----- Original Message ----- From: "Chris Burford" <cburford at gn.apc.org> To: <lbo-talk at lists.panix.com> Sent: Wednesday, January 31, 2001 4:50 PM Subject: Re: The Beam in the Eye of the Empire (was Re: Kosova Redux)
> At 19:52 29/01/01 -0500, Yoshie wrote:
>
> >The Bretton Woods institutions & the SAPs should take a special credit
for
> >producing reactionary nationalisms on the periphery & semi-periphery
>
> Quite true.
>
> >What is the most dangerous, though, is imperial-nationalism at the
core --
> >especially the USA -- from Pat Buchanan to Bill Clinton to Ralph Nader to
> >garden-variety liberals & social democrats here; but American leftists
> >can't see the beam in their own eyes.
Even truer, including, if not Nader, "Naderism", i.e., the figure of the "Public Citizen", the subject solidly constituted with the tradition of American Constitutionalism. This is a problem with great implications for N&H's conception of "Empire", particularly with regards to the notion of the historical U.S. realization of "constituant power". In fact, it exposes a flaw - but more on that in the proper context - that is, later.
> Here I do not have a perfect answer. There are times when I would agree.
EG
> I think Mahathir in Malaysia was more progressive than Anwar Ibrahim
> despite his repellent and undemocratic use of sexual politics. Reason: he
> successfully resisted the tide of international finance capitalist
> interests during the Asian financial crisis, and preserved local surplus
> value for the local bourgeoisie, and to some extent the population of
> Malaysia. The undemocratic price for this was fortunately not the
> suppression of a whole ethnic or religious group.
Nevertheless, "The undemocratic price for this", - political loss for national capitalist economic gain - cannot be characterized as progressive. The differerence here (between Mahathir's own repression and the "suppression of a whole ethnic or religious group") is simply one of degree - to argue otherwise is to indulge in precisely the moralizing gestures of which Yoshie is accused.
I have found, and continue to find, nothing progressive about Mahathir. Within the contemporary scope of Empire he is qualitatively no different than Saddam Hussein or Slovodan Milosevic - it is just that Mahathir is not being bombed or sanctioned right now. Mahathir stands strong for "traditional Asian values", as he indicated again in a recent criticism (within the last 2 weeks) of Asian, and particularly Japanese, youth for "wanting to be Western". What Mahathir is actually criticising is the deep yearning of Asian youth to be free of "traditions" that bear down upon them precisely in the marxian sense of the word, however much this desire - and from the Asian people I have met in California I have found it to be a very deep desire - is deformed by fashionable illusions about "the West". These potentially progressive desires are an "internal" threat to Mahathir, Mori and the rest of the Asian regimes.
Almost as much a threat as that "beam in the eye" of Western Leftists who romaticize the habits of "Asian-style capitalism" - one way or another - because they cannot fathom the bottomless suffering, the miserable internalized repression, these habits and this capital rest upon.
> Whatever we do, we
> should make criticisms of imperialism but we have a chance of influencing
> the agenda only if we analyse what is progressive in what it is doing, and
> the balance of forces, and take up a stance likely to have some effect.
>
What, both Mahathir and Empire have a progressive side, but not Saddam or
Slobodan? How is that? Of course, other marxists - marxists who have
influenced the agenda in Seattle, at Pacifica, in the U.S. elections,
against Netanyahu - maintain that "Empire" (or imperialism, unlike H&N they
are the same thing for me) _is_ nothing other than the decomposition of
capitalism, and therefore utterly lacking in a "progressive side". And,
since the advent of Thatcherism at the end of the 70's, this process of
decomposition has reached the qualitative stage - a stage, because it is the
result of successful counterrevolution - where the nation-state, too, no
longer has a progressive side. Whether its NATO versus Serbia, or Malaysia
versus New York, or Israel versus the PLA, or Russia versus Chechnya (unless
one sees progress in the creation of a rump bantustan dependency of
Washington, or a gangster-state in the Caucasus). Or, for that matter,
Ralph Nader. What we have in our own time is a panorama of "regressive on
regressive" violence, history painted in the shades of gray Marx lamented so
long ago. That is the sad, brutal fact of the matter, and given this
historical frame, it should not be surprising that we often find ourselves
with little or no influence it certain situations. What else is new? All
the more reason to take a principled stand - "left" supporters of NATO
flatter themselves to think they "made a difference" in the Balkans - do you
really think they anxiously awaited your support, and would not have
proceeded without you?
Other grounds for practical intervention can be had - such as working for the military defeat of imperialism, which won't win you liberal friends - but they won't be on the basis of a percieved progressive character, in whole or in part, within the existing array of nation-states and regimes.
> It is simply undialectical and fallacious to imply that imperialism does
> not have a positive side. That is marxism. (surprising as it may seem to
> some!) Or am I being deadly tedious in saying this? One never knows who
has
> been able to read which posts.
The slight of hand that moves between paragraphs has been duly noted. The scientifically positive is not to be confused with the politically progressive. Of course, everything has its positive side, in strict scientific usage. H&N intend to describe Empire, vis-a-vis the nation-state, in precisely this way - and only in this precise, highly abstract way do I find agreement with this description. But when it gets down to details, it turns out that the positive side, the force positively at work in Empire, has the corporeal form of sovereign nation-states of NATO, of "Western Civilization", of the same old gang from colonial times, and most of all, of the United States. It turns out that, while every nation-state has ceased to be a politically progressive force within the scope of their own territory - "decays from within", so to speak - not every nation-state is positively "leveled" within the global scope of Empire. Only some are - Serbia, Iraq, Chechnya, or Palestine, or even East Asia - while others, such as the United States, grow stronger as the agency for the constitution of Empire - and, If H&N are correct, how could there be any other result?
Brad Mayer, Oakland, CA
> Chris Burford
>
> London
>
>