File spoon-archives/aut-op-sy.archive/aut-op-sy_2001/aut-op-sy.0112, message 84


From: "cwright" <cwright-AT-21stcentury.net>
Subject: Re: AUT: Antiterrorism = development of terror against our struggles
Date: Wed, 12 Dec 2001 21:14:28 -0600


Steve,

I have mixed feelings on this.  While capital is international, I don;t
think, contrary to commie00, that the capitalist class has largely stopped
being nationally organized because of their dependence on territorally
bound/binding states and the nation state as manager of flows of labor.  I
think all this overlooks the way in which capital's flight from
insubordinate labor means traversing and creating a fragmented globe, a
world of enforced and bounded divergence.  It means building all kinds of
barriers, not because capital would not like to move freely and equally
everywhere, but because class struggle forces refragmentation upon capital
as a defense.  I don't think that the political, the overall production of
the separation of social control from social production, etc is national,
and yet it gets expressed through national states.  In the same way, I think
that capital is truly (and really always has been) international, and now
increasingly global, but the expression of that has been territorally
limited/state-bound capitalist classes.

To stand against the bourgeoisie of the country we live in, to which
moreover we are socially, linguistically and pschologically acculturated, is
to stand against the specific manifestation of total capital.  I think that
the ICG comrades, even if I disagree with a lot of their politics, still hit
on something vital in posing a refusal which on the one hand stands against
national chauvinism and recognizes the actually existing asymmetry between
nations, while at the same time recognizing that the international
institutions of capital no less represent capital, are no more
'internationalist' than the nation states.

At the same time, I have to express amazement at the continued denial of
imperialism and US hegemony in the face of the war against Afghanistan, this
so called 'war against terrorism'.  The US shrugged off the UN, NATO and
every other international body and has proceeded in the most unilateral
terms, gathering support around it via a large measure of bullying and
cajoling.  This is not Iraq or Somalia.  This has been US orchestrated and
executed from day one, except that Britain's dependence on the US has become
all the more clear in this process.  Clearly, the financial center of the
world seems to be staking its health on the productive giant, hoping that
the US will pull the world out of the slump (increasingly wishful thinking.)

To claim this action as an expression of post-imperialism or 'empire' seems
ludicrous to me.  It may be no mistake to see these 'empire' stories as a
re-run of Kautsky's ultra-imperialism.  These same illusions popped up the
last time we saw a money-capital running rampant over the face of the globe,
only to be shattered by massive inter-imperialist war.  Are we headed that
way?  It seems unlikely, and yet I cannot help but feel that 'empire' is
premature.  I think that the latest Aufheben has some really interesting
stuff pertinent to this process.

Anyway, scattered tonight so...

Cheers,
Chris
----- Original Message -----
From: "Antagonism" <antagonism1-AT-yahoo.com>
To: <aut-op-sy-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu>
Sent: Wednesday, December 12, 2001 12:47 PM
Subject: Re: AUT: Antiterrorism = development of terror against our
struggles


> [tried to send this already and my browser did somthing weird -
> so maybe yoou'll get this twice, or maybe not]
>
> The ICG write:
>
> > THE ENEMY IS IN OUR OWN COUNTRY THIS IS OUR OWN
> > BOURGEOISIE!
>
> > Let's organize beyond the borders, outside and against
> > the summits and antisummits and any other structure of
> > the bourgeois State!
>
> Are you assuming that the capitalist class is national and the
> proletariat is international? If so, I think you are mistaken -
> the capitalist class has its own internationalism, for example
> the summits you mention, the international coalition "against
> terror", the international financial regulatory instituions, the
> EU and NAFTA, and so on. In the war in Afghanistan, there
> dosen't really seem to be a national bourgeoisie in action.
> There is the UN, the EU, the US dominated coalition, against Al
> Qaida (a non-national organaisation) and the Taliban (a fraction
> that never ruled throughout Afghanistan).
>
> In this situation, is the claim that "the enemy is your own
> bourgeousie" leading proletarians into a national perspective
> which is increasingly irrelevent?
>
> steve
>
>
> ====> Antagonism
> web: http://www.geocities.com/antagonism1
> email: antagonism1-AT-yahoo.com
> mail: Antagonism, BM Makhno, London WC1N 3XX, UK
>
> __________________________________________________
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>
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