The Week

Mark Jones jones118 at lineone.net
Sun Apr 30 13:04:02 PDT 2000


Doug Henwood wrote:


> Mark Jones wrote:
>
> >It's the social-democrats of Euroland who have the
> >restructuration problems now, not the self-satisfied Brits.
>
> Yes, which is one reason why I question your disaster scenarios. Say
> euroland is restructured along Anglo-American lines - why couldn't
> the E-11 have a boom too? A polarizing, manic, diseased boom perhaps,
> but still a boom? Why does the fact that so much of the world would
> still be excluded from this boom make it unsustainable, at least over
> the term of 10-20 years?
>

I have to respect your seemingly unbounded, uncritical faith in American capitalism & its methods but I don't share it.

BTW, one reason why such a scenario (Euroland neoliberalism run amok) is unthinkable is because the US would never permit such a thing. Has it escaped your notion that all SAP's everywhere without exception, turn out to benefit US capitalism + strategic interests and never permit the emergence of potent competitors? Do you seriously think, pari passu, that in any case Euroland is constitutionally capable of such 'structural reforms'? It is impossible, if onyl for profoundly constraining historical circumstances, let alone US pursuit of hegemonic interest, and it will not happen. And I don't have 'scenarios'. I am pointing at the real world, as you yourself do when you crosspost missives about global warming or Russian grand state crime; I'm not sure what conclusions you draw, though. Slavoj Zizek seems to have founded his mature work on a misreading Parmenides of heroic proportions, which permits him to always say 'So what?' no matter how bad 'the real' seems to get. But this is a luxury definitely not permitted to people like you and me who were born and raised in the heartlands.

Mark Jones http://www.egroups.com/group/CrashList



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