>>> furuhashi.1 at osu.edu 01/28/01 02:11PM >>>
>[I forwarded some of the comments on Empire to Michael Hardt. Here's
>his response, which he asked me to forward with the caveat that he
>can only reply to some reactions and probably with a certain delay.]
>
>Date: Sun, 28 Jan 2001 13:19:10 -0500 (EST)
>From: Michael Hardt <hardt at duke.edu>
>
>I think it is important to view Empire or globalization as multifaceted
>phenomena, which comprise a variety of processes and elements. My
>position is that Empire is a negative development (it brings new, more
>intense and more brutal forms of exploitation and domination, greater gap
>between rich and poor and within national space, terrifying oppression
>through military means and starvation, etc), but it is also simultaneously
>a positive development in that it creates greater potential for
>liberation. Marx regarded the advent of capital and the destruction of
>the feudal mode of production in Europe much the same way.
>
>It is convenient to express this paradoxical negative and positive
>evaluation in dialectical form (as if the negation will lead through a
>dialectical twist to a positive outcome), but I think this is
>misleading. It is better, I think, to separate out the positive and
>negative processes -- separate them conceptually at least because in the
>present form of capitalist globalization they go together. Pushing the
>negative aspects or processes to an extreme will only make things worse,
>but pushing the positive aspects to an extreme could lead to transformation.
>
>One example of a positive process that Marx deals with is the increased and
>intensified networks of social cooperation created by capital. Lenin
>similarly (in his Imperialism book) deals with the socialization of
>production in the imperialist stage of capital. Both of these processes
>are equally relevant today. These are ways in which Empire is
>progressive or, more precisely, in which Empire creates the greater
>potential for revolution.
>
>Michael
In concrete political terms, how does one further the process of the creation of "the increased and intensified networks of social cooperation" without pushing "the negative aspects of processes to an extreme" (and vice versa) under capitalism & imperialism?
(((((((((((((
Speaking of Empire:
Thursday January 25 5:14 PM ET
CASTRO TAKES VERBAL SHOT AT BUSH
HAVANA (AP) - Fidel Castro this week fired his first verbal shot at President Bush since he took office, saying he hoped his new adversary in the White House is ``not as stupid as he seems.''
In a Sunday speech shown late Wednesday on state television, Castro said that ``someone very strange, with very little promise, has taken charge of the leadership of the great empire that we have as a neighbor.''
``That gentleman has arrived there, and hopefully he is not as stupid as he seems, nor as mafia-like as his background makes him appear,'' the Cuban leader said. He added, however, that he was not troubled by Bush's presence, saying ``he's there, and we are calm over here.''
The United States ``cannot invent anything against us,'' said Castro.
In Washington, White House spokeswoman Mary Ellen Countryman declined to comment on most of the Cuban leader's remarks. As for Castro's statement that the island nation was ``calm'' about the Bush presidency, she said lightheartedly: ``That's good. We are calm over here too.''
Bush is the 10th American president to serve since the 1959 triumph of Castro's revolution.
The new U.S. president has expressed support for the four- decade American trade embargo on Cuba. He has said he envisions no change in U.S. policy toward the communist island unless free elections are held and political prisoners are freed.
During last year's presidential campaign, Castro described Bush, a Republican, and Democratic candidate Al Gore as ``boring and insipid.''
(from http://dailynews.yahoo.com)
(((((((((
>From _Imperialism_ (1916):
>From all that has been said in this book on the economic essence of imperialism, it follows that we must define it as capitalism in transition, or, more precisely, as moribund capitalism. It is very instructive in this respect to note that bourgeois economists, in describing modern capitalism, frequently employ catchwords and phrases like "interlocking", "absence of isolation", etc.; "in conformity with their functions and course of development", banks are "not purely private business enterprises: they are more and more outgrowing the sphere of purely private business regulation". And this very Riesser, whose words I have just quoted, declares with all seriousness that the "prophecy" of the Marxists concerning "socialisation" has "not come true"!
What then does this catchword "interlocking" express? It merely expresses the most striking feature of the process going on before our eyes. It shows that the observer counts the separate trees, but cannot see the wood. It slavishly copies the superficial, the fortuitous, the chaotic. It reveals the observer as one who is overwhelmed by the mass of raw material and is utterly incapable of appreciating its meaning and importance. Ownership of shares, the relations between owners of private property "interlock in a haphazard way". But underlying this interlocking, its very base, are the changing social relations of production. When a big enterprise assumes gigantic proportions, and, on the basis of an exact computation of mass data, organises according to plan the supply of primary raw materials to the extent of two- thirds, or three-fourths, of all that is necessary for tens of millions of people; when the raw materials are transported in a systematic and organised manner to th! e most suitable places of production, sometimes situated hundreds or thousands of miles from each other; when a single centre directs all the consecutive stages of processing the material right up to the manufacture of numerous varieties of finished articles; when these products are distributed according to a single plan among tens and hundreds of millions of consumers (the marketing of oil in America and Germany by the American oil trust) ― then it becomes evident that we have socialisation of production, and not mere "interlocking", that private economic and private property relations constitute a shell which no longer fits its contents, a shell which must inevitably decay if its removal is artificially delayed, a shell which may remain in a state of decay for a fairly long period (if, at the worst, the cure of the opportunist abscess is protracted), but which will inevitably be removed.