> No, my reading of the press, the Web, and countless economists,
> journalists and observers has led me to champion the idea that East Asia
> got rich by controlling markets rather than being controlled by such,
Who got rich? And, on what basis? "East Asia"... ??
> and
> that the dragons practice a financial and industrial socialism completely
> at odds with Wall Street-style bubblemania.
That's a fairly narrow perspective on life. Which other countries, other than the US, have practiced this "Wally Street-style bubblemania"?
> These states themselves are
> shot full of contradictions -- they repress people, at the same time they
> create the conditions for their liberation. Simply saying that the
> state is evil is like saying capital is evil -- a moral position,
> not a socialist critique.
It might be that you've heard this in Oregon, and it might be that someone on lbo has written 'the state is evil' (I don't know, I haven't seen it so far, but I've not been paying much attention lately), yet that doesn't quite explain or justify why you seem to think that it's preferable to insist on a 'solidarity' with East Asian states but not most of the people living there. Of course, you could try and argue that there is some kind of representative synonymity at work, but it would sound to me like something of the order of 'they all look the same' in the determinate absence of a discussion about democracy -- or what that might mean in order to grant some credence to claims of 'representative' upon which to insist that 'solidarity' is the same thing as 'diplomacy'.
So, what would a socialist critique of the state look like, by your estimation?
Angela _________