[lbo-talk] blog post: a nation in decline, part 2: signs of distress

[James Heartfield]

Dennis and Chuck dismiss the US and all its works. But that seems a bit eccentric to me. The US is still the most productive country in the world (using such simple metrics as labour productivity, output and so on). Yes, some exciting things are happening in China, India and Brazil, and even in sleepy Europe - but America is still the most important country in the world economy. More than that, it is still one of the places where the most interesting cultural, intellectual, scientific and political innovations come from. Of course there are limitations, but the point is to overcome the limitations, and make the most of the positives, isn't it? Otherwise leftism just descends into a war against society.

This is what went wrong with the post-Commune anarchists, as I argue here: http://platypus1917.org/2010/06/10/rebelling-against-the-world/

Dennis wrote: "I burned through my whole storehouse of anti-Imperial antipathy during the
eight long years of the oiligarchy. Burned it through, all the way down,
until there was nothing left. By 2008 I couldn't feel anything towards the
Empire. It was so obviously done, a vampire caught in the artificial
sun-rays of the BRIC developmental states, their fusion reactors shining
brighter and brighter, driving the Empire's shadows from Latin America,
Mesopotamia, Central Asia. Now the vampire's flesh is melting away."