On 2010-01-06 14:39, Jerry wrote:
> I thought your claims were particularly
> weak and an example of another problem with the form of argumentation by
> Marxists which has existed historically: rather than replying directly to
> particular claims, it seeks to tease out the political "implications" of
> a perspective.
The implications of a theoretical structure are not necessarily realized
or advocated by those who formulate it. This is not a question of
academic philosophy. For instance, the leader of the main far-Right
party in Britain, Nick Griffin, made an explicit attempt to articulate
its racist politics in the discourse of identity politics. It is not the
intellectual strength of the far-Right but the weakness of identity
politics that leaves it open to that.
Similarly my points about the implications of the poorly corroborated
theory of labour aristocracy are not what its originators had in mind.
http://ricardo.ecn.wfu.edu/~cottrell/ope/archive/0912/0163.html
> But, one should not conflate the general meaning of imperialism across history
> with its specific meaning under capitalism.
>
I agree. The trouble is that the orthodox formulations are not being
clear about the specificity.
>
> The fear by much of the Left of the bogeyman of "Third Worldism" is mis-placed.
> IMO, it fails to articulate the relation between class struggles in different
> parts of the world.
>
Well, that is the problem I have with 'Third Worldism'. It reifies
nations, conflating them with oppressed and exploited classes and
effectively turns the class struggle into a struggle of 'nations'.
//Dave Z
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Received on Wed Jan 6 13:25:49 2010
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