----- Original Message ----- From: "Yoshie Furuhashi" <furuhashi.1 at osu.edu> To: <lbo-talk at lists.panix.com> Sent: Monday, January 29, 2001 6:59 PM Subject: Re: delinking
> Which theorist of underdevelopment makes the second claim: "the
> dominant economies themselves had originally developed their fully
> articulated and independent structures in relative isolation, with
> only limited interaction with other economies and global networks"?
It might be hard to find a theorist of underdevelopment who'd make this
claim - they tended to be quite opposed to this perspective - but Robert
Brenner comes to mind from the "opposing" side out of the Marxist movement.
See J. M. Blaut's recently released "Eight Eurocentric Historians"
(Guilford,2000), the follow-on to "The Colonizer's Model of the World:
Geographical Diffusionism and Eurocentric History" (1993). And some Weber
issues come up in "Empire" as well.
>
> The only nation that spent its late feudal/early modern period in
> "relative isolation" (= sakoku) & benefited from it seems to me to be
> Japan.
Eurocentrism itself acknowledged the supposed "Japan Paradox" some time ago, including in its Weberian-Marxist current. P. Anderson of the "Passages...Lineages" period comes to mind. Japan, in order to be integrated into the modern story of capitalist development, had to be conceived of as a "special" or "exceptional" case. A feudal condition of parcellized sovereignty on a "national" scale was seen to have existed.
This view does not bear up under scrutiny. Shuichi Kato (no Marxist, and a believer in an "indigeneous Japanese culture") is closer to the truth in "A History of Japanese Literature: The First Thousand Years" in re Do-gen's Zen Buddhist sect during the "dual power" Kamakura Bakufu that usered in the long age of samurai rule:
"While resembling the religious reform movement of sixteenth century Europe", in 13th century Japan, "in regard to the development of ethical values, it was completely unlike its European counterpart. The Jo-do Shinshu-, the Nichirenshu- and the Zenshu- became instutionalized and popularized in the Muromachi period", the period of the Sengok' Jidai, "and in the process, particularly in the case of Zen, came to fulfil a decisive cultural role. By the time that had happened the warrior classes had fully developed, not a 'bourgeois' society, but a feudal society."
Precisely. This can be seen again in the latest from the succesor to the "Crysanthenum Club" school of Imperial American historiography, "The Making of Modern Japan" (Marius (!) B. Jansen, Belknap/Harvard, 2000), which, despite the authors' own "neoliberal" sensibilities, is forced to emphasize the highly centralized character of the Tokugawa state, as well as its prosperity, pointing out that Tokugawano Edo (Meijino To-kyo-) was (and still is) one of the largest metropoli in the world, in its turn-of-the-17th century heyday larger than contemporary London (as it is again). A metropolis build from nothing by a highly centralized medieval warrior aristocracy - that certainly is a problem for Eurocentrism. Not to mention that (in the manner of the Scottish clans in the English Revolution) it was this centralized warrior state - rather than landed magnate lordship as in Europe - that allowed the Satsuma, Cho-shu- and Tosa clans to move so quickly to pave the way for the Meiji Restoration, itself a kind of "nationalized warrior state". On this last, which wanders off topic, see "Hirohito and the Making of Modern Japan" - apparently some American historians are trying to "make" modern Japan - by Herbert P. Bix (HarperCollins, 2000), a biography of the famous "War Criminal that Got Away" and his infamous Chinese biology experiments, who became the "father" of postwar Japan. Thanks to the U.S.A.
Although Japan has yet to have a "modern revolution", ee ja nai ka (the six-month orgastic revolution at the end of Tokugawa in mid 19th century) and AMPO (1960)certainly has lessons for nishi leftists today.
> Hardt & Negri again:
>
> As unrealistic as this appears at first blush, the recent, present
> and forthcoming conditions of global economic crisis appear to both
> demand and supply the material grounds for a profound change in power
> relations. The ideological hegemony and financial stranglehold that
> neoliberalism and its sponsors have enjoyed are discredited and could
> fast disappear. Out of nowhere (East Asia!), after all, suddenly
> appeared system-threatening contradictions. [Yoshie: Now, the USA
> itself is about to contend with the economic fallout of neoliberalism
> that it has worked hard to make globally hegemonic, if California is
> a harbinger of things to come.]
Of course, the Mexican War of the 1840's (the one that Ulysess S. Grant was to condemn in the Presidency) was a famous 'error' of Marx which, though, prefigures the description of "Empire" we are presented with today. Although 'in a way' Marx was correct to see the war as the progress of "modern capitalist" (Empire), we sense also that Marx was on the wrong side of the struggle here. Why is that? Here we preview the very "ambiguity" presented to us by H&N.
I have to follow Doug here and say, "Wait and see" on California. But you might see the beginning of an antagonism with the Atlantic world of the U.S.A. (not Europe). Why were we the center of the movement against the Persian Gulf war? Why did Seattle happen here? So it certainly appears that the U.S.A. itself is differentially affected by "Empire". As of late, we have been fighting continuously since the KPFA/Pacifica crisis (which coincided with The Balkans War, by which we shold ever inscribe it for the edification of Burford and Co., in this light I certainly recommend Trotsky's illuminating 1911 original). Do we really have to keep carrying the load like this? When are the eastside lardbutts (_and_ Japan, although the latter does show potential) going to help us out? Or must it be sengok' jidai? If so, I know where my alleigence is...
And Benito Mussolini is about to be elected Prime Minister of Israel, at the very fire-hardened spear point of Empire. Not much commentary forthcoming on this, ay?
In the end, no place is unique. This is a Eurocentric construction that has considerably victimized (to this day) Japanese, among others, for far too long.
-Brad Mayer, Oakland, CA
> Yoshie
> +++++