From: "Margaret Trawick" <trawick-AT-clear.net.nz> Subject: Re: Liam's query of me Date: Wed, 24 Oct 2001 14:08:44 +1300 Paul - I don't mean to attack you, but I do agree with Liam that your recent response to him was patronizing. We are all (or almost all) academics here. I read your link on Misconceptions. I am concerned that you present "regulated capitalism" as a moderate and realistic position in between extreme right wing ideology of an outmoded McCarthyite style (which has little in common with capitalism per se except that it is anti-communist) and some current redactions of Marxism, as though the latter were as delusional as the former, which I don't think is true. You are setting your undergrads up to believe that Marxists are "just as bad" as the John Birch Society was. You are also setting them up to believe that the status quo within the US - "regulated capitalism" - is the only reasonable mode of social organization for all the world's nations to adopt. I hope you will teach your students that there are many ways for human beings to live that are economically viable, ecologically sustainable, and humane in all the best senses of that word. *And* there are many ways for human beings to destroy themselves and others. No form of government which brutalizes and subjugates large numbers of innocent people inside or outside its jurisdiction is conscionable in the world today. Some communist governments have done that. Some capitalist governments continue to do that. But at least, communism *in its ideal form* is inherently humane, whereas capitalism *in its ideal form* is inherently destructive. "Capitalism" is an idea invented by Karl Marx to describe what he saw happening in the societies around him. He considered capitalism to be a destructive process that had to be opposed. Later some people picked up the idea of capitalism as a way of life, and promoted it under a neo-Spencerian or Nietzchean agenda. Ayn Rand was their literary hero(ine). Their idea was and is that inherently strong and capable people will naturally rise to power, and such people should uncompromisingly seize their right to rule. In its philosophical justifications, then, capitalism is almost indistinguishable from fascism. By definition, capitalism has the accumulation of profit as its one and only goal. Warfare in the twentieth century has been a profitable enterprise for capitalists. The war in Vietnam was waged by the United States "to check the spread of communism", or more precisely, to check the power of the Soviet Union, because the SU was a hindrance to the global ambitions of the US. Now that hindrance has been removed and capitalism has "won." The US is just now proving that it can advance militarily anywhere it wants, unopposed. It is going for control of Central Asia because of the vast natural gas and oil reserves there. The claim that bombing Afghanistan has something to do with "the war against terrorism" is the flimsiest of pretexts. At the same time, within the United States, civil rights are being dismantled, social welfare programs are no longer even a consideration. We are being prepared to sacrifice everything for this war effort. How far will your students go along with this "regulated capitalism" or, as Bush would say "humane conservatism" that is marching us into what we have already been told will be a protracted war, requiring the mobilization of ground troops (and soon we will hear, *many* ground troops) for its continuation? I anticipate they will go along until their own tender asses come up for conscription. If you are teaching about global political economy, you have a responsibility to tell your students what the global reality is. You have to let them know what the dangers are, and you have to make them see that simple formulae are just comfort foods, fattening agents for lambs headed to the slaughter. If you are not up to such a tough job, you should stick to teaching English lit. Margaret Trawick (also a full prof) (and no, I don't have a home page) --- from list postcolonial-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu ---
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