[lbo-talk] Democracy Now 5/26

Doug Henwood dhenwood at panix.com
Sun May 30 18:15:59 PDT 2004


Carrol Cox wrote:


>What makes me sad is that conspiracy theories such as Joseph Wanzala's
>_lead away_ from awareness of the centers of power. They delude people
>into thinking that evil exists solely in the machinations of particular
>people rather than in the capitalist system. Joseph's arguments, that
>is, add up to an apology for capitalism and for u.s. imperialism. His
>theories also support racism, for the major form racist ideology takes
>today is the view that racist institutions are caused by the actions of
>racist individuals, making it more difficult to combat its structural
>sources.

I agree up to a point, but your language ("system," "structural sources") makes it difficult to locate human agency. It makes us all look like pawns, puppets on strings operated by no one identifiable. THe trick is to analyze the institutions of class power - the state, Wall Street, the Council on Foreign Relations - in all their complexity and imperfections, identifying interests and actors without descending to the twelve guys in a room version of conspiracism.

Doug



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