I've never seen a military dictator that was worth anything. Back in 1968, for example, there was a "progressive" military coup in Peru. It was (in short) a disaster, though Peru's military budget rose. Military dictators serve their own interests and the interests of the powers that be. They enforce class relations. Look at Marx's writings on Bonapartism (in vol. I of Hal Draper's KARL MARX'S THEORY OF REVOLUTION). (Draper sees one case in Marx where the Bonapartist military establishment threatened to become a new ruling class. I think Draper or Marx went too far. But the military can and does enrich itself. In Guatemala, for example, the members of the military junta joined the ruling class.)
>As to protectionism leading to chauvinism, I definitely think the IMF
>politics has prepared for this version of protectionism. There are two
>types of nationalism in this respect, I think, defensive and chauvinistic.
>Russia certainly needs the first type.
The IMF definitely encourages nationalism via the failure of its policies for the nations affected. No doubt about it. But I don't see any difference between defensive and chauvanistic nationalism. If anything, there's a distinction between the nationalism of a dominated country (as in the 3rd world) and that of a dominant country (in the "North"). Now it might be argued that "the East has gone South" so that Russia is effectively a third-world country. That's why I said that autarchy sort of made sense for Russia. But given the _political balance of power_ in Russia, I don't think that this will be progressive.
And nationalism, even in the third world, can be disgusting toward ethnic minorities. Note how the Sandinistas, who were pretty good in most respects, treated the Misquitos.
Finally, if one wants to understand the world, I think it's necessary to get beyond the history of economic thought (what List or even Marx said) and talk about the political economy of the countries involved.
Jim Devine jdevine at popmail.lmu.edu & http://clawww.lmu.edu/Departments/ECON/jdevine.html