First we can dispatch any accusation of efforts to analogize the Balkans conflict with the U.S. Civil War. The underlying point is that capitalist states' military undertakings can have positive outcomes, even though those outcomes were not the end, in and of themselves. The Civil War is merely an example of this.
> I appreciate Jim Farmelant taking up my challenge robustly on this list,
> since the moderator of marxism at lists.panix.com may suspend anyone whom he
> considers is promoting a "pro-NATO line". While I would not accept that is
Given such conduct with the benefit of a tiny bit of power, imagine how any greater amount would be deployed . . .
At any rate, on to substance:
> >crushing of the working classes in Europe. The consolidation of the
> >EC has already called into question the continued viability of the
> >post-WW II welfare states that had been achieved as the result of decades
> >of struggle. The increased mobility of capital has already undercut
This from one of Chris' adversaries echoes well the propaganda of the right -- that the welfare state is no longer feasible, that is being dismantled. This is upheld by recourse to bloviation about globalization and quicksilver capital.
Any objective consideration of data on spending cannot support the thesis that welfare systems in capitalist countries have been or are being dismantled wholesale. This is especially true for the U.S. There have been some cuts of a malign nature in the U.S., but against the big picture of total social welfare spending, these cuts are not great. A little while ago, somebody mentioned Clinton 'throwing people off welfare and Medicaid.' Spending on Medicaid is higher than ever, by any metric. The chief area of cuts is means-tested cash assistance, which was not large to begin with.
>From Chris is a compact statement of the roots of this war, in contrast to
various scenarios spun out by others, such as the U.S. versus the
proto-Soviets, or the truly fantastic notion that the West wants
Yugoslavia's industrial plant (which it is presently destroying).
> I would say that NATO is changing in nature from an organisation designed
> mainly to defeat communism to a military alliance for stabilising
> the world
> in the interests of the western capitalists. It is so pre-eminent
> militarily that a war in which it is involved is not for the redivision of
> the world between imperialist blocs but about how it imposes its will on
> the world. In fact it is operating with very many restraints indeed, in
> which public opinion in the least influential of the states has a
> restraining effect. . . .
> JF gives the main argument for the reactionary nature of the European
> superstate that it is coming about through the increased exploitation of
> the working class, and entails more of the same. I beg to differ. It is
> true that in the 80's the EEC had to concede ground to neo-liberal attacks
> on the welfare state, but the mid 90's have shown that that
> attack has been
> blunted. In the UK there is a real transfer of resources into health and
> education. In Germany and France popular resistance blunted the most
> radical features of the neo-liberal attacks under the previous
> governments.
> The EU as it now exists is a state in which 70% of the GDP is
> government-related and no one is shocked by this.
I've already indicated agreement with the basic thrust of the above, tho 70% is much too high a number. It might be true for Sweden, which is the outlier of the European economies as far as size of public sector. In support of the robustness of the European welfare states, it might be noted that the Continental European far right, tho shot through with anti-immigrant and other prejudices, is not particularly anti-welfare state. They merely want to restrict access to it. Thus their racism does not serve neo-liberalism the way one would think Capital would prefer.
> Yes there have been cuts in wages and increased competition. Yes the
single
currency for the single market implies a wave of rationalisation in which
workers in different parts of Europe will be hit by job losses. But at the
same time they will benefit by more competitive trading relations with the
rest of the world, and the money they receive will buy more use values. It
is not at all unmarxist to say that the masses know the benefit of large
markets. >
This is another good point. On balance, the single market will strengthen the EU, at the cost of greater distributional inequities.
>
> The incorporation of eastern Europe into the EU is progressive, even
though
it will have to be gradual because of the great differences in the
distribution of capital and the price of labour power in different parts of
the continent. >
The working class in the Balkan states has a better chance of attaining more widely-applied labor standards within the EU than without it. The new ultra-left affection for residually-socialist Yugoslavia, a former NATO client, is comical in contrast.
>
> The attempt to preserve a tight little nationalist socialist republic in
middle Europe after the collapse of the socialist camp, is a total
cul-de-sac. Far, far worse, this is associated with a political strategy of
ethnically cleansing the populations of surrounding states to enable Serbia
to seize as much of the former Yugoslavia as possible, territorially,
economically, and in terms of military might. This utterly crazy, totally
anachronistic strategy, based on medieval maps of Kosovo prior to 1389,
would be ridiculous if it was not so destructive. >
> There is no appreciable Serbian capitalist class that can survive with
production based on such a small market. If it comes to a contest of masses
of capital the bombing of the Danube bridges (which I oppose) makes the
point more eloquently than any theory.>
Ditto. Serbia is not going to be a Cuba.
> The consolidation of Romania and Bulgaria together with other front line
states in dialogue with NATO demonstrates how isolated and eccentric
Serbian nationalism is from a historical materialist point of view. >
My own excuse for a Big Thought in all this goes to a thread on military Keynesianism (MK) on PEN-L. Thus far there is no surge in military spending in the U.S.; it has stagnated since 1986. It would have been an ideal recourse for George Bush in 1991-2, who instead followed the dictates of the bond market, failied to stimulate the economy, and lost his bid for re-election.
MK is a perfect strategy for Europe, what with its gross unemployment levels, but it has not been chosen thus far. Why not?
In both cases, it is worth pondering whether the basic dependence of capitalism on MK, such as it was, may have been superceded by the needs of mobile financial capital. Suppose financial capital abhors public sector growth, fiscal stabilization, and deficits, the better to encourage deflation and volatility. From this standpoint, MK is not necessarily an optimal strategy, nor is there any point in militarizing the economy. Much bigger gobs of money can be made in the Big Casino. Compare the relatively limited rents in the hardware/R&D component of the military budget to the immense sums traded in financial markets. Military adventures are a distraction. So is ethnic cleansing. The new world order is more about deregulation, public sector shrinkage, and the subordination of states (including rowdy ones like Serbia) to supra-national economic rules of the game. Peace and tranquility is good business, which means disciplining Milosevic. Russia has become a sideshow whose main role is holding out for a higher price at which to sell out.
The theater has changed. There is nothing wrong with Nato pacifying Serbia insofar as they need to for the protection of Kosova. If an axe murderer is strolling down the street, there is nothing wrong with a racist police force taking him down. The real question is how the working class will confront the Single Market. So far the Labor Governments (especially after the departure of Lafontaine) are more of a piece with the new economic order than critics (even mildly so) of it. The political development of the labor movement is the prime issue now, both in the EU and U.S.
mbs