Chomsky on Vietnam

[Brad DeLong]

>----- Original Message -----
>From: "Bradford DeLong" <jbdelong at uclink.berkeley.edu>
>To: <lbo-talk at lists.panix.com>
>Sent: Wednesday, April 10, 2002 10:04 AM
>Subject: Re: Chomsky on Vietnam
>
>
>>  >I asked Noam Chomsky if I had remembered correctly that he argues
>>  >that the U.S. didn't lose the Vietnam War. He responds:
>>  >
>>  >>'out, were to prevent the "virus"-"rotten apple" effect of
>>  >>successful independent development...'
>>
>>  Now, the development of South Korea, Taiwan, Thailand, Malaysia,
>>  Indonesia, Hong Kong, and Singapore since 1960 has been the fastest
>>  in the world, ever. So that if U.S. policy was to stop "development"
>>  in the region, U.S. policy was a catastrophic failure. But I suppose
>>  development wasn't, in some sense, "independent"--that these
>>  countries are still clients of the United States out of which
>>  "surplus" is being pumped at a furious rate.
>>
>>  Why should I not conclude that this is total lunacy?
>>
>>  Brad DeLong
>>
>>
>Seems to me you answered you own question. North Korea and Vietnam are
>conspicuously absent from your list (but not the subject line). Chomskys
>claim that preventing 'successful independent development' was the primary
>U.S. goal is hardly disproved by your above listing of successful U.S.
>client states. Why should you conclude his claim is 'total lunacy'?
>
>John Thornton

Remember: the U.S. doesn't have to intervene to prevent development 
in Vietnam or North Korea: the Stalinist development model they 
inherited does that all on its own, and does that pretty effectively.

Now I understand the sense in which Honecker's and Jaruzelski's 
regimes in East German and Poland were "client states" of the Soviet 
Union. But you would have to be a real fool to think that South 
Korea, Singapore, Thailand, Malaysia, the Philippines, et cetera 
today are "client states" of the U.S. in the same sense.

Brad DeLong