Having dealt with the question of fact I return to this theme because the post has the merit of counterposing two political positions fairly clearly
At 24/07/02 09:40 -0400, Louis Proyect wrote: >Chris Buford: <snip> >>But most importantly, geopolitically, it is necessary now to call into >>existence the Old World to redress the balance of the New. > >I have no idea what this means. I would suggest that the meaning is clearly against US hegemonism. I would ask other US members of the list, and not just Louis Proyect, to consider the possibility that this might be an important political task now on the global level. After the fall of the state socialist bloc, it is not easy to see how we can oppose US hegemonism. All the more reason to think about it and discuss the basis for such cooperation. (Concerning the phrase, I had forgotten the original quotation and perhaps it would not be familiar on the other side of the Atlantic. It was a statement by the British foreign secretary, George Canning in the middle 1820's that he was calling in the new world to redress the balance of the old. It was actually a declaration of the intention of British imperialism to extend its influence particularly in Latin America. Louis Proyect has written a lot about how in the 19th century Latin America became a semi-colony of British imperialism, and certainly that is well known. It might appear a Freudian slip that I should allude to a British imperialist to argue that Europe is now an important ally of the people of the world against US hegemonism, but I have always been explicit, to the point of tedium, in conscientiously acknowledging the imperialist nature of contemporary Britain and Europe, so I am happy to make the point explicit yet again. ) >>There is a sometimes a counterposed symmetry in the positions of Louis >>Proyect and mine. I regard it as the first international duty of any >>citizen of the USA to oppose US hegemonism, and to pay due attention to >>all the rival forces in the world, including the other imperialisms in >>order to have a realistic chance of doing so. I tend to assume that Louis >>Proyect would regard the first duty of a citizen of a western European >>country to oppose their own imperialism and the new European imperialism, >>and I have to concede there are quite a number of Lenin quotations to >>this effect. > >I wish you would post them to the list. They would have a less deleterious >effect than genuflections to the Euro-Zone. Obviously in arguing that the potential divisions between Europe and the USA should be exploited by the progressive working people of the world, I am not "genuflecting". Nor do I see the policy I am adopting is deleterious. I am surprised on the other hand that left-wingers in the USA may not apparently see the deleterious nature of deflecting attention away from the urgent task of opposing US hegemonism. >>I see the development of a more diversified world in which power is >>struggled over between imperialist blocs, so long as they do not go in >>for war, as favourable to the interests of the working people of the >>world, and to the development of world unity and world government on the >>basis of some relative justice. > >For the workers, the choice between US imperialism and European >imperialism is like the choice between cyanide and arsenic. Or so Louis Proyect thinks they should believe. But confident assertions do not always determine reality, as we saw with the citation. Besides the issue is more whether for the people of the rest of the world, the choice between US imperialism and European imperialism is like the choice between cyanide and arsenic. I think the Arab people would not say this. I think that the Argentinian people would have have been given more help in recovering from their financial crisis. I think the people of Africa would do better with the sort of international development proposals put forward by Gordon Brown than by George Bush. I think the people of the world would do better with Europe's approach to global pollution than that of the Bush administration. >>That will make it easier, not more difficult, to move on to the struggle >>for socialism. IMO. > >I see. The triumph of Euro-Zone neoliberalism, which will prevail over the >smoldering ruins of the Social Democratic welfare state, will bring us >closer to socialism. This "dialectical" insight takes my breath away. I certainly agree with Louis Proyect that the Maastricht convergence criteria for the EU and in preparation for the Eurozone, were heavily neo-liberal, as that was the trend at the time. European imperialism has a lot to gain by freeing up the capital market and rationalising production in the whole of Europe by take-overs. Nevertheles the social democratic trends in Europe are far deeper and stronger than in the USA, and the term "smoldering ruins" is a great distortion of what is probably going to happen. Even five years from now, there will still be provisions in Europe that progressive people in the USA would welcome now. That is my prediction of the balance of internal forces in Europe. With the humiliation of the US model of finance capital, there will now be less pressure for Europe to conform closely to this model. I hope Louis Proyect's breath is indeed taken away, because I detect very little dialectical in his approach at all, whether you put the word in inverted commas or not. I would be more convinced if he could explain how from the existing contradictions in the world we get to world socialism. I am aware of nothing strategic from him except an implication that if everyone fought opportunism in their own country there would be a revolution in each country, which would presumably gather momentum, country by country, in the way revolutions are supposed to have spread out form Cuba across Latin America. I think