Date: Sat, 9 Mar 2002 19:58:09 -0800 (PST)
From: Saul Marsh <saulmail-AT-yahoo.com>
Subject: Re: AUT: Imperialism = main contradiction? Saul to Greg


--- Greg Schofield <g_schofield-AT-dingoblue.net.au> wrote:
> Saul we need a little reality check here.
> You say below:
> "I disagree that the "main struggle" has ever been "national
> liberation."  National liberation means siding with one
> nation-state
> against another."
> 
> Well you seemed to have missed much of the 20th century. I was
> talking in the past tense and in regard to internationalist
> struggle, you seem to have adopted a universalist position complete
> with fairies.

Oh, well if you are just talking about what people have done and not
what has been needed in order to improve our lives, then yes, OK,
sure the class struggle in areas controlled by states that are weak
in the geopolitical pecking order have been largely channelled into
anti-imperialism.  What's this about fairies?  

> This is not a matter of choice, it is plain historical fact - the
> international history of the 20th century has been largely the
> history of the emergance of national liberation - I simply do not
> think this is really up to much doubt. 

I think we have just had a semantic misunderstanding.  I thought you
were talking about what struggle has been necessary (in terms of
anti-capitalism), not just "plain historical fact."  Yes, the plain
historical fact is that people have largely lacked a perspective that
would lead them to effective anti-capitalism, rather they have in
most cases supported alternative capitalist development.  Though I in
no way dismiss class struggle in colonies or imperialized countries. 
No one anywhere "has to" (nor will they) wait (in the Kautskyist
sense that Scott and Louis have referred to) for revolution.  But it
seems more that anti-imperialism makes them wait, because if their
anti-imperialism (which they might, and certainly Scott and Louis do,
think of as class struggle) reinforces capitalism, then they really
have to wait, don't they?  Because you can't get where you want to go
by walking backwards.

Anyhow many millions of
> people laid down their lives for it s it seems a bit churlish to
> dismiss it.

Can we judge the value of an activity by its popularity? 
"100,000,000 Elvis fans can't be wrong" either.  But I am not
"dismissing" it, I'm just saying that it was misguided.  People can,
of course, have misguided ideas and still have a concrete struggle
that wins them some better conditions - but they will only get so
far, and then the question is, is it worthwhile?  People in general
cling to what they see as the safest path.  59% of workers at an
airline in the US last week voted to accept concessions because they
thought a strike might endanger their security.  The other 41%
thought it would be better to gamble on some insecurity in order to
force the company to exploit them less.  People believe that
supporting a state gains them security.  It also continues their
exploitation.  Revolutionaries argue, mostly unsuccessfully, that
it's better to fight than cower.  But occasionally more people agree
with them, and it happens.  Even while people aren't cowering, but
are fighting and dying for the state, in as much as they are
conscious of it, they are fighting for the security they believe the
state provides (social peace).  Which means their own exploitation,
and more war in the future.

> The fact that nation liberation leads to nationalism and all
> soughts of predictable conflicts - well who said it didn't - that's
> history mate get used to it. 

Too true.  Although nat'l lib. doesn't "lead" to nationalism, it is
inseparable from it from the beginning.  And the problems with it are
also the reason to oppose it.

> And as for all your assertions about
> what nation statehood means, well it is frankly an anarchist
> litnany - ahistorical, simplistic and intellectually self-serving.

If it is ahistorical to say that the nation-state is a capitalist
form, is there an historical counter-example?  USSR, Vietnam, China,
North Korea, Cuba?  Then we're back to the other thread.  It may be
simple, but where does complexity negate its truth?  As for it being
intellectually self-serving, you'll have to elaborate.  I'm engaged
in dialog here.  I was just stating my position in order to get
feedback.  And as for it being "anarchist," well, there are plenty of
anarchist anti-imperialists, going back to Bakunin and Kropotkin. 
Marx wasn't alone in his mistakes about supporting the "progressive"
bourgeoisie.  

> Now I apologise to the list for using such strong language, but I
> dislike being lectured to about a misreading of what I have said,

I do seem to have misread your mere citation of the existence of
anti-imperialism as meaning that it had been the main thing to
support, above.

> then accused of supporting some sought of anti-communism by
> some-one who justifies their thinking by disagree with Marx on the
> state!
 
Well, was I wrong to interpret your positive reference to Lenin's
Imperialism as indicating a position in favor of anti-imperialism, ie
nationalism, ie capitalism?  I was just saying that such a position
is counter to the struggle for communism.

> The problem is when you believe all analysis is in fact an
> advocation of a position as in this case with Marx who saw German
> unification as a question pregnant with contradictions and once
> achieved would come into conflict with Russia 

He didn't just predict that it would come into conflict with Russia. 
He advocated support of an imperialist war, ie, proletarians dying to
further bourgeois development because of his theory of progress.

- Saul read a little
> history and you find that Marx more or less got it right.

Quite the contrary.  

> NOw you are also telling me that Lenin's Imperialism was from Marx
> but Rosa Luxemberg's views of the state were not. I don't really
> think Rosa would agree with you on that one and I think you are
> reading more into her pamphlet then is actually there (though I
> would have to reread it to say so with certainity).

True, I shouldn't have implied that Rosa disagreed with Marx. 
Rather, she felt Marx's position was obsolete in 1914.  I just feel
it was obsolete at the dawn of time.  Actually, re-reading Luxemburg,
I take back what I said pending more thorough examination.  I thought
I'd read a passage in the Junius Pamphlet where she says that
national self-determination is not possible until capitalism is dead.
 I'll try to find it.  But this is a secondary issue.

> Anyhow much of this is beside the given the way things have
> developed in the world. I will not play words with what is a good
> and bad state (a state is a state whether it be proletarian or
> bourgeois - you fool yourself if you think it would be a
> qualitatively different type of state).

I was just trying to avoid the semantic trap of reifying "the state"
as always being a capitalist state.  I think the form of organization
of a relatively non-hierarchical, and certainly classless society
might still be qualified as a "state" although it traditionally
isn't.  So much for my anarchism.  You say "a state is a state," but
I'm saying a proletarian "state" has to be qualitatively different:
it no longer enforces work.

> I am sorry Saul that you took such umbridge with my statements,
> which appear to be a thoroughly unsucessful attempt to push debate
> to a slightly higher level.
> 
> I find this sought of out and out attack and extreme interpretation
> of a posting a mistake on your part and I hope not to see it again.
> Things don't balance on your or my definitions but on reality which
> cares nothing for either.

I'm trying to define reality, to articulate what it is, not impose my
artificial definitions on it.  And I certainly meant no attack, I was
merely positing an alternative point of view.  I apologize if I
misunderstood what you were saying, I certainly meant no malice. 
Frankly, It might be your writing.  It looks like English might be
your second language from the truncated and skewed quality of your
sentences.  Please, I mean no offense in this.  But you have to take
this into consideration when people don't understand what you're
saying.



====

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