File spoon-archives/postcolonial.archive/postcolonial_2001/postcolonial.0110, message 492


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)





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