<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01 Transitional//EN"> <html> <head> <meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html;charset=ISO-8859-1"> <title></title> </head> <body> Well, actually, there's one thing they always seem to agree on: keep the workers in check. Joanna Jim Devine wrote: <blockquote type="cite" cite="mid93dbbd490603261909tba505deg1867f7de38771e98@mail.gmail.com"> <pre wrap="">Julio Huato wrote: </pre> <blockquote type="cite"> <blockquote type="cite"> <pre wrap="">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, </pre> </blockquote> </blockquote> <pre wrap=""> On 3/26/06, Carrol Cox <a class="moz-txt-link-rfc2396E" href="mailto:cbcox@ilstu.edu"><cbcox@ilstu.edu></a> wrote: </pre> <blockquote type="cite"> <pre wrap="">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." </pre> </blockquote> <pre wrap=""> 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 ___________________________________ <a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="http://mailman.lbo-talk.org/mailman/listinfo/lbo-talk">http://mailman.lbo-talk.org/mailman/listinfo/lbo-talk</a> </pre> </blockquote> </body> </html>