My, isn't this a bit ironic, defending onself againt antisemite-baiting? Now I must admit to confusion as to mbs' motives, but further comments on the issue of zionism, etc. are reserved for a response to Leo Caseys' (at least intelligible) comments on another thread. Suffice to say (in relation to M. Pollacks' comments on this thread) that the "positive stereotype" of "Jewish" cosmopolitanism was what I always (no doubt naively) found most attractive about Jewish culture (as opposed to, say, Joe Stalins' views). It's a pity it's being destroyed by zionism, but I always thought zionism was a form of political suicide packaged for Jewish consumption. We should all strive to be cosmopolitains, ne?
On the subject of this thread, I'm generally on DHs' side of the argument, theoretically, politically and, it has to be added, methodologically (perhaps). I'd adhere to the classical thesis that finance capital is a fusion of money and industrial capital, and that the realization process is productive (of capital). This means that the "financial industry" is just that: a branch of capitalist industry. A tour of a typical financial district "data center" will reveal a huge mass of whirring machinery tended by minimum wage slaves. In other words, a factory, no different than a textile mill.
But theoretically, we can go a step further both with this traditional analysis together with the question of "parasitism", the other aspect of this thread. We can say that the capitalism as a whole, and not just in part, is in this and any foreseeable historical periord, parasitic. Naturally, this implies a politics of "attacking the whole", addressed below. The best theoretical demonstration of this would analytically strip away the incredibly vast complex of props, subsidies, regulatory internventions, etc., i.e., the "conditions of production", in order to show that, unlike in the sparser conditions that obtained in 19th century laissez-faire Britain, this is no longer a "machine that runs of itself". Or, for another example, a less abstract and general analysis would argue that the high rates of GDP growth seen in the US in the latest cycle are, in fact, a parasitic growth, even if every bit of this GDP increase was the result of productive investment.
Within the context of globally uneven development, it can not only be said,
obviously, that development of productive forces is required in Africa,
not N. America, W. Europe or Japan (this latter, though, from this
perspective, obliging us with a decade of goldplated "stagnation", is
unknowingly serving in the progressive development of the productive forces
:-D) ; it can also be said that such a particularly rapid productive growth
in an already large GDP (assuming = to productive investment) in a country
like the US is _positively destructive_ to the progress of productive forces
worldwide. We need to begin seeing the so-called "developed" countries as,
in fact, "overdeveloped" countries. Interestingly, this uneven
overdevelopment is most glaring in the global distribution of finance
industry itself, indication of the crucial need to monopolize the
realization process. This is the economic side of the need to momopolize
military power, and indicates the (largely happenstance, since politics and
economics are not structurally symmetrical) coincidence of finance and
militarism.
The capitalist development of productive forces is no longer historically progressive everywhere, at all times. The political implications should be obvious: in the US, an orientation away from "more jobs" (more productive force, although thre will still be the tactical need to "defend jobs" in a downturn) and an orientation towards countering the grotesque distortions in the already developed productive forces with privileged countries such as the US (you know them already: the overproliferation of automobile, suburb, TV, overconsumption, obeisity, technology abuse, militarism, you name it). In an overdeveloped country these are very much working class, and not simply middle class, issues - even well-paid workers can't afford to live in S.V. and as a a result, are tied down in an endless commute in an automobile, for instance. The international corollary would be pushing aside the IMF, World Bank, WTO and other such organizations, and replacing these with democratically organized instruments which would target the redistribution of real GDP to areas of underdevelopment such as Africa. This would tap into a somewhat forgotten vein of socialist thought: Redistribution - the notion that there is plenty enough to go around already, it just needs proper distribution. It was also a big theme of historical American Populism.
The existing US trade union movement is far from the redistributive perspective, and therefore Seattle was an incidental alliance of convenience. But this theoretical perspective would allow advance along a line that could lead not only to a more permanent alliance, but an actual fusion, not only of red and green, but, with its emphasis on redistribution, of red black and green.
This would also spell economic disaster for financial industry. Rather than its demonization, it would be far better to confront it with its own hated demons: redistribution and democratic control. To wit, expropriation.
That is actually what is directly at stake in this bullshit "power crisis" here in California, where corporate calls for "sacrifice" have escalated into a blizzard of photocopied exhortations (thereby wasting gobs of electricity) to, not only turnoff our monitors, but to power down our boxes, fercristsakes! (my response is usually, this is capitalism so I don't give a shit, and if you really want to save electricity, why not a four-day fucking workweek after seventy years of supposed labor productivity gains. I'll be happy to 'power down' three days a week.) But not today, for Sun Micro., in a fit of political correctness, has deemed MLK day a paid holiday, so I've had the luxury to wind out this tome. In this way, snotty arrogant computer nerds, who ordinarily turn their noses up at sooty, grimy, "outdated" concepts like class struggle, become its chief beneficiaries.
-Brad Mayer Oakland, CA