Date: Fri, 23 Aug 1996 16:17:32 -0500
From: dhenwood-AT-panix.com (Doug Henwood)
Subject: Re: Henwood comes up with another myth of the white proletariat


At 3:31 PM 8/23/96, Maoist Internationalist Movement wrote:

>Production is not the result of white labor efforts or
>productivity in the imperialist countries.

Are Japanese white? Are striking black pressworkers in Detroit white?

There is no question that imperialism has immiserated the so-called Third
World. If 20% of production is appropriated by imperial interests, it's
impossible to grow. But it's insufficient to explain more than part of OECD
wealth; accepting Amin's numbers, the Third World transfer boosts first
world investment (i.e. accumulation) by 19% - less than one in five money
units. "White labor efforts" don't just consist of coupon-clipping. The
overwhelming portion of what any Marxist would call value-production - the
engagement of living labor for profit - takes part in the rich countries
and under their control. Third Worlders are increasingly involved in the
direct production of profit for capital through increasing
industrialization - witness the homeland of your namesake - but the bulk of
transnational capital is sited in OECD countries.

I'm not sure what you advocate really? Should the social and physical
capital of the first world be liquidated in an act of violent repentance?
Marx thought that bourgeois life had something to recommend it, didn't he?
What is your model for your transformed world? It seems rich with a scary
primitivism.

Doug

--

Doug Henwood
Left Business Observer
250 W 85 St
New York NY 10024-3217
USA
+1-212-874-4020 voice
+1-212-874-3137 fax
email: <dhenwood-AT-panix.com>
web: <http://www.panix.com/~dhenwood/LBO_home.html>




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