[PEN-L:6262] Re: Why Nato needs to destroy Serbia

Wojtek Sokolowski sokol at jhu.edu
Mon May 3 08:26:30 PDT 1999


At 04:26 PM 4/30/99 -0400, Charles Brown wrote:
>
>>>> Wojtek Sokolowski <sokol at jhu.edu> 04/30/99 03:55PM >>Again I do not
think that there is an overall master plan or capitalist
>conspiracy to take over CEE. I view it as a rather incoherent process of
>muddling through, with no master plan, no coherent strategy, conflicting
>interests, great uncertainty, and even greater short-term opportunism.
>
>(((((((((((((
>
>
>Yea, the bourgeoisie are crazy like a fox. Amazing how they keep coming up
winners.
>
>Would you describe WWI, WWII and most capitalist war this way or is this
war different , some new phenomenon ? How about capitalist economics ? Hasn't capitalist war always been significantly anarchistic like capitalist production ?

My answer: all that matters is control of material resources, not "logic". If you have them, you do not need great ideas to win. If you do not have them, great ideas will not be of much help.

Methinks the word "capitalist" it is too general and marred with mentalist connotations (I am a philosophical nominalist, I believe that abstract concepts are but figments of our imagination, and there is no material reality behind most of them). I would prefer something like 'policies of people who control concentrated resources" or "policies of people who call themselves governments and corporations." What matters is how much resources they control, how concentrated these resources are, and what kind of challenges to that control they face. The name of the mythology they use to legitimate they control does NOT matter - except, perhaps for symbol manipulators in poli-sci, economics, and sociology departments.

I do not think there is a master plan of capitalist development in general, let alone in the NATO attacks on Ygoslavia - although I have no doubt that the human mind is capable of finding one. I think these attacks are a result of people who call themselves governments wanting to do something about Yugoslavia for various reasons, and embarking on the current course of action because they perceived it as least objectionable (this is an example of "satisficing behavior" - as it is called in organizational sociology).

A broader implication is that I do not think that people who call themselves governments and corporations have super-human abilities to draw, implement and successfully execute master plans on a global scale. I do not think that people who call themselves governments and corporations are any different in that respect from the common people - and I have even a reson to believe that they are more prone to nonsensic and idiotic behavior than common folks (the effect of groupthink).

The only thing that stes the people who call themseleves governments and corporations from common people is the resources they control. First, they have the matrial means to project their power on a scale that most common people can only dream of. Second, when ordinary people screw up, they usually do not have sufficient respurces to cover up their blunders, and they have to retreat and suffer the consequences. When people who call themselves governments and corporations screw ups, however, they usually have enough resources to either cover that up, or to unload the responsibility on other.

That is all, folks. Paraphrasing one Maggie Thatcher, there is no such a thing as capitalism or the market - only the money/power grubbers and their sycophantic apologists.

Best (and belated) May Day greetings.

Wojtek



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