I think the marxist terminology correctly applied is coherent and not ritualistic. Much partial marxism uses the terminology in a mechanical and ritualistic fashion however.
"We" is the stance of people viewing the unfolding of a historical process going on in front of their eyes and taking the stance of the abstract working class. That class by its class position is inherently non-oppressive and non-exploitative of other people.
In the historical movement "we" point out the common interests of the abstract working class across unfolding time and across the different concrete conditions which repeatedly divide working people.
>
>>We are
>>in favour of working people of the world uniting, yes? We should also
>take
>>a developmental view of the progress of economic formations, and
>their
>>cultural accompaniments, to understand the rise and fall of nations.
>
>no. I am in favour of working class people uniting.
Ah.
>you are in favour
>of military and political actions which would see the entrenchment of
>nationalism in the ex-yu and in Europe (and US), which will divide,
>not unite.
I would not accept this. I think some acts of violence have to be confronted, especially what I call fascist violence which attacks the basic bourgeois democratic rights which all citizens of a bourgeois democratic state are entitled to while continuing to be exploited.
>
>{snip - because I have no inclination to argue that Serbian
>nationalism is a good thing, but unlike you I think that judgement
>also applies to US nationalism, Kosova nationalism, etc. and, unlike
>you, I'm not interested in the routine of the productive forces versus
>the social relations of production - take that one up with Jim. you
>both argue with the same phrases, but come
>to different conclusions. how's that possible?}
Because we are looking with differing degrees of perceptiveness at what is happening underneath the surface phenomena, and disagreeing, rather passionately, for Englishmen.
>I have no problem with supporting a reformism, nor with allying
>oneself with human rights groups etc. this you already know is not my
>concern. so, let's stop playing with this one, it seems to induce a
>feelings of brave orthodoxy and little more. what I do have a problem
>with is that you assert national oppression where I see racism. that
>is, you seek to solve the problem of national oppression (racism) with
>the mechanisms of nationalism (racism).
You have challenged me with a quiet assertiveness to answer your posts. I have not given them as much priority as other posts, not because I do not think you opinion is not in principle as valid as any other on this list, but because in terms of the dynamics of these lists there are pack phenomena, pecking orders, stigmatisation, marginalization and exclusion. Much of this is rather macho.
However in your particular case I take your frame of reference is not a specifically marxist one but that of a person of average good will living in a capitalist society. I am in favour of marxists being able to communicate with such people and not being a sect. But there is a different range and texture to such discourse.
On the theoretical point on which you challenge me here I would argue, and it is a longer argument that the marxist opposition to the oppression of nations is clear and developed in complex ways. The position of national minorities has become more important in late capitalist society which transcends the limits of the relatively small national market.
Racism I see as actually the oppression of a national minority, or national minorities. Although for some people their separateness is signalled by morphological differences which are in fact signifiers of cultural and economic differences. Thus the Irish or the Welsh may be subject to racism in England even though their skin colour is the same.
There is racism between the Serbs and the Albanians although on the CNN cameras they look much the same to me, except that the Serbs are smugger.
>
>>The right to self-determination requires a right for nationally
>compact
>>areas to secede.
>
>in order for this to make any sense at all beyond verbiage, you would
>have to define what 'nationally compact' is. what does this
>mean? crowded? don't tell me: nationhood is about some way of
>life... a bit like the IT wojtek thinks allbright wants to steal
>from Real Men...
It is meaningless put this way because you do not have a historical materialist understanding of the inner dynamic of nationalism at the time of rising capitalism - namely the capture of the domestic national market.
Progressive though the American Civil War was against the Southern slave owners, Marx and the 48 ers were also allying with their Northern capitalists to ensure the domination of the entire market of the USA. They opposed the interference of the British in whose imperialist interests it was that North America should be fragmented. Had it been fragmented into Canada and at least two other states where the present USA is, that would have enabled British imperialism to maintain more of a hegemonic role in North America as it did in South America after the collapse of the Spanish Empire.
But with the aid of Marx, the northern capitalists won this national war for consolidation of the single US nation, and laid the basis of the superpower whose hegemonistic aspirations police the world today, with not always happy results.
