File spoon-archives/bhaskar.archive/bhaskar_2003/bhaskar.0303, message 4


Subject: BHA: RE: Main Contradictions behind War on Iraq
Date: Mon, 3 Mar 2003 17:37:31 +1300
From: "Radha D'Souza" <rdsouza-AT-waikato.ac.nz>



Hans, John and other listers:

My response to the discussion on the main contradictions in the Iraq war and how CR might help has a very different take on both issues, Iraq and CR. The link between oil and capitalism is part of the wider link between capitalism and resources. Oil is one of the many resources, including land (the indigenous question in settler colonies) human resources (the labour question in non-settler colonies) and the environment debates between the countries of the so-called "North" and "South" or "sustainable development". And, it is not possible to talk about capitalism and resources without talking about imperialism and (neo)colonialism.
I would be very interested in Howard Engelskirchen's account of CR and Marxism. Unfortunately I do not have access to the other list Hans Ehrbar mentions.
Any consistent critique of imperialism and (neo) colonisation defies the traditional disciplinary boundaries and that is where CR is helpful. CR could provide a non-eclectic methodology for the critique of imperialism about which I have written elsewhere but I will stay with Iraq for now.
All capitalist nations concur on the need to discipline Iraq, what they disagree on is the method. There is no disagreement on the core issue that capitalist nations must determine the normative order of the world. The "systemic contradiction" that Hans E refers to is as much about the form of imperial governance as it is about oil. The style of imperial governance is an issue that goes beyond Iraq and had resurfaced in many forms in many places since the end of the "Cold War". Post-war style of imperialism was influenced heavily by the presence of the "socialist" bloc, the breakdown of institutions and infrastructure during the World Wars and the national liberation struggles.
Capitalism has always required an institutional framework within which to operate. Marx in capital, T of SV and other writings pays considerable attention to the institutional framework of capitalism. When the institutional framework constrains the development of capitalism (means of production v relations of production) there is a general crisis.
Capitalism comprises three institutional relations - between capitalist states; between capitalist states and the colonies (call it "Third World" or "south" today) and the citizens and state in both places. While undoubtedly, the declining hegemony of the US is the trigger for the present Iraq crisis, and an economically weak but militarily strong capitalist state is the potent mix that makes fascism (Germany in the earlier times) the declining hegemony is symptomatic of structural changes in capitalism - it is the effect not the cause.
The stand on Iraq must be contextualised in the light of Palestine, Libya, Iran, Indonesia, Malaysia, Columbia a host of other places where the old forms of imperial governance in the post Cold War era started to slip. Many third world states were forced to change, some did willingly, others did under duress, yet others with bribes in the form of aid and assistance and those that did not yield to the carrot got the stick. While in the immediate sense the Iraq war is about oil, it is also about changing the rules of the game vis-à-vis the "Third World". Which is why, the UN system, which was the lynchpin of the post-war system, is more vulnerable now than ever before.
It is certainly true as Hans E says that the US benefited from the dissolution of the colonial Empires. It benefited because it took it over from Britain and was able to provide an institutional framework for the new phase of finance capitalism that was emerging at that time. That sort of change of regimes is not new to the US. Britain took over the imperial reins from the Dutch and developed the Empire system to accommodate a capitalism that had transcended the mercantile phase to industrial capitalism. Each change has meant cataclysmic changes in the nature of governance and institutions that were mediated by wars that helped introduce changes.
Traditionally, the Marxist critique had seen The Economic and The Political as two distinct but related "realms". That was limiting because despite the disclaimers and qualifiers, the understanding tended either towards economic reductionism (and therefore determinism) or political reductionism (and therefore voluntarism). CR could help overcome that because of its relativist and constitutive epistemology.
Likewise the US $ was powerful because the US wrote the rules of the game in the post war world. The rules of the IMF were one of the most contentious issues between Britain and the US when negotiating post-war institutions. Putting down the Iraq crisis to oil in a simplistic Iraq=oil equation reduces the potential of CR. It does not take note of the complexities of time (history) and place (geography) in an issue. While the crisis is certainly systemic, the systemic crisis includes, the economic, political, institutional, legal, cultural and other dimensions of social life. Introducing imperialism and (neo) colonialism into the equation forces us to break out of isolating issues into one or a few aspects and to assess the totality of the situation including emergent factors and conditions.
Marx himself is very aware of the colonial question and time again addresses it in different contexts, Ireland, India and so on. Generally speaking there is a perception out there amongst those from the "Third World" (it has been around for a while now) that when Marxists speak of capitalism they tend towards the "internal" dimensions, which manifests politically as "Eurocentrism". Capitalism without colonies is inconceivable but at the same time capitalism and imperialism/colonialism are not synonymous.
When a crisis is systemic, the tendency is a movement towards systemic collapse. So whatever the policy options that may be adopted, the contradictions are not resolved within the existing institutional framework (maturing of contradictions in Marxist language). In determining how the crisis is resolved, CR is more liberating because the resolution could take may different forms. That leaves the space open for people and consciousness.
The systemic tension today arises from three related areas: the centralised and unified nature of the economic dimensions of capitalism is one; the limitations of the UN system as an overarching institutional framework for post-war capitalism is another and the experience of national liberation and anti-colonial aspirations and experiences (disillusionment) over the past 50 years is yet another. It is in understanding and answering these types of issues that CR become relevant.
Finally, Hans E talks about the Bush style of governance that has eroded what he describes as "the goodwill the US has enjoyed world wide". Many might question the goodwill bit. Equally, the present Iraq policy and the team that drives it has not come into existence with Bush Jr. They have been around a while now, driving the same agenda.
I am sorry about this quick and ad hoc response to an important issue.

