Date: 20 Sep 2001 15:01:19 +0200
From: "Tahir Wood" <twood-AT-uwc.ac.za>
Subject: Re: AUT: War and Terror in the age of Global Empire


>>> aphayes-AT-cyberone.com.au 09/20/01 02:35PM >>>
no impact? pardon the gratuitous pun, but if you think that the attack on the
WTC is just your garden variety attack on an institution of capital with no
appreciable affect on social relations (as if anything is played out at such a
level of abstraction), then perhaps you should think again. the US govt's
military response, not to mention the attack as an excuse to reset the balance
in favour of capital, throughout the world, to my mind will have a significant
(negative) impact on changing social relations. but perhaps it will not play
itself out in merely negative ways.


I think the terms of this debate are such that a few essential aspects are being missed. First of all I don't think we have an anti-capitalist attack in any meaningful sense. This struggle is more than likely between different fractions of capital, and it is about which of them control the bigger share, the US or its enemies. If it is OBL then the case is clear - its one multi-millionaire capitalist against certain others. There is not the slightest indication, and I doubt whether there will be, that the planners of the attack are anti-capitalist in intent. Secondly, the victims were workers to a great extent. So what you have then is workers being killed by certain capitalists (surprise, surprise!), NOT the killing of capitalists and destruction of their property by workers. Thirdly, as I have pointed out, capitalism thrives on war and disaster - witness the US and German development in the wake of WWII, to mention only one general example - so a change in social relations? Not likely. What you will probably get is a bit more state intervention in the US economy for a while and then some handsome profits being make out of all this misery on the part of workers and (maybe) peasants. Only in some particularly feverish version of Leninist 'anti-imperialism' could this be regarded as any sort of blow against capital.
Tahir



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