Date: Sun, 02 Feb 1997 14:16:10 +0000
From: MA Jones <majones-AT-netcomuk.co.uk>
Subject: M-I: Nato


Dear List

The heated debate about Nato which has been taking place inside Western 
political establishments becomes more and more revealing. 
Probably most of us on this list have accepted to a greater or lesser
degree 
the notion put forward by Trotsky and others that Stalinist Russia was 
articulated in contradictory ways into the world capitalist system, or
that 
(as I would prefer to think) the dynamics of capital accumulation since
the 
war have depended upon the USSR as a guarantor of its existence  (USSR 
as one of the conditions of existence of capitalism on a world scale
which 
postwar capitalism was unable to secure for itself but needed anyway, 
analogous to the role of the state within a particualr country as
guarantor 
of the conditions of existence of a national capitalism -- don't all
rush to 
your keyboards -- I'm not making a Hegelian meal of this). Whichever way 
you look at it, there was more to peaceful coexistence than met the eye.
I 
think of it this way: capitalism is radically parasitic -- it consumes
labour -
- and in this century its parasitism developed new forms. If in the 
nineteenth century it depended upon trade unions to help organise the
w/c, 
provide markets for consumer goods, and guarantee the continued 
reproduction of the w/c as a class, in the 20th the expanded
reproduction 
of its contradictions and the emergence of the w/c onto the
international 
domain changed the requirement. In 1917 capitalism faced a historical 
impasse which was broken by a revolutionary tide whose high point was 
October. Without the USSR, nothing subsequently awaited capitalism but 
the fate Lenin depcited in ImMessage-ID: <32F4A1AA.6AB3-AT-netcomuk.co.uk>
Date: Sun, 02 Feb 1997 14:16:10 +0000
From: MA Jones <majones-AT-netcomuk.co.uk>
Reply-To: majones-AT-netcomuk.co.uk
X-Mailer: Mozilla 3.0 (Win16; I)
To: marxism-international-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu
Subject: Nato

Dear List

The heated debate about Nato which has been taking place inside Western 
political establishments becomes more and more revealing. 
Probably most of us on this list have accepted to a greater or lesser
degree 
the notion put forward by Trotsky and others that Stalinist Russia was 
articulated in contradictory ways into the world capitalist system, or
that 
(as I would prefer to think) the dynamics of capital accumulation since
the 
war have depended upon the USSR as a guarantor of its existence  (USSR 
as one of the conditions of existence of capitalism on a world scale
which 
postwar capitalism was unable to secure for itself but needed anyway, 
analogous to the role of the state within a particualr country as
guarantor 
of the conditions of existence of a national capitalism -- don't all
rush to 
your keyboards -- I'm not making a Hegelian meal of this). Whichever way 
you look at it, there was more to peaceful coexistence than met the eye.
I 
think of it this way: capitalism is radically parasitic -- it consumes
labour -
- and in this century its parasitism developed new forms. If in the 
nineteenth century it depended upon trade unions to help organise the
w/c, 
provide markets for consumer goods, and guarantee the continued 
reproduction of the w/c as a class, in the 20th the expanded
reproduction 
of its contradictions and the emergence of the w/c onto the
international 
domain changed the requirement. In 1917 capitalism faced a historical 
impasse which was broken by a revolutionary tide whose high point was 
October. Without the USSR, nothing subsequently awaited capitalism but 
the fate Lenin depcited in Ime more
remarkable 
considering who Ira Strauss is and his leading role within the inner
cabals 
of Nato-debaters.
He says (I paraphrase) that the outcome of the Nato debate will
determine 
the fate of capitalism in the next century -- whether there will be some 
kind of Kautskyian ultra-imperialism, of perhpas benevolent intent, or 
whether we are heading for the kind of uncontrolled Final Crisis 
foreshadowed in Lenin's Imperialism.
We really need now to get a handle on the economics of all this: the
costs 
of expanding, not expanding -- the role of deflationary chronic crisis
in 
Europe and the effects of that becoming a sharp depression, on European 
stability; the threat to the German w/c of competition with Polish
labour; 
etc. There are some heavy-hiters on this list who might know some of the 
answers (I don't). 
Ira Strauss's piece is about 40k. To avoid overburdening this List's 
seemingly constipated server I am putting it as a zipfile on the website 
below. I shall try to download more selctions from this ongoing debate.

Zipfile: Nato1.zip



-- 
Regards,
Mark Jones
majones-AT-netcomuk.co.uk
http://www.netcomuk.co.uk/~majones/index.htm



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