[lbo-talk] Understanding _Capital_ (Was Re: barbaric)

Yoshie Furuhashi critical.montages at gmail.com
Wed Mar 7 19:36:45 PST 2007


On 3/7/07, Bill Bartlett <billbartlett at aapt.net.au> wrote:
> At 10:00 PM -0500 7/3/07, Yoshie Furuhashi wrote:
>
> >Well, I suppose that depends on where you are, e.g., in Japan or
> >Somalia, to take extreme examples. It would be stupid to do politics
> >in Japan as if you were in Somalia, but it would be also stupid to do
> >politics in Somalia as if you were in Japan. But the type of people
> >who confuse what may work in Japan and what may work in Somalia are
> >lacking in common sense, not theory.
>
> Some people have more immediate problems than the class war, in fact
> some people might consider the kind of economic dictatorship suffered
> by the working class in the rich world to be a very attractive
> alternative to their existing regime.

In a lot of places in the world, establishment of a functioning government, basic everyday survival, etc. come first, and arms can be often a matter of self defense. First you have to live before you do anything else.


> They may very well conclude that taking up arms to achieve that
> improvement may work. But to argue that it won't work as a solution
> to the class war against the capitalist economic dictatorship in no
> way contradicts the notion that taking up arms may be an effective
> strategy in other situations.

Recognition that reproduction of capitalism ultimately depends on force doesn't mean, though, that "taking up arms," in the fashion, for instance, Fidel Castro, et al. once did, is an effective strategy even in very poor parts of the world -- in fact, that is very rarely the case. It does mean keeping in mind that, even if you come to power through electoral means, the other side often will not let you govern peacefully when they decide you've gone too far, as Mossadegh, Arbenz, Allende, etc. realized, and, but for the support of loyal soldiers and civilian masses, Chavez might have ended up sharing their fate.

As far as the West is concerned, very few workers are thinking right now of establishing a concrete alternative to "capitalist economic dictatorship." Hence relative peace at home. -- Yoshie <http://montages.blogspot.com/> <http://mrzine.org> <http://monthlyreview.org/>



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