>A common vision to do what? Do we (leaving aside of any question of who
>"we" are) join the AFL-CIO and William Greider in their embrace of global
>Keynsianism? What do we tell the UAW strikers in Flint, waving their
>American flags and indicting GM for its lack of patriotism, rather than its
>rapaciousness and stupidity?
Old marxist concept -- critical support. Support them in attacking GM -- but criticize them for the narrow nationalism and attack GM for rapaciousness and stupidity. Mind you, I don't think the left needs to leave the patriotism card entirely to the right. Why not redefine patriotism in a progressive manner.
> What about immigration? Open the borders?
Yup
>And what about trade? Agitate relentlessly about NAFTA and MAI, or challenge
>the narrow focus on "globalization"?
Use NAFTA, MAI, IMF and other attempts at building a corporate constitution as a starting point of analyses of a world system of socialism for the rich while everyone else is left to the tender mercies of the imaginary free market.
>What about localism and self-reliance?
90% nonsense; we are all members of one another. However, in addition
to the alienation of producers from their labor, capitalism also
produces alienation of production from consumption. The idea that a
worker should know where her labor is going, and that a consumer
should understand the labor that went into the product she uses is an
important one. In addition, the practical point is important:
capitalism by externalizing environmental costs produces things at a
much greater distance from their consumption point than makes sense
from a social accounting standpoint.
>Are Ithaca hours and other local money schemes promising or silly?
Silly. But they do tacitly acknowledge one important point -- that people should have the same income for each hour worked, that I should receive no more for an hour of my labor than you do for an hour of yours.
> Howabout affirmative action and comparable worth? Foreground them, or keep
>quiet to keep Joe Sixpack happy?
Foreground them.
>Or does Joe Sixpack even exist?
Joe Sixpack is a workerist stereotype. But of course a large part of white male workers seek to maintain skin and gender privilege, just as a large part of the left seeks to maintain class privilege. Make the demands additive, not competitive. Don't downplay gender and skin privilege to appease pink penis people. Don't downplay economic egalitarianism or give in to market worship to appease upper middle class environmentalists. Don't downplay democracy or civil liberties to appease those who fancy themselves natural leaders or a vanguard. You treat all demands equally by treating all demands equally.
> And what about Third World development policy? Delinking and partial autarky?
To answer this -- you need to define the question a bit better. Are you asking what a third world country that wants to be socialist or at least progressive should do now -- in the face of capitalism world hegemony? That would have to depend on the particular circumstances for each country, would it not?
Or are you asking what the left of the industrialized worlds position should be towards actually existing neoliberalisms, kleptocracies, fascisms, the occasional military socialism and mixtures thereof. Obviously, the position is:
1)oppose military aid, sales, and training to anyone. The industrial world should not be in the business of exporting weapons to anyone, or for that matter in piling up huge numbers of weapons for it's own use.
2) oppose sanctions, and trade boycotts in almost all cases. The one exception is (as was the case in South Africa)is when there is a progressive movement with a mass base within a country calling for such sanctions, and willing to suffer for the long term gain. How do you tell? You have to use intelligent analysis and facts.
3)Oppose genocide, femicide, and other horrors committed by third world government. Support humanitarian aid to the people of such countries -- given in the form that the victims of such oppressions approve of. Oppose military aid and political aid to evil governments disguised as humanitarian aid.
I have the feeling, that on this one I'm answering a different question than you are asking. If so, elucidate.
>Biotech - try to civilize it, or just say no, a la Vandana Shiva?
Try to civilize it.
Part of civilizing it is an attack on the new fencing in of the commons, the expansion of intellectual property rights to genes. This of course leads to an attack on some pretty well established intellectual property rights -- the ownership of species.
Another part of civilizing is an attack on the usual socialiszation of risks, privitization of profits which is one of the hearts of capitalism.
>And whatabout that postcapitalist future? Pretty hard to conceive of in 1998, isn't
>it?Just how many people are interested in imagining it, much less
traveling there?
Both imagining it, and getting people interested in traveling there is our job as leftists. But defining it as post-capitalism is underdefining it. Post-capitalist, post-gender-privilige, post-skin-privilege, post-ableist... Possibly, a better way to to define is as post-hiearchy.
>If you've got the answers, please let me know. We could even cc: Wendy & Judy.
Doug