"Economic Nationalism"? (was Re: Who Killed Vincent Chin?)

Doug Henwood dhenwood at panix.com
Mon Jan 3 08:53:46 PST 2000


Yoshie Furuhashi wrote:


>So, what about the Miskito Indians now -- are they better off now that the
>Sandinistas are long gone?

Dunno about how they're doing. My impression is that Nicaragua is lots worse off.


> >And given Patrick's citation of Smith's Rhodesia as a national
> >development model, and kind words offered by HCKL & others for Nazi
> >economic policy, you have to wonder how separable these economic
> >models are from the unambiguously repellent nationalisms that
> >produced them.
>
>Are you saying it is inherently racist or fascistic to try to come up with
>a national development model that might serve as an alternative to what
>exists now? If your idea is that Third World political activists had
>better reject any aspiration toward defining their own national economic
>policies (for doing so is inherently "exclusionary"), what's your
>alternatives? AFL-CIO and the Zapatistas?

I really don't know what I think; I'm asking questions and trying to provoke conversation. I do know that lots of received models that depend on some kind of "progressive" nationalism have an ugly pedigree and some very unpleasant side-effects at best. People have finessed these for too long, and I think it's important to look the ugliness straight in the eye, which is one of many reasons I've found Angela's contributions to be so valuable.

Doug



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