>> "rc-am" <rcollins at netlink.com.au> 10/04/99 11:21PM >>>
and, i have yet to see any substantial discussion of the situation in east
timor or yugoslavia which takes account of the shape and character of class
struggles in those places and related terrains other than amongst the
so-called ultra-left (not to be confused with max's definition of such).
most of this analysis (when it actually becomes analysis and moves beyond
delivering the line) has tended to portray nation-states as the only
'actors' or significant variables. and all of these rarely get denounced
as either apolitical or ahistorical or even as non-marxist -- though i
would argue that the absence of labour (and capital as s-v) is
paradoxically most absent amongst those who most emphatically want to pose
as marxists in cyberspace.
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Charles: Lenin's analysis in _Imperialism_ , augmented by the historical developments of the last 80 years makes the links between analysis of imperialist nation-states, colonial and neo-colonial nation states, labor/capital, class struggle and surplus-value. There have been plenty of non-ultra left applications of this to recent and historical events in E. Timor and Yugoslavia. This was why Marxists on these lists were arguing against those who denied an economic motive for the U.S./NATO actions, for example.
looks to me like it (labour as the irreconcilable antagonism within capital) is pretty well missing all round.
perhaps lebowitz and negri are right. the problem with marx, or at least received readings of his stuff, is a result of what we might call the 'missing book on the wage' or somesuch...the connection between surplus value and capital as a political-economic figuration.
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Charles; See also, _The State and Revolution_ on the connection between surplus value and capital as a political-economic figuration. The state is an apparatus for the repression of one class by another.
Actually, the current world situation is a form of Kautsky's theory of ultra-imperialism. Imperialism has radically reduced its inter-imperialist rivalry from that period, a possibility that Kautsky foresaw.
These theories form a critical link between Marx/Engels and the world current situation.
We have to supplement Lenin and Kautsky with facts and theory of the history since their period. Central to this is the history of the Soviet Union and other socialist countries, and their struggle with imperialist nations, and the liberation of the whole paleo-colonial system, and its replacement by neo-colonialist relations. The export of capital , transnational finance capital ( expressed in neo-colonial control by debt) and counter-revolutionary wars (use of the bourgeois state apparatus to repress the exploited classes in the neo-colonies) against national liberation movements to protect transnational capital are major factors in the connection between nation-states , capital and surplus-value.
CB