Date: 17 Jul 96 20:33:00 EDT
From: neil <74742.1651-AT-compuserve.com>
Subject:  world economy & imperialism  debate


                   For the Communist-Left!!!
    Against Joseph Green's CVO continued neo-maoist Reign of ERROR!

Joseph has gone ballistic over the exposure of his paleo-marxism.
He squeals  at the heresy of developing marxist theory and practice 
beyond his old/new  testament  bible methods. Clearly for Joseph,
the theoretical work of marxism stopped on the day Lenin died, 
Jan. 21, 1924. And He can tell you the exact hour and minute that 
happened!

He is hostile to the modern theory of relative and absolute capitalist 
decadence since WW1 because as  facts prove its validity & his CVO church
seminars on supporting  bourgeois nationalist movements and state capitalism 
after 1914  prove ever more reactionary.

In his Det#116-117 , he throws about more red herrings when the key issues 
get too hot for him. This is more smokescreens from a failed & bankrupt
career Maoist who is on his own politcal death bed. He attacks others
views vehemently and dishonestly while never puting forward his OWN
ORIGINAL CVO views on any substantive key issues. He has been reduced to
covering up his own reign of ERROR , ditching remnants of evidence,
and stealing bits and pieces of programme from other trends ,like even
the Communist Left, then slandering it. For example on viable  state 
capitalist critique, etc. 

Yes I have new "mentors' as he claims,  unlike HIM , LAWV can learn
>from other political trends, we admit that. Joseph's has no living mentors ,
because HE knows everything.Thus  HE also knows how to promote a ton of 
 perpetual idiotic  and reactionary ERRORS. 

Joseph uses the method of moral relativism  as to whether capitalism was 
more vicious  in the last century or in our epoch. Hard to get an
absolute answer put  this way.
Joseph/CVO  is the type that Lenin meant when he said that 'one fool 
could always pose a question that twelve wise men could not answer".

Yes joseph , it is true that capitalism "came into this world dripping
blood from every pore" (Marx -Capital vol#1) and it was also predicated
on slavery but htis proved to be small potatoes when compared to the
wars and genocide generated by imperialism in this century.

This said. It is true we must look at the MATERIAL evolution of 
capitalism. Marx recognized, despite his militant denunciation of 
capitalisms methods that capitalism was progressive in laying the 
GROUNDWORk for a higher mode of production which could only come 
about when capitalism  itself had exhausted its progressive role,
when this mode of production had " become a fetter on the growth of 
the productive forces".
The key issue for us today is really not how much the productive forces 
are growing but by how much MORE they would grow if there there was NO 
antagonistic mode of production in operation. A worker controlled
society based on production for human need, not for sales and profit.

Joseph/CVO obviously think that capitalism today still  is progressive.
This is so because joseph still supports bourgeois national liberation 
as still valid. But joseph would not suuport this if HE actually 
understood the nature of imperialism as the epoch of capitalist DECAY.
This is the era of the PROLETARIAT on an international basis through
its class struggles to transcend bourgeois social relations.
The material basis for communism now exists but we must prepare ourselves
as a class, ideologically/organizationally for the comming titanic 
conflagrations. This is the only reason to involve ourselves debating
the likes of Joseph at all.

If you study the Communist Left's views, they show clearly how materially 
capitalism has changed. The relatively  peaceful cycles of the 19th Cent. 
have in this century been transformed into a  barbaric round of
imperialist wars, followed by expansions based on destruction of
capital values in war, then more slumps and drives to new wars.

 We don't look at this schematically because world capital has actually
been in a prolonged slump since 1971 when the US first devalued the 
dollar.
There also has been the continuation of capitalist business cyclein 
which mini-revivals do take place. But since the early 80s increasing
stagnation has  crippled the system--in spite of bourgeois growth figures
which tend to distort the actual situation and we can see this clearer 
in the peripheral countries where the horrors of capital are on a big 
increase.

Unlike the communist-left, Joseph  has NO clarity on the fact that 
we are actually nearing the end of the 3rd cycle of capitalist 
accumulation in this century but the first under almost full 
conditions of state capitalist crisis management and  despite 
the parasitic deregulation, privatization of the past decade 
the state still plays a key role in regulating the movement of
capital.

Debts are still piling up in spite of bourgeois attempts to maintain
the viability of the system and increasingly we are witnessing more 
small wars based on profiting to the max from from crisis where 
bigger imperilsts interest are at stake -- e.g.,like the bully boy way US
imperialism shuts  out the bids of its European "allies' to
rebuild Kuwait.

Only a  dogmatist a la Joseph would demand "THE date" as to when 
capitalism ceased its progressive mission. We know that the 
transformation of capitalism into modern imperialism  was a process 
which did not happen overnight but was dialectical change which
clearly manifested itself when WW1 broke out.

This was the 1st imperialist war  and was the period that greats
like Lenin, Bukharin and Luxembourg, etc. showed the nature of
capitalism had changed. Also this  helped lay the basis in mass 
struggles for founding the Comintern which unfortunately abandoned
its revolutionary clarity at after its 2nd cong. in the wake of
isolation of Russia, one devastated  country & the huge  attack
of European  counterrevolution. It backslid  to  positions
of alliances with bourgeois nationalism.

Thus Joseph and co. know the concept of the era of decadence is
not an invention of the Communist-left but a product of the
feverish experience of proletarian mass struggles.
The Communist-left, The Communist Workers Organization of the UK
and others seek to restore the clarity of revolutionary purpose
while tendencies like Josephs CVO parade in the name of workers,
but STILL think TODAY we need to tail behing the class interests 
of sections of the bourgeoisie.

For more on this, you can write us at the LAWV, Box 57483, LA, Ca 90057
or write the CWO for basic documents -AT- CWO, Box 338, Sheffield, S3 9YX,
United Kingdom --send $5.00 US funds.

Part 1 0f 2.

Neil





     --- from list marxism-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu ---