Carrol Cox sez:
> It is really detached from reality to speak of the "fall" of
modern
> empires or of the "decadence" of capitalism. The organic
metaphor of
> decadence was relevant only to empires based on
coercion-grounded
> exploitation. It has no relevance to capitalism, which
is endlessly
> self-renewing through the very ccatastrophes that tempt
weak-minded
> anti-capitalists to shout hurrah, capitalism is falling.
Doug Henwood replies:
This is exactly right. I often wonder - just how much did Britain suffer
from the
decline of its empire?
John Gulick writes:
In principle I want to agree with this, because I'm desperately trying to safeguard
myself against the existential and political pitfalls of the end-times apocalypticism
that is running rampant on both the left and the right these days. But at the same time I think you are both too facilely making parallels between British and US imperial decline. The respective declines occur at different moments in world-historical time and under different geopolitical circumstances. A good (if not an airtight) case can be made that US imperial decline is taking place just as the world accumulation process is running up against biophysical constraints that it can no longer supersede simply by conquering new ecological frontiers. Moreover, even if one discounts this possibility, will the US enjoy a "special relationship" with the next capitalist hegemon that the UK enjoyed with the US? Can you envision the explosive domestic political consequences if the US "globalist elite" grudgingly accepts a junior partnership with PRC bureaucratic
capitalism? It will make the Tea Party resemble a... tea party. Remember, the Keynesian welfare state consensus was in the ascendant when the UK let go of its empire in a fit of absent-mindedness...
_________________________________________________________________ Hotmail has tools for the New Busy. Search, chat and e-mail from your inbox. http://www.windowslive.com/campaign/thenewbusy?ocid=PID28326::T:WLMTAGL:ON:WL:en-US:WM_HMP:042010_1