Date: Fri, 13 Jul 2001 15:12:31 -0100
Subject: Re: globalisation:& empire


Steve and All,

Should China host the 2008 Olympics?

A couple of impressions of the "Evil" Empire.

At Expo '68 I asked an attendant at the USSR Pavilion when they would go to
the moon, and he said:  "When we shall be ready".

Driving to Budapest  in 1975, truckloads of USSR soldiers waved us aside in
our toy-size, Denmark-licensed Honda.

The Global Empire of Capitalism is remote and faceless.  Government vs.
Transnational Corporations is a mask..  Government officials
accomplish Corporate objectives by legislating the global disposition of
arms and troops and Government participation in
the IMF, WTO and other transnational agencies who make Capital available for
transnational operations.

Legislators are instruments of Corporate policy
and will be as  long as Corporate funds determine their incumbency.
Campaign Finance Reform, dumped yesterday by the House of Representatives,
would make little difference.

As for the future of post-USSR Marxism, it will be interesting to see a new
vision of the lives of ordinary people, the geography they occupy, the size
and power of  local social units, their freedom from interference from
outsiders. Who will own the natural and man-made resources?

Loanable funds won't go away under neo-Marxism, presumably neo-Marxists
would control such funds, but how, and for what purposes?

Checking an ancient document I found the following:  "The land shall not be
sold forever for the land is mine; for ye "are" strangers and sojourners
with me".  The writer goes on to describe how the price of land shall be
contingent on years remaining until the year of jubilee (every fiftieth
year).  The price of bondsmen and bondsmaids (who must be selected from the
"heathen", are also subject to the same principle.  --See Leviticus, Chapter
25.

