State and Democracy (was Re: Who Killed Vincent Chin?)

Yoshie Furuhashi furuhashi.1 at osu.edu
Fri Dec 31 11:49:50 PST 1999


Doug:
>>My question concerned whether you and Doug weren't suggesting that while
>>Henry's political sympathy is suspect, Keynes is above suspicion.
>
>Actually they strike me as fairly similar in their elitism and
>nationalism. What makes me evaluate them a bit differently is that
>HCKL professes to be a Marxist, while Keynes was militantly
>anti-Marxist. But their shared admiration for Nazi economic policy
>suggests a similar fondness for strong nation-states and a lack of
>fondness for democracy. That's understandable for an aristocrat like
>Keynes; it's more problematic for someone calling himself a socialist
>(not that the socialist tradition is untainted by elitism or
>nationalism).

What do "strong nation-states" -- their character, effects of their presence, effects of their absence, etc. -- exactly mean _in concrete terms, outside the capitalist core_? It seems that you are too easily and abstractly equating "strong nation-states" with "lack of democracy" without making historically and geographically nuanced arguments. "Strong nation-states" do not exist in Somalia, Congo, Albania, ex-Yugoslav regions such as Bosnia, etc., and neither does "democracy" seem to be thriving without them. Russia may be said to have a "strong state" in terms of its repressive capacity and present exercise of it; however, resort to outright repression is in fact a sign of the weakness of the state: it can't tax, it can't control borders to prevent smuggling, it can't prevent capital from being drained -- legally or illegally -- from the country, etc. One might argue that outside the capitalist core, the weak state = weak democracy and vice versa.

Shouldn't you consider arguments made by people like Ellen Wood, etc. with regard to the state? I think that people in many countries would materially benefit from having an effective state controlled democratically -- something which they don't have at present.

Yoshie



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