On Mar 2, 2008, at 10:29 AM, Eric wrote:
>> I think that these conversations become somewhat problematic
>> when
>> the conversation operates on an assumption of equivalence. The
>> Zapatista movement is a regional, indigenous movement coming out of
>> the most impoverished region of Mexico (The land that the Mexican
>> Revolution forgot, as a professor of mine once referred to it.)
>
> (By the way, this whole post is very good.) I think what bothers me
> most about Doug's insistence on the Zapatistas' futility is that he's
> imposing Western norms (revolution, state power, welfare regimes) on
> political movements that have no use for them and are specifically
> rejecting them.
I'm all for concrete analysis of the concrete situation, as someone once put it, so how has Chiapas changed since the emergence of the Zaps? How has Mexico changed? Not much, is my guess. Northern leftists got all starry-eyed about Marcos' communiques, clever things that they were (and obviously the product of a fancy education). It fit nicely with all those fashionable ideas of not "taking power," of sidestepping the state, etc. etc. So, really, all of us at this party are imposing our own external templates onto the situation. I'm not opposed to the idea of educated people organizing and leading a movement, but it would be nice to be honest about what's going on. In any case, I don't think that the people of Chiapas can improve their lives markedly without engaging with a state, or hijacking one. A loosely organized group of peasants just can't fight capital without one.
> It reminds me of the moment in his new economy book
> where he says that it's not so horrible that drug companies are
> patenting naturally found herbs and medicines because otherwise those
> things would just go unused. But it's exactly the kinds of logic that
> see everything as available for exploitation -- albeit regulated by a
> beneficent social-democratic administration -- and that see
> inclusion in the circuits of global capital and labor as a
> requirement to achieve social change, that many movements are
> refusing.
You're misquoting me badly. What I said was: "It’s evil that Merck will steal plants from indigenous people and then patent them, and be protected for doing so under international trade law, but the plants wouldn’t do much good if it weren’t for some large, complex organization to develop and process them. Socialize Merck, don’t dissolve it." Should the plants just stay there and not cure the sick of the world?
Doug