regards,
Hugh






> Hugh
> comments below...
>
> > Do we need new concepts of the damage of addictive drugs, tobacco and
> > alcohol to get rid of them?
>
> Yes - because it is not possible to eradicate the human desire to want to
take
> drugs.
>
> > Do we need new concepts of schools and teachers to provide proper
buildings
> > and competent instruction?
>
> The meaning and purposes of education have dramatically changed since the
> movements from classical/despotic agricultural, to modernist industrial to
> post-modern informational societies. As Foucault once predicted, proposed
from
> discipline to self-discipline.... (Either way no one can explain to me why
> education is so much better in the 21st cent than when I was at school...)
>
> > Do we need a new theory of homeless people to give them jobs and
shelter?
>
> Because without it you cannot 'break' the discourse that enables the
> justification of theie remaining there.
>
> > Do we need a new theories of theft in order to apprehend thieves?
>
> Yes.
>
> > Your comments I like best are:: "how do you define and work toward
change?"
> > And, "Philosophy is, I would suggest,  about the invention of new
concepts
> > which enable us to understand our relationship to the world?".
> >
> > The biorevolution, and bio-ethics offer opportunities to understand
human
> > beings in relation to the world, to their selves, and to other selves.
>
> Remember that bio-ethics were an obession of Nazism and used to justify
anything
> that the Nazis wanted to. Nazism was a through ethics of life... Facism
had an
> interesting notion of the 'dignified life' which is not to different from
the
> impositions that are being constructed currently. The merging of the erms
> 'biological' and 'ethics' is curiously threatening.
>
> > Physicists have demonstrated the ability to convert matter to energy and
> > energy to matter. Perhaps, in a few years, biologists will convert
inanimate
> > matter to living matter without recourse to ancestors, and become
> > "creators"..
>
> > The future effects of a decade of genetic tampering with other species
may
> > cause serious injury to humans..
>
> So did the invention of language and the printing press... But the future
will
> probably be like Surrey in England, the largest wild animal in Surrey is
the
> Badger which exists simply because its bovine and lives like a small cow
the
> size of a medium sized dog. Everything else has been eradicated. This it
seems
> to me is a more tragic version of the future than the death of a few
humans as a
> result human mistakes. (Jurassic Park is a post-modern phantasy which
displays
> humans as weak, misguided, essentially harmless, slightly bovine creatures
which
> is not an accurate representation)
>
> > Lyotard was concerned about justice.  The words of the all the 20th
Century
> > philosophers have not stopped injustice, righted wrongs, restored stolen
> > properties.
>
> He began as a marxist anti-colonial militant - though he changed
intellectual
> positions over the years that relationship to the world remains within his
> work/texts. Look at Peregnations, The Inhuman or indeed any late text,
texts
> that in some direct sense remain committed to social change. Like the rest
of us
> he recognised that previous positions do not, did not adequately describe
our
> societies.
>
> > We need acts of justice, not theories of possible societies as
instruments
> > of change. Stop killings, restore properties, practice the uncomplicated
> > ethics of
> > relationship that pervade the simplest of societies, the most ordinary
> > religious congregations.
>
> In the early 20th C women were enfranchised, during the 20th C most of the
> racist ideologies have been discarded, though of course societies in
themselves,
> like people remain racist. This has not happened in the simplest
societies, but
> in the extreme revolutionary societies of the west. All previous societies
were
> of course less democratic and less free, mostly life was short, unpleasent
and
> very brutish...
>
> > And when new social arrangements are envisioned and published by
> > philosophers, they must be sold to populations saturated in capitalist
> > ideology to bring about peaceful resolution of global problems;
otherwise, a
> > return to the stealth, violence, and murder which were made famous by
> > Communists and Nazis.
>
> Not my concern - the violence and terror inflicted by communists and nazis
which
> is history - almost pales into insignificance compared to the violence and
> terror that has been carried out through and by capital. Human societies
are by
> nature violent, terroistic and sacrificial forms. I once saw some
comparative
> figures of the effects of colonialism as againgst the Fascist adventures
of the
> 30s and 40s, which were in effect the bringing home of colonial ideologies
and
> discourses (what was the 'inferior and subhuman peoples' ideology but
colonial
> racist discourses brought back to the center).
>
> During the late 70s, into the 80s and early 90s the right gained
significant
> intellectual ground and were intellectually in the ascendent. It is not an
> accident that right-wing theories of the social (neo-liberalism and
> neo-conservativism) preceded and enabled the gaining of social and
economic
> control in the west.
>
> regards
>
> sdv
>
> > ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
> >
> > > No they are not. They are short descriptions of dominant economic
> > > trends.
> > >
> > > If you insist that the postmodern is solely discussed and understood
> > > solely
> > > through Lyotard you are missing the point. The postmodern is a model,
a
> > > proposal
> > > that the world can no longer be understood through the modernist
> > > project.
> > > Lyotard did not invent or fully describe this - the economic shift
that
> > > the
> > > phrase 'the postmodernist economy' can be identified as taking place
> > > from the
> > > mid-1950s when the numbers of people employed in the western societies
> > > in
> > > manufacturing began to decline whilst the productivity rose. The
> > > definition of
> > > the economic and social change is however recent...
> > >
> > > Of course the individual historical elements that you mention may be
> > > correct but
> > > the point of constructing new philosophical, and perhaps also
scientific
> > > categories is that it enables new approaches and new understandings of
> > > the way
> > > in which the social functions. Philosophy is, I would suggest,  about
> > > the
> > > invention of new concepts which enable us to understand our
relationship
> > > to the
> > > world.  To produce exploitiation, as you do below,  as a constant
which
> > > by
> > > implication does not require new concepts raises the questions -  how
do
> > > you
> > > define and work towards change? Do the old modernist and pre-modern
> > > concepts
> > > adequately describe and define the contemporary period? Is the
empirical
> > > understanding of the state of things adequate in the contemporary
world?
> > >
> > > I like the idea that the media are in some sense 'bearers of truth'...
> > > an
> > > entertaining thought.
> > >
> > > regards
> > >
> > > sdv
> > >
> > > hbone wrote:
> > >
> > > > Steve and All,
> > > >
> > > > Points 1) and 2) are impersonal academic truisims. As to Point 3 -
> > > > everything after modern is, and will be chronologically, postmodern.
> > But
> > > > the "Postmodern Condition" of Lyotard was based on the years
preceding
> > the
> > > > Soviet collapse.  And that collapese commenced the stampede to
corporate
> > > > domination we call globalization.
> > > >
> > > > Globalization is old wine in new bottles, old wolves in new
sheepskins.
> > > > Describing the theft of  lands of indigenous peoples, the killing of
> > their
> > > > fighters, the raping, burning, and pillaging, are not speech acts of
> > > > academics and historians, but daily reports and pictures that enrich
the
> > > > media.
> > > >
> > > > The information revolution facilitates globalization in much the
same
> > way
> > > > naval technology facilitated and maintained colonization in the late
> > 19th
> > > > and early 20th
> > > > centuries.
> > > >
> > > > regards,
> > > > Hugh
> > > > ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
> > > > >
> > > > > The below 'simply', (simply ye-gods! Hugh i'm doomed...) simply
> > describes
> > > > the
> > > > > normal state of all post-the-invention-of-the-state societies...
I'd
> > > > suggest
> > > > > that it's neve been different.
> > > > >
> > > > > The economic structures of the past thousand years are
understandable
> > in
> > > > the
> > > > > following three groups - 1) agriculture and the use of primary raw
> > > > materials,
> > > > > worldwide 2) industrial production and the gradual invention of
> > consumer
> > > > goods,
> > > > > based essentially around the western economies and the disgusting
> > colonial
> > > > > ideal 3) the post-modern economic system focusing on services, and
the
> > > > > manipulation of information on a global scale. The movement from
the
> > > > second
> > > > > economic structure to the third is the process we know as the
> > > > postmodern...
> > > > >
> > > > > regards
> > > > >
> > > > > sdv
> > > > >
> > > > >
> > > > > hbone wrote:
> > > > >
> > > > > > Globalization exempts Arms, Illegal Drugs and Oil from
international
> > > > > > control, favors secrecy, profits from child labor (read Eliz.
> > Barrett
> > > > > > Browning on children in 19th century mines) takes the legacy of
> > > > colonialism
> > > > > > to new heights - destroys able-bodied males, sends elders,
mothers
> > and
> > > > > > children on a Trail of Tears, and,
> > > > > >
> > > > > > describes those who protest as as CRAZIES
> > > > > >
> > > > > > HB
> > > > >
> > > > >
>
>
>