and employee, it is their level of *immiseration* rather than exploitation,
that is so particularly hideous. But, even if I'm right, that doesn't
detract from your point, of course.
>However, you still
>have to deal with increasing state power and military interventionism in
the
>First World (e.g. the U.S. or NATO acting as a "firefighter" to put out
such
>global revolutionary hot-spots, ostensively for reasons of preserving the
>peace (read: preserving global capitalism)).
'Third worldist' theory always comes up against this problem. Then again, I
don't think it'd be outrageous in this relatively 'globalised' time to argue
that some trouble in certain NICs could in fact wreak havoc all over the
world. 'Tis one of the contradictions of late capitalism (ie in the days of
globalised finance, unregulated speed-of-light transfers, secret hedge-fund
dispositions, doomed short-termism by which money is invested in money
rather than capital due to excess capacity pressures and growing inventories
etc etc), that chaos is truly free to do its thing. The wave of an
Ecuadorian butterfly might yet indeed wreak a great storm in the City of
London. And then, by the 'crisis sweeps away the bullshit' argument, you do
indeed have a prerevolutionary episode.
It still worries me that so few here think it necessary to reflect on how we
might avoid dangers of bureaucratic centralism (which might initially offer
a marked improvement in humanity's fortunes, but can not be entertained for
long - the likes of Locke and Acton weren't without a point, y'know,
absolute power is potentially corrupting whilst humans remain at all like
those who roam the earth today).
Cheers,
Rob.
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