[lbo-talk] RIP Chalmers Johnson

[Carrol Cox]

Johnson's books were impressive. But he did make a fundamental error: He
thought  empire was empire, and this is profoundly false. There is no real
comparison to be made between the empire of capital and pre-capitalist
empires. The excerpt below would be roughly true of all pre-capitalist
empires: the organic metaphor of decay makes some sense applied to them. But
metphors of decay, decadence, rot simply misconceive the unique nature of
capitalism in contrast to all other social orders. It does not decay whether
or not a particular manifestation of it does.  Italy, Germany, France,
England, Japan have all endured great defeats, and both capitalism and even
most of the great capitalist enterprises or families have risen from the
ashes as healthy as ever. Capitalism is a phoenix. Merely dancing on its
grave until you are sure it is dead won't do the trick.

The odds against humanity surviving capitalism are great, and wishful
thinking, is a major weakness among those opposed to it. Effective
opposition must be grounded in profound dpessimism of the intellect.

Carrol

-----Original Message----- From: lbo-talk-bounces at lbo-talk.org
[mailto:lbo-talk-bounces at lbo-talk.org] On Behalf Of Myles Sussman Sent:
Tuesday, November 23, 2010 12:12 AM To: lbo-talk at lbo-talk.org Subject:
[lbo-talk] RIP Chalmers Johnson 

http://www.thenation.com/blog/156598/chalmers-johnson-and-patriotic-struggle
-against-empire 

Chalmers Johnson and the Patriotic Struggle Against Empire 

Johnson, who has died at age 79, was no liberal idealist. He was the an old
Asian hand who had chaired the Center for Chinese Studies at the University
of California-Berkeley from 1967 to 1972 and then served as president and
co-founder of the Japan Policy Research Institute... 

...Johnson, in his last years, became a hero to old-right conservatives and
new-left radicals, who recognized the truth of his observations about "the
sorrows (of empire that are) already invading our lives, which [are] likely
to be our fate for years to come: perpetual war, a collapse of
constitutional government, endemic official lying and disinformation, and
finally bankruptcy." 

"The United States today is like a cruise ship on the Niagara River upstream
of the most specacular falls in North America," Johnson warned. "A few
people on board have begun to pick up a slight hiss in the background, to
observe a faint haze of mist in the air on their glasses, to note that the
river current seems to be running slightly faster. But no one yet seems to
have realized that it is almost too late to head for shore. Like the
Chinese, Ottoman, Hapsburg, imperial German, Nazi, imperial Japanese,
British, French, Dutch, Portuguese, and Soviet empires in the last century,
we are approaching the edge of a huge waterfall and are about to plunge over
it."...