> > The short answer is: better the devil we know. I mean, imperial
rivalry ---
> > expressed ultimately in World War 1 --- hastened the Russian revolution,
but
> > IMO it set back the cause of socialism/communism in the west by decades.
> >
> Isn't this a sort of academic question? -- after all, no one is asking
> us whether there should be one, two, or many great powers.
Not as such; however some list members appear to see European and/or Asian capital as more progressive than US capital.
> And the devil we know is also the only devil we can fight.
>
> So I don't know how this abstract (or abstracted) opinion is of much
> relevance to the task of building an anti-imperialist movement?
IMO it's relevant for the same reasons that Ho Chi Minh fought the French, Japanese, the French again and then the Vietnamese bourgeoisie and the USA (along with the second-tier imperialists Australia, South Korea, Thailand, New Zealand and the Philippines); there is nothing to be gained by "leftists" (which I presume we all are on this list, a few trolls and eavesdroppers notwithstanding) applauding the decline of one capitalist power, when its decline is _purely_relative_ to the ascendancy of other capitalist powers, religious fanatics and/or reactionary nationalists.
Grant.