MHL:
> I guess we have a difference of opinion on what politics is about. The
> issue is not short-run "victories" which are really non-victories. Keeping
> China out of the WTO will only ensure the status quo. At issue is first
> determining what kind of political understanding we want to promote and
> then figuring out how to effectively promote it.
In re: the last sentence, some people have already figured
out what political understanding we want to promote. We
want to defend living standards of the working class by
strengthening trade unions and by extending the capacity
of the State to provide a greater social wage. We think
gains of this sort are feasible because we do not see
the State as a monolithic, alien instrument, but as
something susceptible to political mobilization.
Regulating markets is an elementary resort. A market
overlapping national borders is no less worthy of
regulation than any other. Pushing international
trade regimes in this direction is one dimension
of this project. Keeping China out of the WTO
under present circumstances is a logical step.
I would say that short-run victories are the
mother's milk of longer-term campaigns. Symbolic
victories have real political implications, witness
the campaign to get the confederate flag off the
S.C. statehouse.
MHL:
> I think that in this period ideological struggle is very important. Real
> politics is finding a way to help people understand the nature of the
> system that they live in and move as quickly as possible to embrace
> actions to transform that system in appropriate ways. If the problem is
> capitalism and the role of the US state and US MNCs, then we need to think
> creatively about how to promote that understanding.
MBS:
I suspect that 'nature of the system' really means portraying
the system as implacable and immune to reforms. If not, so
much the better. People do not choose social systems by comparing
models on a shelf. They grapple with day to day problems and reach
conclusions about politics, reforms, and systems.
MHL:
> Saying that the issue is china and its lack of human rights for workers is
> not some how any more or less a lecture than saying that the issue is
> capitalism and the actions of US MNCs. The difference is that the first
> is just a bad lecture, from which confused politics is bound to come. And
> the second .... well you can guess. Marty
The China issue is not a lecture in the sense that it
is part of a larger political project. You can find
things to criticize in it, but there is a there there.
What's the political project underlying "the issue is
capitalism and the actions of US MNC's"?
One of the inconsistencies in your argument goes to
your idea that labor is targeting China, rather than
either the US Gov or MNC's. But our trade relations
with CHina (the actual target) clearly derive from
the policy of the U.S. state, and in other contexts,
it is asserted w/o qualification that the policies
of the State are dictated by MNC's.
cheers,
mbs
