>>> "J. Barkley Rosser, Jr." <rosserjb at jmu.edu> 05/05/99 01:04PM >>>
Chas Brown rejects the idea that "randomness" could be a or the cause of the Yugoslav war. This reminds me of Einstein's complaint that "God does not play dice." Of course with respect to quantum mechanics we know that She probably does.
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CB: How did I guess we would get to this ? I'm sure you know that there are two different and opposite interpretions of Heisenberg Uncertainty. See for example, "Why Einstein Could Not Believe that God Throws Dice? " by Erwin Marquit (physics professor) In _Nature, Society and Thought_ Vol. 1, No. 3. He says , for example, "The presence of statistical laws in a theoretical system does not make the system nonmechanistic any more than the presence of dynamical laws makes Newtonian mechanics itself mechanistic."
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Actually I see this as an old question, one that 40- 50 years ago bedeviled leftist existentialists. People like Sartre spent a lot of time worrying about the apparent conflict between a Stalinist-Marxist view of the world that seemed to be full of meaning and determinism versus the individualistic free will and ultimate absurdity implied by his existentialism. We have no escape from this, with randomness contributing to the absurdity of life and its outcomes, including war.
CB: In _Existentialism and Alienation in American Literature_ by Sidney Finkelstein, Chapter 7 'Social Responsibility of the Existentialist Artist: Camus and Sartre" (International 1965)., Finkelstein says: (page132) In his continued debate with Marxism, Sartre has come to accept the Marxist approach to society and history. In the introduction (published here in 1963 as "Search for a Method") to a long treatise, _Critique d la raison dialectique_, the first volume of which appeared in France in 1960, he asserts that Marxism is "the philosophy of our time." Any attempt to go "beyond" Marxism, he says, "will be at worst only a return to pre-Marxian; at best, only the rediscovery of a thought already contained in the philosophy which one believes has gone beyond...Existentialism is a parasitical system living on the margin of Knowledge, which at first it opposed but into which today it seeks to be integrated."
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With regard to the "causes of the war," in addition to Euro-periphery pacification, general US hegemonic muscle flexing, interest in Turko-Central Asian oil patches, and the US military-industrial complex desiring funding, and general muddling through, there is just plain idiocy and goofiness, which may or may not be "random." Probably it is not so random. Classical Greek tragedy teaches us of "hubris" which can arise when things seem to be going well. The US leaders had gotten complacent and overly self confident: A little bombing and "they'll" bend to our will. Not so. Hubris led to mistaken and stupid policy that is also tragic in its outcomes.
CB: Last night I was thinking I should have added to the list of reasons I wanted to eliminate "stupidity and incompetence of Clinton, Albright ,Blair et al.". Are we saying that periods of peace are due to competence ? That Kennedy, Johnson and the U.S. war Secretary McNamera were competent ? incompetent in waging war on Viet Nam ?
In general, a Marxist understanding doesn't deny that "big men" have ideas (intelligence, stupidity, incompetence, etc.) in world events, but that underlying these BIG IDEAS are political economic ultimate factors. Clinton , Albright and Blair are BIG PEOPLE, like the kings and emperors of old, but it is class struggles that are the ultimate explanation of historical events and developments.
Also, it is not clear to me how Clinton and Albright, Blair are being "stupid". Stupid according to what purpose ? In my opinion, the Anglo-American bourgeoisie, the class whose interest Clinton , Blair and Albright represent ,cannot survive permanent peace. Capitalism must have war. Sure its stupid from the standpoint of the vast majority of humanity. But the bourgeoisie are on the horns of an irreconcilable dilemma , ultimately. They can't help but be "stupid". Stupidity is not random to the bourgeois system or politicians.
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One more factor of importance in the policymakers' minds is clearly this "NATO's face" factor. This is especially important now that we are thinking about cessation and an endgame. NATO's face must be saved, blah blah blah. But, of course that simply pushes the issue back to why anybody should give a foo about NATO at all. Then I think we are back to Euro-periphery pacification and maybe US arms dealers wanting new markets in the new member countries as factors.
Charles: I agree with this.
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But in fact the absurd randomness of this can be seen in the arguments of the Repugs in the US Congress who voted to oppose the war (while voting for the defense spending increases to supply it). As that inimitable exterminator Tom DeLay notes, there simply is no serious economic or strategic interest involved. In the Gulf War one could point to the price of gasoline and the threat of job losses if Saddam were to sweep into Saudi Arabia. But that, or anything like it, simply is not present in this case. All the economic issues are relatively ephemeral and peripheral.
BTW, Marcus Raskin of IPS had an excellent column in today's Washington Post criticizing the war.
Charles: It is possible that the economic motivations for the war on Yugoslavia are more general and combinational and less solitary and discrete than the obvious issue of oil in the war on Iraq, but that doesn't make them ephemeral or peripheral. The ultimate purpose for everything the bourgeoisie and their governments do is profits. The whole history of the West's relationship to the USSR and socialism was based on the latter's general and multifaceted removal of an enormous amount of the world's labor power and resources from imperialist exploitation. It is not hard to see that the imperialists are worried that eastern Europe may revert to socialism, ending the unbelievable windfall capitalism has had in raping eastern Europe for the last 10 years. This is the overall politicaleconomic motivation for this war: trying to hold on to the bourgeoisie's surprise dream (nightmare from the working class's standpoint) of the last 10 years.
Charles Brown
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