>>Mahathir had a tradition of national capital behind him and of teaching the
>>British an economic lesson.
>
>Also, didn't the multinationals doing business in Malaysia - and
>there are lots of them - quietly approve Mahathir's capital controls?
That sounds an interesting story. Multinationals are essentially monopolistic in character and do not necessarily object to planning and control of the market so long as it is in their interest. They do not necessarily want global financial instability, even though they themselves are of a size that can best manage to survive by switching funds and production around the world in a way that others cannot. But if they accepted that Mahathir could stabilise the market and the economy by a bit of intervention, there is no reason why they should have opposed that.
>
>And anyone who takes his capital controls as a model, recall that his
>government also mounted Ops Nyah, "Operation Get Out," which
>initially aimed to boot half of the country's 1.8 million migrant
>workers. I don't think it was ever fully carried out, but I find
>leftish fondness for Mahathir kind of disturbing.
We really are coming from different perspectives in this sort of discussion. No fondness has been demonstrated by anyone to the best of my knowledge. What is under discussion is whether a defensive operation can be mounted against the turbulent hand of financial capital markets. Mahathir's hypocritical use of sexual politics for his economic purposes is also repellent. But what we are touching on here is the extent to which a national bourgeoisie can be progressive and the conditions in which this may happen.
Marxism does not set up absolute moral standards on this. I currenly see imperialism as currently progressive in relation to pre-monopoly capitalism in that it may defend individual bourgeois democratic rights (for its own purposes) and in that it prepares the ground for world government. I see national capital as progressive in relation to imperialism in that to a limited and compromised degree it defends the local accumulation of surplus product.
There are no absolutes and there is no necessity for fondness. But what is necessary is a broadly accurate understanding of the balance of forces and the overall context to decide what tactics and strategy are best for the working people of the world.
Chris Burford
London