From: "Patrick Bond" <pbond at mail.ngo.za> To: <lbo-talk at lbo-talk.org> Subject: Re: [lbo-talk] Class Analysis of the Empire? Date: Tue, 8 Feb 2005 05:36:58 +0200
----- Original Message ----- From: <JBrown72073 at cs.com>
> >I couldn't agree more. So how do we start? I'd really love a rigorous
>>analysis of just how much imperialism contributes to the U.S.
>>standard of living today, but I don't know of any. Any ideas?
>>Doug
>I took a stab at this at URPE a couple of years ago--comparing several
>ex-empires to ours along the dimensions of healthcare, education, free time,
>childcare, paid leave. (Actually I've given a similar presentation
>two other times
>as well.) And I used the example of oil prices, popularly imagined to be
>lowered by U.S. military might.
Sounds promising Jenny, but of course there are many many many threads to start pulling here. And there are excellent people pulling them, including our comrades in the Jubilee movement - especially South Africa - demanding reparations for Northern imperialism, in the - albeit cul-de-sac - legal system of the US last November where in the hostile NY courts they lost the first round of lawsuits against Big Capital for apartheid-era profits. There are many parallel activities, but since you mention oil, just consider the thread that might first emerge, namely Northern debt to the South for using up fossil fuels and the C02 commons. Here's just one rather mild-mannered version of the argument, below.
Some people on LBO will go all squeamish when they hear that word, reparations, I'd guess. Though the politics aren't nice to think about, Yoshie, you do have to consider Lenin's labour aristocracy thesis, applied to the 'Republican Proletariat' (NLR's phrase) in Kansas or Alabama (where I was raised). That correct thesis - the interests of most Northerners in sustaining Empire's spoils, whether British when Lenin wrote or petro-military today - is why I'm not all that bothered when periodic hysteria about 'anti-Americanism' emerges in liberal circuits here in South Africa. If the argument is made properly and carefully, I think a general Third Worldist anti-imperialism retains a good amount of material logic. When even nice Canadian churchy folk can express the principles of the North's ecological debt to the South in such clear terms as you read below, it's time for a reckoning.
'Reparations' would only be part of that, of course, because the entire power structure needs overhauling, starting perhaps with Northern progressives joining Southern-initiated efforts to defund the World Bank, for instance (http://www.worldbankboycott.org). But the particular eco-debt arguments might be a good place to begin addressing Doug's challenge, and I'm disappointed comrade Doug that - maybe out of your unfamiliarity? (certainly not lack of support!) - these sites aren't the first you turn to: www.cosmovisiones.com/DeudaEcologica , www.rafi.org , www.rprogress.org , www.jubileesouth.org, www.ifi-out.org ...
Anyhow, it really is time for the North 'to pay up,' and for LBO solidarity at every opportunity.
Cheers, Patrick
Ecological Debt: South Tells North "Time to Pay Up"
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