No... revolutionary socialites ultimately can do nothing but socialise.
>>That you cannot conceive of a global future except one dominated by US
>>imperialism is a major constraint. It arises out of the US domination of
>>the internet, in lists such as these
>
>You're kidding. I thought it had to do with the U.S. military and the
>massive power of U.S. capital.
90% of contributors, aided by the material advantage of free local telephone calls post as if the USA is the centre of the universe. It is just the centre of capital. This does not make them wicked in any moral sense, but it is part of the economic pressure of imperialism. People are either cynical disillusioned lonely ultra-leftists or constrained by the impossibility of thinking any political future outside the US two party system. They is little space to think of a different strategy free of both left and right deviations.
>>Or put another question: how do you think US imperialism can be challenged,
>>if as you have often said no revolution looks on the cards in the US?
>>Answer: by campaigning for reforms, including in its conduct of foreign
>>policy.
>
>I'm not anti-reformist. But any good reforms would involve weakening
>NATO and the IMF. I hate to throw bourgeois agency theory at you, but
>why would you trust two central institutions of U.S. imperialism to
>do anything decent and humane?
I know you are not anti-reformist, but you studiously avoid giving hostages to fortune by discussing any reform, even though you correctly cannot see a revolution on the horizon.
Well you obviously are "throwing" "bourgeois agency theory" at me and at the list. That sounds like a debating ploy, which may well be valid and interesting if it is more than a debating ploy.
I do not understand why it is called "bourgeois". Do you have a more proletarian strategy for revolutionary reform? Because if so it would be a positive contribution to the debate to put it forward. When I repeatedly use the term "bourgeois democratic rights" it is because in marxist analysis they have a very contradictory significance.
In the meantime what is agency theory? The approach might be very interesting. It may well reflect part of the truth of this complex situation.
But if it promotes question like why we should *trust* "two central institutions of US imperialism" to do "anything decent and huamne" we really are on a different planet. Who ever said challenging US imperialism, or institutions dominated by it (*not* totally controlled by it) was "trusting" it? This is elementary.
If workers on strike demand a pay rise, does it mean they are obliged to trust the bosses? No they check up. So should we.
But Doug have you forgotton your constructive envy at the June 18 events in London. You wondered why they could not happen in New York. Well they can. And they will. But one reason they happened in London was because 50,000 leftists and liberals acted on an ostensibly pious petition to break the chains of debt. They appealed to the leading imperialist powers of the world, and their creatures, the IMF, the Group of 7, the World Bank, etc etc. to do something as reformist as patronisingly to annul the debt of the poorest of the poor.
*But* in the course of campaigning for this highly limited compromised demand, a platform and a space was created into which more radicals champions of change could move.
But did any of this campaigning demand that anyone "trust" these agencies?
When did you stop beating your partner Doug? Isn't that a more straight forward leading question?
Can we go back to what is agency theory? Why does it explain that the world struggle for economic and political justice is hopeless? Or are you going to surprise me?
Chris Burford
London