[lbo-talk] States / Nations / "Countries" & "Interesdt" of

Carrol Cox cbcox at ilstu.edu
Fri Aug 13 09:30:17 PDT 2010


"Never trust England to act in its own interest."

John Adams

Michael Pollak wrote:
>
>
> That's a good start. But the main problem with that formulation is that
> (a) the current policy seems to be to the ultimate detriment of both
> countries; and (b) if you look only at immediate goals, it seems more to
> the detriment of those of the US.

This is uncharacteristically unthought-out on Michael's part.

1) He claims to know what "the Interest" of each State concerned is. What is the criterion for this? How is it determined?

2) The word "countries" is impossibly vague. It includes far too much, including clearly antagonistic interests.

3) (I believe Marving focused on this.) "Current Policy" is assumed to be a simple entity. I know Michael would not think this, but it seems to be assumed in the post.

We are not dealing with "countries" or even "Nations" here but _States_. There are innumerable linkages between the "interests" of these states and various other entities: "people," "buxinesds," state bureaucracies, current goverenments (administrations) to name a few. Has any U.S. Administration _ever_ put the (presumed) interests of the "country" (which is some sort of totality) ahead of the state itself or of "business." (I'm intentionally avoiding the terms "capital" and "ruling class." "Business" is suitably vague and probably _is_ the way many policy makers forumlate their concrn.))

So what is "detrimental" to the U.S. State? Do we have any grounds whatever to assume that our conception of that would coincide with the judgment of the chief decision makers (whoever they are) in Washington? And do we have any grounds whatever to assume that our judgment would be more accurate than ours? The concept of some (nearly mystical) True Interest of the State (or Nation) seems to be opereative here.

Probably the long-term interest of the State is profoundly at odds with the short or long term interests of the "country" (seen as being constituted by the people who live here), but whether that is true or not a concrdance certainly cannot be taken for granted.

Carrol



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