There is absolutely no historical alternative to Serbia being assimilated into the European Union although we should oppose it being assimilated by force. Serb nationalism is utterly reactionary.
So Angela, your critical remarks about "nationthingy" partly reflect an impatience with nations which is thoroughly compatible with the present state of the, I apologise, development of the means of production transcending the confines of a single market. But it obscures the dynamic of national oppressions which can remain very real, and against which not only marxists but all democrats should fight.
*** and now for Rob's contribution *** which he asked me to forward to LBO talk as he was at a different terminal.
I understand Rob to write from the theoretical position of admiring the Frankfurt School, in particular Habermas. I do not hold that against him.
>>>>
... we should remember that unqualified self-determination (a pretty
black'n'white notion in this gray world) is hardly on anyone's agenda for
Kosovo. You and I might disagree as to what this war is about, but I think
you'd find it hard to convince anybody that a wasted little place like
tomorrow's Kosovo is gonna be independent.
<<<<
Surely. It is about whether the Albanians of Kosovo can have self determination and autonomy within a wider economic unit. If that is not a socialist confederation of the Balkans, (impossible) it will have to be within the orbit of the European Union.
Marxists by no means automatically oppose assimilation and larger states, so long as it is not done on the basis of national oppression.
Ir the Australians want to get together with New Zealand to resist the IMF, so long as you can do it without oppressing New Zealand, good luck to you. That is why I am in favour of Scotland and Wales having as much independence as they want.
>>>>
the fact that it won't happen in any meaningful way - that what is happening precisely militates against just this - that even the unlikely event of a US-armed KLA gaining ascendancy ain't gonna get us the Kosovo yesterday's Kosovars had in mind - has to matter. <<<
Of course it has to matter. I am surprised you think that a US armed KLA could not gain ascendancy. NATO badly needs ground fighters who will risk their lives. It is now being emphasised even that the Apaches will not go into Kosovo.
As for the changes, well, Serb nationalism has just ensured a capitalist revolution in agriculture in Kosovo. The villages have been blown up. The land has been cleared for more intensive large scale agriculture. The clock can never be put back. The urban dwellers have triumphed.
Serb nationalism just has a slight problem that urban dwellers in conditions of advanced monopoly capitalism think that they are international and it is rather unethical to oppress minority nationalities since conditions of work under advanced capitalism require educated workers to work flexibly and efficiently with people of all different backgrounds. So to organise a revolution to change the composition of Pristina so that it is more like that of Nis is an absurd anachronism whatever heartfelt e-mails come from educated workers in Nis about their own suffering to the neglect of the suffering of their counterparts in Pristina.
>>>
I'm a sloppy anti-Leninist would-be Marxist - but heaps of anti-Leninists
are systematic and rigorous (although not as infuential) - just don't get
too sweeping with the plaudits in mixed company, eh?
<<
The problem of sloppiness is the view that it is sufficient always to oppose ones own government (because it is capitalist isn't it) and always remain in opposition, instead of contesting with capitalism the hegemony of civil society.
>>>>>
Serbian nationalism is reactionary in itself - but then it doesn't exist by
itself. Milosovich is no nationalist by all accounts - just an opportunist
who knew the fall of the wall was gonna necessitate 'new' identities, around
which, of course, he would fashion a new Milo and a new career.
<<<
Have you accepted my encouragement yet to visit the web site of the Serbian Ministry of Information? It really is intent on reversing the battle of 1389!
What was Operation Horseshoe?
And it is not that Milosevic's opportunism is counterposed to a more systematic reactionary strategy. Opportunism is the texture of bourgeois politics. He also is trying to fight the powerful centrifugal forces assimilating Serbia and all of the Balkans into the European Union, and he has chosen an absurd strategy of national socialism to do it.
One of the reasons why NATO is in such trouble is that Madeleine Albright's bluff has been called. Milosevic does not want to negotiate after 10 days of token NATO air attacks.
>>>>
And there
are good material reasons for Serbia to pinch slices of Bosnia and as much
of Kosovo as possible - and obviously a lot of Belgrade money agreed with
him for a decisive time (the gamble looks a bit sick now, but it was a good
shot).
