From: "chris wright" <cwright-AT-21stcentury.net>
Subject: Re: AUT: Fwd: George Monbiot and David Harvey
Date: Tue, 18 Feb 2003 09:08:51 -0600


This is an interesting piece.  Does anyone have the original David Harvey
piece?

On a note, there are several problems with this analysis, at least as
Monbiot presents it:

1) the discussion of the switch to finance capital/credit is underdeveloped.
One thing left out is the fact that credit is a bet on future capacity to
exploit, which means that capital has to find a new means of accumulation
via production.  That this has been attempted with computers and biotech,
and has seemingly failed without a massive change in the composition of the
class, is not delt with really.

2) this war, as the piece that Carlos Timonero pointed us to makes the case,
is not sufficiently destructive to create the necessary conditions for a new
round of accumulation.

3) capital does not have a choice in increasing consumption power among the
workers since the rate of profit cannot sustain such a situation ("The only
peaceful solution is a new New Deal, but that option is blocked by the
political class in the US: the only new spending it will permit is military
spending. So all that remains is war and imperial control.")  I appreciate
the sensitivity to overaccumulation, however there is a definite problem in
grasping the conditions which would make a new expansion of workers'
spending power amenable to a new round of accumulation, which is predicated
on a massive recomposition of the capital-labor relation, which would
require a direct confrontation, more likely than not, at the points of
production (attacks on women's "rights" and on social welfare, for example,
is an attack on the point of reproduction which, if successful, can take
capital part of the way to its goal, but not the whole way.)

Just some thoughts.

