[lbo-talk] Fwd: [PEN-L] Blaming the lobby

joanna 123hop at comcast.net
Sun Mar 26 23:15:09 PST 2006


Well, actually, there's one thing they always seem to agree on: keep the workers in check.

Joanna

Jim Devine wrote:


>Julio Huato wrote:
>
>
>>>Massad's critique of M&W's paper misses the main points: that the
>>>policies the U.S. follows in the Middle East, whether or not
>>>determined by the influence of the Israel lobby, *contradict* the
>>>interest of the U.S. capitalists taken as a whole,
>>>
>>>
>
>On 3/26/06, Carrol Cox <cbcox at ilstu.edu> wrote:
>
>
>>This is little short of a claim to divine inspiration. Neither let
>>critics nor ruling class intellectuals can reach any consensus whatever
>>on what is "the interest of the u.s. capitalists."
>>
>>
>
>it's true that we don't know what the collective (class) interests of
>the U.S. capitalist class are. Even the capitalists don't know exactly
>what they are (beyond the basics of protecting their property rights).
>The class interests are something that is discovered over time and
>known only after the fact. (Oops! we may have made a mistake giving
>all that money to Dubya!) Even then, the specific nature of such
>class interests changes over time, with historical events and
>structural conditions. There is a constant interplay between the
>expressed class interests and the individual interests of capitalists
>and their pressure groups. This is part of the process of capitalist
>competition, expressed at the political level. It also represents what
>good ol' uncle Mao called a "non-antagonistic contradiction" within
>capitalism (though some intra-capitalist conflicts can be pretty damn
>antagonistic, e.g., World War I).
>
>Accordingly, the exact nature of the capitalist class interests is a
>subject of constant debate, in Congress and elsewhere in government,
>between the GOPsters and the Demoncrats, etc. I haven't read M&W's
>paper, but they seem to be contributing to that debate. I'd guess they
>belong to the school that claims that doing good in various ways is in
>the capitalists' long-term interests, that "enlightened" capitalists
>should save the environment, etc.
>
>--
>Jim Devine / "There can be no real individual freedom in the presence
>of economic insecurity." -- Chester Bowles
>
>___________________________________
>http://mailman.lbo-talk.org/mailman/listinfo/lbo-talk
>
>
>

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