<<<
Right. Objectively this is a strategy of Serb national capital. Let us assume that they incorporate Republica Srbska and Kosovo and Montegnegro (after much more ethnic cleansing) into a truly Serbian national state. How large will the gross domestic product of that state be? And will its capitalists wish to trade with anyone else?
This historical drama is being literally fought out, by people who are blind. They do not know that in the last instance the economic base determines politics, culture, and ideology.
>>>>
Remember that bit in the 18th Brumaire where Marx talks about Luis Bonaparte offering the money something and offering the peasantry something?
I reckon some expert here might be able to tell us to what degree Belgrade (and maybe Russian) money stood to gain from Kosovo, and how a significant proportion of Kosovo's Serbs were rurally based (and doing it tough), and how most of those poor sods Tudjman and the UN kicked out of Krajina still need a place to live. <<<
Well the deportees from Kraijina do need a place to live. Many were urged to settle in Kosovo but they were reluctant to do so. Now there are many vacant properties in Kosovo. A difficulty though is that the Serb peasants expelled from the Kraijina will not be able to take up a peasant way of life in Kosovo, because the Albanian village houses have all been blown up or burned out. They will have suddenly to become sophisticated urban dwellers in the empty flats of Pristina chatting with neighbours and learning computer skills.
Capital is of course very revolutionary.
A capitalist revolution is sweeping over the whole of the former Yugoslavia, a revolution against the peasantry in the name of national socialism.
You in a shed in New South Wales with a botle of port and a Mac have the luxury of contempating this social revolution in leisure. Was the shed once the home of a small farmer? Or is it purpose built to serve the totally different relationship with the land favoured by advanced capitalist production and its educated intelligentia?
>>>>
Blokes like Milo know states don't deal on your policies. They deal in
power. When the time to deal was to come, he'd be dealing from a stronger
position than otherwise - on the criteria that seem to matter. 'Good'
material stuff, eh?
<<<
This is a confrontation bigger than the consciousness of any of the bit players. Its resolution will be in conformity with economics and the balance of power. However many blunders and crimes NATO commits there is no way that modern european capitalism can live with the forced depopulation of literally millions of people across the Balkans. There is too much money at stake.
>>>>>>
I agree with this - I just don't agree with strategic bombing from a
technical point of view.
<<<<
I have pretty consistently drawn attention to the imperialist nature of massive bombing, and was the first on this list to highlight the bombing of the first bridge in Novi Sad.
>>>>
international capital wanted to
draw a recalcitrant economy into its dominion
<<<
International capital is not threatened by Serbia attempting to adopt a policy of autarky. It can wait for the fruit to fall off the tree. There is no alternative to the assimilation of the Balkans into the European Union. What is absolutely a confrontation is if Serbian national socialism is going to resist this by a policy of terroristic population deportations which will richochet throughout the Balkans after first spreading to Montenegro and FROM.
>>>
I still think the Rambouillet (however you
spell it) thing could've swung it if it was meant to.
<<<
I suspect the imperialist flaws in this war were laid at Rambouillet. The finger points at Madeleine Albright for arguing it was viable to threaten Milosevic with air power alone, if he did not accept what she thought was a reasonable agreement. The fact that Albright is of Jewish background and a Czech and has historic memories of the treachery of the Munich agreement is not a point against her. But the reliance on the massive airforce of the US superpower is.
BTW what should Chamberlain have done at Munich?
>>Lenin goes on to say:
>>
>>"The national programme of working-class democracy is: absolutely no
>>privileges for any one nation or any one language; the solution of the
>>problem of the political self-determination of nations, that is, their
>>separation as states by completely free, democratic methods;
Like the election that saw Rugova come to office?
I am not sure what point you are making here? Please explain perhaps under a different thread title. I do think and have already said that the KLA was incorrectly putting faith in NATO and gambling on a confrontation. I suspect that some of the more moderate Albanian leaders had a better understanding of the power relations and the longer term interests of the Albanian and Serbian people.