Cheers,
Chris

> On Mon, Feb 17, 2003 at 08:21:32PM -0800, Thomas Seay wrote:
> >  Too much of a good thing
> > >
> > > Underlying the US drive to war is a thirst to open
> > > up new opportunities for
> > > surplus capital
> > >
> > > George Monbiot
> > > Tuesday February 18, 2003
> > > The Guardian
> > >
> > > We are a biological weapon. On Saturday the anti-war
> > > movement released some
> > > 70,000 tonnes of organic material on to the streets
> > > of London, and similar
> > > quantities in locations all over the world. This
> > > weapon of mass disruption was
> > > intended as a major threat to the security of
> > > western governments.
> > >
> > > Our marches were unprecedented, but they have, so
> > > far, been unsuccessful. The
> > > immune systems of the US and British governments
> > > have proved to be rather more
> > > robust than we had hoped. Their intransigence leaves
> > > the world with a series
> > > of unanswered questions.
> > >
> > > Why, when the most urgent threat arising from
> > > illegal weapons of mass
> > > destruction is the nuclear confrontation between
> > > India and Pakistan, is the US
> > > government ignoring it and concentrating on Iraq?
> > > Why, if it believes human
> > > rights are so important, is it funding the
> > > oppression of the Algerians, the
> > > Uzbeks, the Palestinians, the Turkish Kurds and the
> > > Colombians? Why has the
> > > bombing of Iraq, rather than feeding the hungry,
> > > providing clean water or
> > > preventing disease, become the world's most urgent
> > > humanitarian concern? Why
> > > has it become so much more pressing than any other
> > > that it should command a
> > > budget four times the size of America's entire
> > > annual spending on overseas
> > > aid?
> > >
> > > In a series of packed lectures in Oxford, Professor
> > > David Harvey, one of the
> > > world's most distinguished geographers, has provided
> > > what may be the first
> > > comprehensive explanation of the US government's
> > > determination to go to war.
> > > His analysis suggests that it has little to do with
> > > Iraq, less to do with
> > > weapons of mass destruction and nothing to do with
> > > helping the oppressed.
> > >
> > > The underlying problem the US confronts is the one
> > > which periodically afflicts
> > > all successful economies: the over-accumulation of
> > > capital. Excessive
> > > production of any good - be it cars or shoes or
> > > bananas - means that unless
> > > new markets can be found, the price of that product
> > > falls and profits
> > > collapse. Just as it was in the early 1930s, the US
> > > is suffering from
> > > surpluses of commodities, manufactured products,
> > > manufacturing capacity and
> > > money. Just as it was then, it is also faced with a
> > > surplus of labour, yet the
> > > two surpluses, as before, cannot be profitably
> > > matched. This problem has been
> > > developing in the US since 1973. It has now tried
> > > every available means of
> > > solving it and, by doing so, maintaining its global
> > > dominance. The only
> > > remaining, politically viable option is war.
> > >
> > > In the 1930s, the US government addressed the
> > > problems of excess capital and
> > > labour through the New Deal. Its vast investments in
> > > infrastructure, education
> > > and social spending mopped up surplus money, created
> > > new markets for
> > > manufacturing and brought hundreds of thousands back
> > > into work. In 1941, it
> > > used military spending to the same effect.
> > >
> > > After the war, its massive spending in Europe and
> > > Japan permitted America to
> > > offload surplus cash, while building new markets.
> > > During the same period, it
> > > spent lavishly on infrastructure at home and on the
> > > development of the
> > > economies of the southern and south-eastern states.
> > > This strategy worked well
> > > until the early 1970s. Then three inexorable
> > > processes began to mature. As the
> > > German and Japanese economies developed, the US was
> > > no longer able to dominate
> > > production. As they grew, these new economies also
> > > stopped absorbing surplus
> > > capital and started to export it. At the same time,
> > > the investments of
> > > previous decades began to pay off, producing new
> > > surpluses. The crisis of 1973
> > > began with a worldwide collapse of property markets,
> > > which were, in effect,
> > > regurgitating the excess money they could no longer
> > > digest.
> > >
> > > The US urgently required a new approach, and it
> > > deployed two blunt solutions.
> > > The first was to switch from the domination of
> > > global production to the
> > > domination of global finance. The US Treasury,
> > > working with the International
> > > Monetary Fund, began to engineer new opportunities
> > > in developing countries for
> > >  America's commercial banks.
> > >
> > > The IMF started to insist that countries receiving
> > > its help should liberalise
> > > their capital markets. This permitted the
> > > speculators on Wall Street to enter
> > > and, in many cases, raid their economies. The
> > > financial crises the speculators
> > > caused forced the devaluation of those countries'
> > > assets. This had two
> > > beneficial impacts for the US economy. Through the
> > > collapse of banks and
> > > manufacturers in Latin America and East Asia,
> > > surplus capital was destroyed.
> > > The bankrupted companies in those countries could
> > > then be bought by US
> > > corporations at rock-bottom prices, creating new
> > > space into which American
> > > capital could expand.
> > >
> > > The second solution was what Harvey calls
> > > "accumulation through
> > > dispossession", which is really a polite term for
> > > daylight robbery. Land was
> > > snatched from peasant farmers, public assets were
> > > taken from citizens through
> > > privatisation, intellectual property was seized from
> > > everyone through the
> > > patenting of information, human genes, and animal
> > > and plant varieties. These
> > > are the processes which, alongside the depredations
> > > of the IMF and the
> > > commercial banks, brought the global justice
> > > movement into being. In all
> > > cases, new territories were created into which
> > > capital could expand and in
> > > which its surpluses could be absorbed.
> > >
> > > Both these solutions are now failing. As the east
> > > Asian countries whose
> > > economies were destroyed by the IMF five years ago
> > > have recovered, they have
> > > begun, once more, to generate vast capital surpluses
> > > of their own. America's
> > > switch from production to finance as a means of
> > > global domination, and the
> > > government's resulting economic mismanagement, has
> > > made it more susceptible to
> > > disruption and economic collapse. Corporations are
> > > now encountering massive
> > > public resistance as they seek to expand their
> > > opportunities through
> > > dispossession. The only peaceful solution is a new
> > > New Deal, but that option
> > > is blocked by the political class in the US: the
> > > only new spending it will
> > > permit is military spending. So all that remains is
> > > war and imperial control.
> > >
> > >
> > > Attacking Iraq offers the US three additional means
> > > of offloading capital
> > > while maintaining its global dominance. The first is
> > > the creation of new
> > > geographical space for economic expansion. The
> > > second (though this is not a
> > > point Harvey makes) is military spending (a process
> > > some people call "military
> > > Keynesianism"). The third is the ability to control
> > > the economies of other
> > > nations by controlling the supply of oil. This, as
> > > global oil reserves
> > > diminish, will become an ever more powerful lever.
> > > Happily, just as
> > > legitimation is required, scores of former democrats
> > > in both the US and
> > > Britain have suddenly decided that empire isn't such
> > > a dirty word after all,
> > > and that the barbarian hordes of other nations
> > > really could do with some
> > > civilisation at the hands of a benign superpower.
> > >
> > > Strategic thinkers in the US have been planning this
> > > next stage of expansion
> > > for years. Paul Wolfowitz, now deputy secretary for
> > > defence, was writing about
> > > the need to invade Iraq in the mid-1990s. The
> > > impending war will not be fought
> > > over terrorism, anthrax, VX gas, Saddam Hussein,
> > > democracy or the treatment of
> > > the Iraqi people. It is, like almost all such
> > > enterprises, about the control
> > > of territory, resources and other nations'
> > > economies. Those who are planning
> > > it have recognised that their future dominance can
> > > be sustained by means of a
> > > simple economic formula: blood is a renewable
> > > resource; oil is not.
> > >
> > > www.monbiot.com
> > >
> > >
> > >
> >
> >
> > ====> > <<Be like me!  The Primal Mother, eternally creative, eternally
impelling into life,
> >     eternally drawing satisfaction from the ceaseless flux of
phenomena.>>
> >     -Nietzsche, "The Birth of Tragedy"
> >
> > __________________________________________________
> > Do you Yahoo!?
> > Yahoo! Shopping - Send Flowers for Valentine's Day
> > http://shopping.yahoo.com
> >
> >
> >      --- from list aut-op-sy-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu ---
>
> --
> "Why of course the people don't want war. Why should some poor slob on
> a farm want to risk his life in a war when the best he can get out of it
> is to come back to his farm in one piece? Naturally the common people
> don't want war; neither in Russia, nor in England, nor in America, nor in
> Germany. That is understood.  But after all, it is the leaders of the
country
> who determine policy, and it is always a simple matter to drag the
> people along, whether it is a democracy, or a fascist dictatorship, or
> a parliament, or a communist dictatorship.  Voice or no voice the people
> can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders.  That is easy. All
you
> have to do is to tell them they are being attacked, and denounce the
> pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It
works the
> same in any country."
>
>    -- Hermann Goering, April 18, 1946, head of the Nazi army's equivalent
of the
>       Joint Chiefs of Staff and Head of the Luftwaffe.
>
>
>
>
>      --- from list aut-op-sy-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu ---
>
>




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