[lbo-talk] Gadaffi the liberator

James Heartfield Heartfield at blueyonder.co.uk
Sat Oct 3 04:45:08 PDT 2009


Doug asks: 'But how can anyone not be part of the world capitalist economy these days? Should Venezuela stop selling oil?'

That was Samir Amin's position, 'decoupling' he called it. But it was not Lenin's. He thought that the USSR ought to seek to continue to be a part of the international division of labour, exchanging goods for western technology, but should at the same time resist a free market. That would establish a direct relationship between Russian farmers and western purchasers, bypassing 'socialist industry' in the cities, and reducing Russia to a breadbasket. Lenin's mechanism was the state monopoly on international trade.



More information about the lbo-talk mailing list