[lbo-talk] Niall Ferguson and Collapse of Empire

[Carrol Cox]

a) Probably the debt level can go much higher without destructive
effects
b) China has no place else to place its money, as well as having no
industry if you were to subtract that devoted to exports to the U.S. and
Europe
c) If it isn't a U.S. Empire but an Empire of Capital then the weakness
of the United States is an important but not a catatrophic fact.

For anti-capitalists these endless reports on bad economic conditions
and/or the "collapse" of the U.S. are a distraction from our main
concern of building the groundwork to be in place when the next 
political upsurge occurs. Economic doom-saying by Marxists (see the
endless stream of such reports on the Marxist & Pen-L lists make sense
if and only if economic coolapse by itself and withou political input
from leftists will dissolve capitalism for  us. The Marxist list in
particular is made up of those who want to get to heaven on a
rocking-horse. 

Immeediate political and/or social and/or economic  conditions provide
no guide to political practice for the anti-capitalist. Such a guide can
only emerge from the theoretical work that most anti-capitalists on
these lists seem uninterested in.

Barbarism is here, not merely a future here. We have to give more heavy
thought to how we can reverse it.

Carrol

Ismail Lagardien wrote:
> 
> Harvard professor and prolific author Niall Ferguson opened the 2010 Aspen Ideas
> Festival Monday with a stark warning about the increasing prospect of the
> American “empire” suddenly collapsing due to the country’s rising debt level.
> 
> http://www.aspendailynews.com/section/home/141349
> 
> 
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