"Jeet Heer" <jeet at sturdynet.com> wrote:
> It is true that Perry Anderson and his intellectual allies (notably Peter
> Gowan), repeatedly emphasize how powerful the US is and play up
> the weakness of any real or potential opposition to US hegemony. It
> might be interesting to speculate why they are so fixated on the
> power of the US. In his long and very interesting article on Eric
> Hobsbawm, which just ran over 2 issues of the LRB, Anderson argues
> that during the Cold War the left repeatedly under-estimated the
> strength of capitalism, and that the only by taking full measure of
> the enemy's power can there be effective opposition to it. Perhaps this
> has led PE to an excessive pessimism of the intellect, since his message
> these days seems to be "resistance is futile." Jeet
Reasons include his longtime focus on the Western European left and left-intellectuals, whose total collapse must have been very disheartening. Similarly the outcome of the postie turn to culture, in which he also invested heavily, would have had the same result. A focus on the periphery avoids these mood swings. Compare for instance Samir Amin in this weeks Al-Ahram on the same subject <http://www.ahram.org.eg/weekly/2002/609/intrvw.htm>
The theory of the piece (as opposed to the mood) is derivative of the excellent Peter Gowan, and Anderson says so right at the start. And it makes it about the strongest piece of writing by Perry Anderson that I've read in years. The anti-imperialism positively glows. The discussion of the use of "humanitarian interventions" to fool the easily and readily (and willingly?) fooled into cheering for aggression is crystal clear, and worth excerpting in full. It's greatest weakness is his refusal to think about political economy - of the 10,000+ words only 3 are "oil"...
john mage