>> the promulgation of a law for the whole state by virtue of which any
measure
>>(rural, urban or communal, etc, etc) introducing any privilege of any kind
>>for one of the nations and militating against the equality of nations or
>>the rights of a national minority, shall be declared illegal and
>>ineffective, and any citizen of the state shall have the right to demand
>>that such a measure be annnulled as unconsitutional, and that those who
>>attempt to put it into effect be punished."
This is an ideal to which we work, not a description of ANYWHERE - I mean, where did the profits from Irish ship-builders, Welsh coal miners and Scottish oil wells go? None of that history is over (even if the ships and the coal are). Nip across that 'snot-green, scrotum-tightening sea' and bellow this out on Bogside, Chris! <<<<<
It is a goal to work for everywhere. And against leftist sniping at Sinn Fein, I have argued on these lists that it is progressive for Sinn Fein to continue to support the campaigns against the Orange triumphalist marches.
>>>>>>>>>>>
>>The right to self-determination requires a right for nationally compact
>>areas to secede. That is the sense in which Lenin called for "The
>>recognition of the right to secession for all".
A condition upon which no state can survive. Get concrete, Chris! <<<<<<<<<<<<<<
I am most definitely concrete, and have explained why I am in favour of self determination for Scotland, Wales and Ireland. Now. In conditions in which they are all part of the European supra-national market.
>>>>
>>Support for the right to secession makes secession less likely not more
likely.
How many counties would Ulster have left in this dream-world? My call is, England would stop at Berwick (Jim suspects somewhere just south of Sheffield, I think). <<<<
I have discussed elsewhere the ethnic cleansing option in Ulster. A clear protestant majority exists only in Antrim and Down. West Belfast would have to be cleared out of Catholics. Such a solution would have undermined rather than strengthened, the requirements of Ulster capitalism to remain part of the United Kingdom.
But political support to the right of secession permits discussion of all these options in a way in which working class and progressive people can consider what is in their best interests.
>>>>>
>>Now under conditions of supra-national capitalism, certain resolutions of
>>national questions become more possible. Europe is being reconceived as
>>Europe of the regions. So long as there is a unified market it is the
>>interests of the large capitalists and of the working class (dialectics
>>sometimes includes these unbearable shocks) that oppressed regions obtain
>>autonomy. In Britain Scotland is just about to get a parliament for the
>>first time for 350 years. Wales is about to get an assembly. If they wish
>>to secede they can and not one Englishman will stop them.
That depends on how much oil is projected to come from Scotland's maritime wells, I reckon. Maybe this selfless act on Blair's part suggest there ain't that much left. Wales can go - but then they're not so sure, are they? They have no oil at all. <<<<<
Blair is not being selfless. He has a longer term view of what is in capital's interest, and the interest of a people undifferentiated into classes.
>>>>>>>>>>>
>>The development of capitalism in western Europe permits non-violent
>>compromises in Ireland, because under any configuration all parts will
>>remain within the European market.
I don't think this is a particularly important consideration for Basques or the Northern Italian separatists - nor for Madrid or Rome. Functionalist Integrationism has a long and silly history, Chris. <<<<<<<<<
I do not know what you are intellectually looking down on here since I do not know what functionalist integrationism is. I do know that at the time of the partition of Ireland the capitalists of Belfast absolutely needed their shipyards and flax mills within the British market. Now everyone is in the same market and the shipyards and flaxmills have gone.
>>>
What LBO is generally questioning is the relationship (or lack of it)
between the ends you repeatedly invoke and the means NATO has unilaterally
employed.
<<<
I have been an engaged part of that debate from the very beginning. On another list it was argued to be absurd to propose that a just war might be pursued with imperialist means, and the discussion was closed down, after I had quoted Lenin. Very provocative to leftists to quote Lenin, I know, but not in principle an unfair argument.
Rob, we are not going to resolve this with a tete a tete with you on some sort of vacation with unlimited amounts of time and a Mac. I will shortly be late for work if I proof read this. [I am]
We actually share a great deal of common ground in our range of analysis and our preferred responses. Could you focus on the major lines of demarcation more precisely. I will not think you are a hostile element as a result.
Chris Burford
London