[lbo-talk] US not a private enterprise system

[Max Sawicky]

Nice piece from JH.  Made me think of the film Khartoum, which isa huge
hoot.  I posted a couple of clips on my blog, back in the day.
I'll try and find them.  One is a discussion among Brit colonial officials,
talking naked imperialism.  The other is a stirring anti-colonial speech
from Laurence Olivier as the Mahdi, which reminds me of a similar bit
in Gunga Din from the Hindu rebel leader.  ("Kill for the love of Kali!!")
In both cases you get a masterful, supremely eloquent interweaving of
anti-imperialism and religious fanaticism, obviously for the purpose of
conflating one with the other.

On Fri, Aug 28, 2009 at 4:14 AM, James Heartfield <
Heartfield at blueyonder.co.uk> wrote:


> Dennis writes:
>
> 'Exactly. The labor-surplus of North American/South American/South
> Asian/African slaves, plantation serfs, indentured laborers, coolies etc.
> was extracted by British capitalism for centuries, with near-genocidal
> consequences for the extractees. Liberal Brit capitalism = illiberal Brit
> Empire.'
>
> It is true that British capitalism used slave money to get going, that it
> used the anti-slavery campaign as a cover for colonial conquest
> http://www.monthlyreview.org/mrzine/heartfield260107.html and that
> indentured labour continued to be a means to seize raw materials by force
> into the 20th century. On the other hand, free labour was a lot more
> productive for capitalism than forced, which is why Marx relegates the
> discussion of slavery to Capitalism's pre-history, seeing free exploitation
> as more typical.
>
> That is why Europe's Trentes Glorieuses coincide with a - very destructive
> - repatriation of European capital from the colonies back home.
>
> Also, you should know that the fifty year gap between abolition of slavery
> in Britain and in America has meant that forever more historians over here
> teaches that slavery was an American vice.
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