Radha D'Souza


-----Original Message-----
From: Hans Ehrbar [mailto:ehrbar-AT-econ.utah.edu]
Sent: Sunday, 2 March 2003 4:05 p.m.
To: bhaskar-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu
Cc: bhaskar-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu
Subject: BHA: Main Contradictions behind War on Iraq



John,


I looked up the Grundrisse quote, which is reproduced below,
and discovered that this quote backs up only half of what I
said.  Marx does say that the one-sided focus on labor is
misplaced and contradictory, he mentions science and nature
as additional productive powers, but he does not say
anything about the *limits* of the environment.

Regarding the decline of the hegemonial power of the US., I
would try to argue along the lines that the onslaught of
capitalist competition tends to erode over time any special
privilege and any monopoly.  Capitalism reproduces the
general separation of the producers from the means of
production, but it erodes the exceptional market power of
particular monopolies or hegemonial states.  This makes it
so resilient: the fate of the capitalist system is not tied
to the fate of the USA.


Hans.


p. 706 in Vintage edition of Grundrisse:

Capital itself is the moving contradiction, [in] that it
presses to reduce labour time to a minimum, while it posits
labour time, on the other side, as sole measure and source
of wealth. ... On the one side, then, it calls to life all
the powers of science and of nature, as of social
combination and of social intercourse, in order to make the
creation of wealth independent (relatively) of the labour
time employed on it. On the other side, it wants to use
labour time as the measuring rod for the giant social forces
thereby created, and to confine them within the limits
required to maintain the already created value as
value. Forces of production and social relations -- two
different sides of the development of the social individual
-- appear to capital as mere means, and are merely means for
it to produce on its limited foundation. In fact, however,
they are the material conditions to blow this foundation
sky-high.

p. 593 in German:

Das Kapital ist selbst der prozessierende Widerspruch
[dadurch], dass es die Arbeitszeit auf ein Minimum zu
reduzieren stoert, waehrend es andrerseits die Arbeitszeit
als einziges Mass und Quelle des Reichtums setzt.  ... Nach
der einen Seite hin ruft es also alle Maechte der
Wissenschaft und der Natur, wie der gesellschaftlichen
Kombination und des gesellschaftlichen Verkehrs ins Leben,
um die Schoepfung des Reichtums unabhaenging (relativ) zu
machen von der auf sie angewandten Arbeitszeit.  Nach der
andren Seite will es diese so geschaffnen riesigen
Gesellschaftskraefte messen an der Arbeitzeit, und sie
einbannen in die Grenzen, die erheischt sind, um den schon
geschaffnen Wert als Wert zu erhalten.  Die Produktivkraefte
und gesellschaftlichen Beziehungen---beides verschiedene
Seiten der Entwicklung des gesellschaftlichen
Individuums---erscheinen dem Kapital nur als Mittel, und
sind fuer es nur Mittel, um von seiner bornierten Grundlage
aus zu produzieren.  In fact aber sind sie die materiellen
Bedingungen, um sie in die Luft zu sprengen.





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