On Wed, 22 Dec 1999 15:17:13 -0500 Doug Henwood <dhenwood at panix.com>
writes:
>Charles Brown wrote:
>
>>Sort of like Keynes , wasn't it ?
>
>Yes and no. Keynes wrote a preface to the German edition of the
>General Theory that praised Nazi economic policy. But, though Keynes
>shared the anti-Semitism of the British upper class, he wasn't at
>heart a Nazi.
Well, I don't think that anybody ever said that Keynes was a Nazi. Then again I don't recall ever seeing anything to indicate that Henry has any sympthies with Naziism as such either.
>
>>But what did that have to do with the arguments about anti-Asian
>>racism, the topic of this thread ?
>
>You said that "Henry Liu had the better side of the arguments he was
>in." I was wondering if you included that among them.
Well, as a matter of that was indeed very often the case.
>
>As for the China question, I'll say this: Henry went way too far in
>defending the Chinese regime - I won't say for "racial," but I will
>say for "nationalistic" reasons.
I would agree with that but Henry's political position as I understand is one of Maoism. Undoubtedly it is a bit unusual to see a Wall Street investment banker espousing Maoist views but stranger things have been known to occur. (I suppose one might find it strange that a successful capitalist like Friedrich Engels should have devoted his life to the cause of socialist revolution but that happened too).
>Just because the Chinese government
>is sometimes critical of U.S. imperial arrogance doesn't mean it
>isn't a repressive regime in both the economic and political senses.
>A government that happily rents its labor force to the likes of Nike
>for pennies an hour doesn't qualify as remotely admirable in my book.
I would agree that Henry tended to whitewash the failings of the Chinese government. On the other hand as I recall he was sympathetic to the forces within the government and the CP which were reluctant about joining the WTO, and were resistant to further marketization of the Chinese economy.
Jim
>
>Doug
>
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