Brad DeLong writes:
> >Either that or people actually *liked* having their teeth fall out...
Louis Proyect writes:
>I don't think the discussion is about dental hygeine. It is about the
>right of a Vietnamese in the 60s or a Colombian peasant today to not have
>napalm dropped on them because they believe that the development theories
>of Walt Rostow are inappropriate to their society.
Actually, isn't there a Greek myth about sowing dragon teeth, so that Brad
is getting us back to the subject line?
Joking aside, the issue is closer to what Louis says. We don't have to go
all the way with to napalm (and we should remember that by today's Newtish
Clintonite standards, Walt Rostow was a New Deal liberal). The fact is that
these days, as part of the world-wide neoliberal ascendancy, the US, IMF,
World Bank, and transnational corporations are using military, economic,
and financial power to destroy all sorts of "traditional" agriculture in a
way that's quite similar to the process that Marx described in his chapters
on "Primitive Accumulation." This means that people aren't simply moving to
the city to get away from bad dental hygiene and to get to the bright
lights on Broadway (or their equivalent in Mexico City or Manila or ...)
They're being shoved aside by the spread of agribusiness, which in
conjunction with its allies in the state is grabbing all of the best land
and destroying the environment with massive doses of pesticides,
herbicides, and chemical fertilizers. In the city, the expelled people
find conditions that may be even less conducive to good dental hygiene or
the good nutrition that helps people keep their teeth (which is what Brad
is referring to, I believe -- he hardly ever elaborates his thoughts to
clarify them). Without having their own gardens (which are destroyed by the
capitalist process of urbanization), they become dependent on the good will
of the capitalists for their sustenance and can starve not only due to bad
weather or famine but due to the overproduction crises that come with the
rise of capitalism, which lead to mass joblessness. And the powers don't be
don't care about that starvation until the workers organize and make a lot
of noise (or if diseases threaten to spread to La Zona Rosa or its
equivalent rich district in other poor-country cities).
Actually, the good news about the move to the city is _not_ any kind of
automatic increase in the standard of living (since the powers that be,
including not only the US, the IMF, and the World Bank but also the local
bourgeoisie will struggle mightily to prevent that kind of increase) but
rather the fact that the concentration of workers into cities and factories
helps creates conditions that allow workers to unite and actually win some
of their demands. (Being scattered across the countryside in distinct
communities with small holdings of property makes it hard to organize
collectively. I think that atomization is what Marx was talking about when
he referred to the "idiocy of rural life.")
The big fear of the US elites is that the workers and peasants will try
moving trying a path to good dental hygiene and other worldly goods that
deviates from the neoliberal Party Line. This fear remains even though the
official Truth is that "There Is No Alternative," that only (neoliberal)
capitalism can exist. So the efforts to suppress alternatives continues
apace. Besides, imposing neoliberalism is profitable business, as when the
Harvard Harpies dug their talons into Russia's carcass. What's good for
capitalism as a whole and what's good for individual capitalists as
individuals mesh together well, reinforcing the trend -- until the "race
to the bottom" causes an underconsumption crisis and/or an environmental
melt-down that swamps even the US.
One problem is that the revolutions in the poor countries often are pretty
incomplete themselves. Social-democratic parties have found themselves
swept into the neoliberal whirlpool as their roots in the working class
withered. On the other hand, the "actually existing socialisms" were
usually pretty good at developing welfare states (in response to the
popular revolts which put the leadership in power) which helped dental
hygiene and provided a large amount of security (once the revolution got
beyond the bloody stage, e.g., high Stalinism).[*] But in the long run,
even the best revolutionary governments became detached from their social
bases, becoming increasingly top-down toward, and fearful of, the workers
and peasants. (In Eastern Europe, with the notable exception of Tito's
Yugoslavia, the situation _started_ that way, since the revolution was
imposed from the outside, by the USSR.)
More concretely, we see people like the leftist rebels in Colombia being
willing to compromise with the drug traders and the like. Note that I'm not
blaming them, since the objective conditions they face make any other
choice close to impossible. But it does say something about the future
possibilities for socialism there -- or rather it says something about the
_kind_ of socialism most likely to arise.
Nonetheless, the US and its minions should allow all of the countries of
the world to try their own paths -- rather than attacking them covertly (as
with Chile), militarily (as with Nicaragua), or economically (as with even
Mitterand's France). Not only is this policy anti-democratic, but as I've
said before the imposition of a one-size-fits-all neoliberal template
prevents the human societal variety that's necessary to long-term adaptation.
And notice that the imposition of neoliberalism isn't in the name of
reducing world-wide externality problems like global warming, for which
interdependencies imply the need for some kind of collective
decision-making and imposition on the free-riders. At least according to
its proponents, capitalism could do pretty well even if it were bottled up
in one country. At least according to its proponents, capitalist
globalization isn't needed. So the neoliberal template need not be forced
onto the world.
[*] Has anyone ever noticed the similarity between the development of the
USSR and that of the Ford Motor Company (or similar "entrepreneurial"
corporations)? It starts with the radical idiosyncrasies of the Great
Leader (Stalin, Henry Ford, Sr.), who is then replaced by nameless
bureaucratic suits who normalize the regime.
Jim Devine [EMAIL PROTECTED] & http://liberalarts.lmu.edu/~JDevine
