Date: 24 Oct 2001 09:41:50 +0200
From: "Tahir Wood" <twood-AT-uwc.ac.za>
Subject: AUT: Re: national question.


>>> commie00-AT-yahoo.com 10/23/01 09:41PM >>>
'alo tahir, my other sparring partner...

Hi, see comments below:

what is new, i think, is the federalization national ruling classes into a
global ruling class, and thus the end of imperialism since the 1940s.

Tahir: But this is just restating what you said earlier. If you say that the ruling classes of the US, UK, Russia, China, Iran, Iraq are realy one ruling class and that our perception that they are distinct with interests that are NOT identical with one another, then what evidence do you supply? Why not go all the way and say that there is one global state only, which is what you seem to be implying?


but the question is: who is behind this subordination.

Tahir: Don't understand "behind" here. My point was that certain ruling classes subordinate other nations, including their ruling classes, to their own national interests. 

in the imperialist stage, 

Tahir: So imperialism was a stage of capitalism, albeit not the "highest stage"?

the local ruling class was also subordinated (even
if this subordination was just being "bought off") to the forgien ruling
class. in the empire stage, local ruling classes are inceasingly
participating as equals... that is: are not subordinated to a foreign ruling
class.

Tahir: Please tell me in what sense the ruling classes of Afghanistan, Saudi Arabia, Bangladesh, Vietnam, Thailand, Rwanda, Mocambique, Eritrea and the Central African Republic are equal to that of the United States. (Sorry for being so obtuse!)

imperialism ends when the national ruling classes start moving toward
participation as equals, and thus federalize together.

Tahir: This is so abstrusely theoretical that it seems hard to even imagine as a possible world, never mind the real world. Once again your bland statement that there is this participation as equals needs a little evidence from the world that most of us are more familiar with.

within countries that have (con)federalist structures, each "state",
"province", etc. is its own nation state. and these nation states are
federlized into a large nation state.

Tahir: Yes but it is precisely the nation states that I am talking about, so leave aside the red herring here of the federalised nation states, they have been around since the dawn of capitalism, some of them, so that is irrelevant to what you are saying.


working class people here are
pretty nationlistic, but it shant be too long is suspect, if things
continue, that its just excepted as norm.

Tahir: I would like to believe this, but I see no sign of it.


there's no denying that there will always be some level of antagonism
between nation-states

Tahir: Well I dunno about "always" - that sounds a little bit like defeatism to me! - but as long as they are around they will go to war with one another over resources of various kinds or as a strategy of capital.

... hell, the state i live in (west virginia) is openly
antagonistic toward every other state in the u.s. ... but that's not the
issue. the issue is the context they deal with these antagonisms: do they
deal with it in imperialist ways? or do they deal with it thru the imperial
bodies?

Tahir: I really think its up to you to explain this analogy between states in a federal structure and the global set of nation states. As I've said I think this is just a red herring in this debate. They seem to me to be two different sorts of things.

i have to honestly say that i think most of these antagonisms are made up.

Tahir: Don't understand "made up". Does it mean imaginary or manufactured or what?

its not uncommon in the u.s. (and i figure everyone else too) for two or
more opposing politicians to cooperate in staging events to display their
opposition to one another for mutually beneficial reasons. hell, this is
accepted as fact so much in the u.s. that they even did a law & order
(popular u.s. tv drama) episode about it a few years ago.

Tahir: So the bombings of Iraq, Serbia and Afghanistan, etc., were arranged between the ruling classes of these countries and the US ruling class as a kind of theatrical project? The invasions of Somalia, as well as Grenada, Panama, Cuba and even Vietnam, were all simply at the invitation of the local ruling classes, were they? The Israelis were invited into Lebanon in 1982 secretly by the Lebanese authorities? That must be the part that never gets into the news obviously.

i figure that the bulk of these antagonisms, while possibly grounded in real
issues (which will, most likely, for the most part [with the possible
exception of iraq] be resolved thru the imperial bodies), are played up to
maintain national chauvanism to subvert international resistance and
maintain nation-based wage-differentials until the "races to the bottom" are
complete.

Tahir: Why Iraq? Iraq was supported to the hilt by the US until they decided to be disobedient. Why is Iraq more likely to join the club than Cuba, North Vietnam, Iran, Libya, etc.?

that is: its a mutually beneficial way to decompose national working classes
and distract people from the real enemy.

Tahir: Well this is not only a conspiracy theory, it is also a highly simplistic one. It eliminates every vestige of culture, language, identity, territory, etc. from the equation. These were all factors in the way that the bourgeois state formed as a nation state out of the absolutist state in the first place. Even if it were true that the nation state today is mainly a way of dividing and ruling the workers, this political matter would perpetuate itself because the ruling classes, short of total coercion, still need that national mandate to rule. And they cannot ignore that.

i don't know is "happily" is the right word (given that there will be
antagonisms), but i think we already exist in that world.

Tahir: But you need to show that these antagonisms are relatively trivial. I must say that it is very hard to imagine a world of one global ruling class and multiple, divided working classes. This is not to say that ruling classes don't identify with one another - hell the royalties of different countries used to be family in feudal times and had no comparable identification with their subjects - but there are serious constraints on this within the modern context.

> I may be naive, but I think you have intellectualised the notion of
imperialism into a very abstruse point. The test is this: what is the
practical significance of your sophisticated notion in comparison to my
simplistic one? If you can answer that then I might start to see your point.

i'm not entirely sure i understand your question... so maybe i already
answered it. if not, clarify and i'll do the best i can.

Tahir: The question is this: what difference does your view, as you have expressed it, make to the practical revolutionary project? If none then it is either abstruse or trivial, as I have said.



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