Body Count

[Yoshie Furuhashi]

>Actually, it's never been demonstrated that "nations" (or even _whole_
>capitalist classes) benefit from imperialism. That does not mean that
>imperialism is not necessary to capitalism, but that is a separate
>question. It's that capitalism _must_ grow whether growth is good for it
>or not.
>
>It is a mistake, then, to try to determine whether imperialism is
>"capitalistically irrational," as it would be a mistake to try to
>determine whether metabolism was rational or irrational. (Best metaphor
>I could come up with on the fly -- not very good.) Imperialism is a
>_given_, and the task for the leaders (in and out of govenrment) of an
>imperialist nation is how best to operate within the constraints
>established by that given.
>
>Carrol

We (in contrast to the guardians of the empire) are on the lookout 
for weak links in the chain of capitalism and imperialism, so to 
speak.  We also want to exploit, if we can, any errors made by the 
other side.  Dialectical anticipation is that even the most brilliant 
move may later turn out to be the most terrible error.

First of all, though, we need to bootstrap ourselves to the level of 
strength at which we can think of doing something about errors made 
by the other side; otherwise, they'll turn their own errors into 
sources of strength.
-- 
Yoshie

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