I have been fairly clear that moves towards world government with regulation of capital, and justice, is on balance more progressive than economic and political affairs being controlled in a more fragmented and less accountable way by existing imperialist and finance capitalist forces. A world government can be used much more clearly to place on the agenda issues like control of global pollution and phased development. People can then promote progressive policies by all appropriate political methods, including street demonstrations. That must weaken the power of finance capital rather than strengthen it, and must accelerate radical change whether it comes through reform or revolution. Louis Proyect usefully quotes from Lenin to highlight the political differences between us on the role of Europe. First a comment on quotations from Lenin. Both I and Louis Proyect clearly regard Lenin as one of the formative figures of 20th century Marxism. I suspect both of us would deny we have a dogmatic attitude towards him. IMHO Louis Proyect reinterprets Lenin's repeated strictures against Menshevism in a way that is not constent with Lenin's position, and does not seem dogmatic to me. In turn I think that what I believe was Lenin's model of the single centralised party is not possible in curent conditions. Most relevantly on this particular debae, I think Lenin was wrong at Zimmerwald, and I appreciate Louis Proyect highlighting this issue some years ago and arguing that Lenin was correct. Therefore it will be no surprise that I say that the arguments Lenin made "On the United States of Europe Slogan" 1915 are incorrect for today. In particular Lenin went on from the passages Louis Proyect quoted, to write: >Uneven economic and political development is an absolute law of >capitalism. Hence, the victory of socialism is possible first in several >or even in one capitalist country alone. After expropriating the >capitalists and organising their own socialist production, the victorious >proletariat of that country will arise against the rest of the world -- >the capitalist world -- attracting to its cause the oppressed classes of >other countries, stirring uprisings in those countries against the >capitalists, and in case of need using even armed force against the >exploiting classes and their states. The political form of a society >wherein the proletariat is victorious in overthrowing the bourgeoisie will >be a demoeratie republic, which will more and more concentrate the forces >of the proletariat of a given nation or nations, in the struggle against >states that have not yet gone over to socialism. The abolition of classes >is impossible without a dictatorship of the oppressed class, of the >proletariat. A free union of nations in socialism is impossible without a >more or less prolonged and stubborn struggle of the socialist republics >against the backward states. No, the victory of socialism is no longer possible in several capitalist countries alone. (And I am not arguing over past terrain between "stalinists" and "trotskyists" in saying this, but talking about the present balance of forces in the world.) Lenin argued in Left Wing Communism an Infantile Disorder, "revolutionary theory is not a dogma". Just as marxism is a method, so is leninism a method. It is not correctly Leninist to take statements of policy at one time and regard them as automatically applicable in different conditions many years later. It is more loyal to take seriously the Leninist "method". From this point of view an aside in the course of another argument may add context to the way Lenin came to his conclusions at the time, even though it appears to contradict the broad headlines of what Lenin was writing at the time. That IMO is why Louis Proyect was demonstrably wrong about Lenin's comments about large markets. Similarly, if Lenin is to be taken as a serious source on 20th century marxism, it is not consistent to assume his conclusions at one time apply for ever. Most concretely now, we do not have a polycentric imperialist world in which the difference between each imperialist power is like the difference between cyanide and arsenic. We have a world in which the majority of members of this email list live in a country whose military forces are more powerful than the next fifteen most powerful armed forces in the world. Together. And post Sept 9 the difference is likely to get larger. That is why it is consistent with the spirit and method of Leninism today to seek to take advantage of differences between the imperialist blocs, at the risk of being satirised by others as promoting the "glories of the Eurozone". That is why it is more, not less, consistent with the method of Lenin to say today, as he did in 1920 in Left Wing Communism "To carry on a war for the overthrow of the international bourgeoisie, a war which is a hundred times more difficult, protracted and complicated than the most stubborn of ordinary wars between states, and to refuse beforehand to manouevre, to utilize the conflict of interests (even though temporary) among one's enemies, to refuse to temporize and compromise with possible (even temprorary, unstable, vacillating and conditional) allies - is this not ridiculous in the extreme?" The previous five years were a concentrated time. It is not Leninist to quote him in 1915 without the context of what he wrote in 1920 after he had found the extent to which revolutions were going to break out across all the countries of Europe following the war. I hope this helps to clarify the political and methodological differences between myself and Louis Proyect on the question of Europe and the struggle against US hegemonism. I hope it helps progressive people in the US to feel more confident in looking for international allies in this global struggle. Chris Burford London
