Ulhas Joglekar wrote: >I meant to supplement his observations by saying that not only the >developing world gets less FDI than the developed world, even within the >developing Asia, "Leninist" regimes get the bulk of FDI. Non "Leninist" >developing nations get very little FDI. > I am glad that Ulhas puts quotes around "Leninist". For most Marxists, the only evidence of Lenin's thinking in China today is that section of the emerging new left that urges a return to Maoism or that is in contact with leftists in the West. As far as Vietnam is concerned, I recommend Gabriel Kolko's "Vietnam: Anatomy of a Peace."
Vietnam: Anatomy of a Peace By Gabriel Kolko Routledge; 190 pp. Review by Asad Ismi What should a communist party do when it leads a nation to victory over the most powerful empire the world has ever known at the cost of three million lives? Build an equitable society for the survivors, of course. The Communist Party of Vietnam has not done so as Gabriel Kolko shows in this excellent analysis of Vietnam's post-war economic strategy. Kolko, a historian of United States foreign policy, is the author of Vietnam: Anatomy of a War, considered to be one of the best accounts of the U.S. invasion of Vietnam. As the author points out, any path the Communists chose after 1975 would have been difficult given the enormous destruction the U.S. had wrought with 13 million tons of bombs and 20 million gallons of herbicide. Much of Vietnam was destroyed and parts of the north resembled a moonscape. Considerable critical thought was needed to make the transition from a wartime to a peacetime economy while preserving the socially supportive structure that had made the victory possible. This included equitable land distribution and a rural life (80 percent of Vietnam's population lives in the countryside) centered around co-operatives which ensured that villagers (who sacrificed so much for the war effort) received food, housing, free education, and medical care. It was essential that the wounds of war be healed by the creation of a humane society which is what people had fought for. Instead, the Party's "market reforms," initiated in 1986, embraced the crudest frontier capitalism: landlords were brought back to the villages to re-concentrate property and industrial exploiters to the cities to take advantage of low-wage labor. Free education and medical care were ended and most Vietnamese were thrust into a brutal economic system in which they could not even meet their basic needs. Land, wealth, and social services became increasingly monopolized by an emerging economic elite mostly drawn from the Party. Ironically, this system promoted the same values that Washington had militarily tried to force on Vietnam. Now U.S. economic objectives were being carried out by its international agents, the World Bank and the IMF (the guiding lights of economic reform in Vietnam) who hoped to succeed where the Pentagon had failed. As Kolko puts it, "That an epic war should have been fought so that a class society may again be re-established is a moral betrayal that defies description." full: http://www.zmag.org/zmag/articles/ismimay98.htm >Imperialism has >made important contribution to the economic development of China through >trade (e.g. the access to the US market), FDI etc. Official reports from >China have suggested that the integration of China in the world market >contributes about 2% to the annual economic growth of China. > > No, trade has made an important contribution to the economic development of China. The price of trade was the opening up of the economy to multinationals looking for a place where labor laws were either lax or nonexistent. Cuba's trade with Europe is not at the expense of working people's health or safety. >The logic behind the export of capital is said to be the need to restore the >profitability of the capital the "Core" so-called, by using super profits >from the so-called colonies and semi-colonies. (China and Vietnam are the >most important colonies/semi-colonies of Imperialism in Asia, if this logic >is >correct.) This has not been demonstrated, as far as know. > This is too one-sided. The drive to "open up" China and Vietnam to the west is not solely motivated by the need to make super-profits. There was a political need as well. In the drive to make the world safe for capitalist investment, it was necessary to co-opt two countries that had undergone powerful revolutions so as to drive home the lesson that THERE IS NO ALTERNATIVE. For some leftists, this has obviously has had a deeply disorienting effect. >Yes, I agree. I am not sure there is a coherent Marxist theory of >Imperialism. > > I would choose the most incoherent Marxist theory of imperialism any day of the week over the warmed-over Thomas Friedmanism that has seeped into our ranks. -- Louis Proyect www.marxmail.org
