> > Really? Marx recognised that N.America might offer greater potential
> than
> > Europe for revolution, because of its superior communications
> technology.
> > And I think you fail to recognise the "concentration" created by
> > ever-improving communications technology. e.g. We couldn't even have
> these
> > debates 20 years ago.
>
> The left version of the "new economy", huh?
There was no "new economy", just as the invention of railways and the telegraph did not affect the fundamentals of capitalist relations of production.
> But let me observe that neither you and people show share your faith in
> the US, nor I and those who remain skeptical have no way of proving
> their relative points. I thus propose the following: let's talk (if we
> still can) in about 10 years from now. If the US is closer to a
> revolution or even the old fashioned social democracy than it is today,
> I buy you a beer. If, otoh, the US is closer to a third-world style
> plutocracy with most public services already privatized or about to be
> privatized - you buy me a beer. I suggest you save some Euros for that
> occasion because it is possible that I will be on the other side of the
> pond by then, and buying a pint there might cost you mucho dollaros (I
> will keep 5 bucks when I leave too).
Considering that the AU$ is not going as badly as the US$ relative to the Euro --- subject to change, as they say -- the price of a beer should not be too much of a problem for me.
New supranational federations and/or the removal of internal obstacles are always a windfall for capital, but eventually European capital must come up against barriers, both geographical and in terms of its own internal class struggles.
> Most religions provide such hope by inventing an afterlife and its
> illusory pleasures. But there is a different approach possible, hinted
> inter alia by the French philosopher Blaise Pascal - death as avoidance
> of greater misery than that found in one's lifetime, instead of a gate
> to an "afterlife" better than one's actual life. I am better off dying
> than living, because I avoid greater misery that is likely to ensue if I
> lived longer. Of course, that kind of comfort hinges on the assumption
> that such greater misery is imminent.
>
> The existence of the United States can be useful in providing such
> comfort. If the social order created in the United States is to take
> over the world, life is not worth living when that happens. The only way
> out of this hell forged in the United States is death, provided it is
> peaceful and painless.
I suggest that the world -- especially the developed countries --- has never been made up of sealed, autonomous units. And "the social order created in the United States" --- namely liberal-democratic capitalism --- had already taken over most of the developed world in 1945. Compared to the surreal horror show of the history of W.Europe --- including most of the most "advanced" countries on earth --- in 1914-1945, US capital has barely begun to reap what it has sown, in terms of its own society and culture. As its economic decline and the social debris mounts up, it will have to. What form the reaping will take, and whether capital can manage it or survive it, remains to be seen.
Grant.