Does "economic nationalism" mean the same thing, wherever and whenever it is said to appear? Your discussion sounds too abstract and universalist to me. What do you think of the following post?
>From: "NÈstor Miguel Gorojovsky" <gorojovsky at inea.com.ar>
>To: <marxism at lists.panix.com>
>Subject: RE: Lenin, secession and the national question
>
>Our Ethiopian friends wrote:
>
>:Clearly Lenin knew
>:little outside of Europe, for by this definition, most African
>countries do
>:not constitute 'nations', not even little Eritrea, which shares
>9 separate
>:language groups - Tigrigna, Kunama, Saho, Afar, Hedarb, Arabic,
>Tigre, Bilen and Rashaida.
>
>Not at all. He knew little outside of Europe (something he never
>denied, and even stated publicly during the Congress of Baku),
>but the definition has nothing to do with the construction of a
>nation for each nationality (Lenin was very keen of the Swiss
>example to show, against the ideas of the chauvinist Russifiers,
>that four nationalities could be united democratically into a
>single nation). It implies, on the contrary, that outside Europe
>there have not been national revolutions. No African country
>constitutes a nation, in the same manner no Latin American
>country constitutes a nation. Imperialism has either deformed,
>thwarted or drowned in blood the processes by which our peoples
>would have been able to constitute nations out of our local
>realities. This is the deep truth beneath the quote from Bolivar
>I am so fond of: "Allow us to live our own Middle Ages by
>ourselves'.
>
>The confusion between nationalities and nations still plagues our
>thinking, which may prove fatal for our action.
>
>By the way, reading on Tawodros II on the Britannica Online, I
>learnt that he was of plebeian origin. Is this true?
>
>Néstor Miguel Gorojovsky
>gorojovsky at inea.com.ar
Also, I reproduce here a part from one of my posts to which you haven't replied.
>Date: Tue, 21 Dec 1999 12:55:49 -0500
>To: lbo-talk at lists.panix.com
>From: Yoshie Furuhashi <furuhashi.1 at osu.edu>
>Subject: Re: Migration, Etc. (was Re: Wen Ho Lee Support)
<snip>
>>e) yes, most migrations occur between developing countries. but what
>>makes them "more complicated"? i can't see it
>
>Open borders sound good on paper, but insecure borders are often symptoms
>of, and contribute in turn to, a very weak, or barely viable, above-ground
>economy -- an economy fundamentally dependent on underground smugglings of
>everything from cars and TVs to drugs and weapons. "Anti-border control
>activism" makes sense only where the state is actually functioning enough
>to control the borders to begin with. As is often said, under capitalism,
>the only thing worse than being exploited is not being exploited. The same
>goes for the state under capitalism -- the only thing worse than living
>under state power is not living under state power and instead being at the
>mercy of competing local & foreign powers, from gangs to international
>"aid" orgs.
>
>Yoshie
Yoshie