After Capitalism Preface Postscript

[Mark Pavlick]

>
>Date: Sun, 16 Dec 2001 11:45:38 -0600 (CST)
>From: "David C. Schweickart" <dschwei at orion.it.luc.edu>
>Subject: RPA: After Capitalism Preface Postscript
>X-ECS-MailScanner: Found to be clean
>
>Colleagues and Comrades,
>
>Two weeks ago I sent around to several lists an outline of Christopher
>Hitchens' brief in support of the war against the Taliban, which I
>entitled "Is Bush's War Our War?"  That piece generated quite a few
>responses, more than 50 at last count.  For the most part these responses
>have been thoughtful and helpful to me in trying to figure out how to
>think of these recent events.
>
>Of course I don't agree with everything said.  I had intended to offer a
>detailed response, but, given other commitments, I haven't been able to
>put one together.  I have, however, written a short piece that has been
>shaped by these discussions.  I wonder if people would care to comment.
>
>I have a book coming out in April with Rowman and Littlefield entitled
>*After Capitalism.* It articulates (rearticulates) a model of Economic
>Democracy, now seen as a component of successor-system theory, which is
>itself a component of the (what I predict will be) the next great
>challenge to global capitalism--a movement I call "the counterproject."
>
>The manuscript was delivered to the publisher in August.  It has recently
>been suggested that I append a postscript to the preface to the book that
>situates the book with respect to September 11.  Here's a draft of what
>I'm thinking of submitting.
>
>***
>
>Post-September-11 Postscript
>
>This manuscript was submitted to the publisher in August, so obviously no
>mention was made of the September 11 terrorist attacks.  However, given
>the significance of these events, the production schedule has been
>modified so as to allow me a short postscript:
>
>"Everything has changed."  This refrain is repeated constantly.  Is it
>true?
>
>From the perspective to be set out in this book, the answer is no.  Not
>everything has changed.  The big things have not changed--although the
>attacks of September 11 do highlight factors to which I paid scant
>attention as I wrote this book.
>
>This book documents and analyzes the destructive tendencies of capitalism,
>and it predicts a renewed challenge to this system.  Among other things,
>it argues that the unrestrained capitalism that is now dominant will widen
>still further the gap between the global haves and the global have-nots,
>while making life increasingly precarious even for ordinary people in the
>richer countries of the world.  What the book does not do--apart from an
>occasional aside-- is consider non-progressive reactions to economic
>stress and dislocation.
>
>Yet, as the history of European fascism makes clear, modern mass movements
>based on ruthless, atavistic ideologies thrive under such
>conditions--particularly when progressive alternatives have been
>discredited or destroyed.  Such movements have proliferated in recent
>times: neo-Nazi movements in the West, the ethnic nationalisms that tore
>Yugoslavia to shreds and have wreaked havoc in many other poor countries,
>and, perhaps most significant of all, the various flavors of what I'm
>inclined to call "theocratic fascism"--faith-based fundamentalist
>movements that seek political power and do not shy away from terror.
>Christian fundamentalists blow up abortion clinics.  Jewish
>fundamentalists engage in unspeakable atrocities against Palestinians and
>dream of a "final solution"--the ethnic cleansing of Greater Israel of
>"Palestinian lice" (as they were called by the recently assassinated
>leader of Israel's ultra-right National Union Party).  Islamic
>fundamentalists set off bombs in shopping malls, and commandeer aircraft
>which they fly into buildings full of people.
>
>We should be clear.  The cause here is not religion.   The vast majority
>of Christians, Jews and Moslems of the world are anything but
>fundamentalists and are sickened by the slaughter of innocents.
>
>Nor is the cause poverty per se, and the inevitable struggle against it.
>It should be recalled that not once during the Cold War era did Marxist
>guerilla groups fighting directly against the United States (as in
>Vietnam) or against U.S.-backed dictatorial regimes around the world ever
>engage in terror against U.S. civilians.  Marxism as an ideology has
>always distinguished between the government of a country, seen to be
>acting on behalf of that country's ruling class, and the ordinary citizens
>of the country, working people who also stood to gain (so the ideology
>proclaimed) from a Marxist revolution.  Fascist ideologies make no such
>distinction.
>
>The events of September 11 have left many progressives understandably
>confused.  On the one hand, Al Qaeda, the Taliban and their fundamentalist
>precursors have all the marks of fascism.  (Like European fascism, they
>were funded and supported by wealthy interests--in this instance by Saudi
>Arabia and the United States.)  On the other hand, the war against them is
>being led by the world's preeminent capitalist power, whose policies have
>fertilized the soil from which they sprung.
>
>While progressive forces may be unsettled at the moment, unsure as to how
>to respond to rapidly changing events, the larger picture is clear.  The
>world needs a *progressive* ideological alternative to the ideology of
>globalized capitalism.  Without a progressive vision--and a movement
>animated by that vision--we are left with only capitalism and terror.
>This book hopes to contribute to such a vision.
>
>Chicago
>
>December 2001

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