Re: [OPE] Britain--parasitic and decaying capitalism: A comment

 Dave,
I do not know where you get these quotations from. They are certainly not in the paper I downloaded from the link you sent. Are they something you think you can conclude from the paper or quoted from somewhere else. From what I read from David I know he would never say something like that without further qualifying it. This said I do not see anything wrong with David's article and I do not have anything to criticise except few small points:

At the beginning there one passage where he is a bit too strict when he says: "The export of capital –that is global investment – as opposed to export of commodities becomes the distinguishing feature of imperialism." While I share this idea I would have not said "as opposed to" but as different from, because though the determining feature of imperialism is export of capital it has been accompanied always by the export of commodities.

There is another place in the article where he uses wrong term when he says: "Imperialism divides the world between oppressed and oppressor nations; at the same time it brings about class differentiation within both the bourgeoisie and the proletariat the existence of purely parasitic financiers [rentier class] and the labour aristocracy bribed out of the superprofits of imperialism." I underlined the bit I would like to draw your attention. Here instead using the phrase "class differentiation within both the bourgeoisie and the proletariat" I would have used something slightly different from that that brings out more clearly the concept of layer. But this is a very minor point. Toward the end of the article when he comes back to the issue he uses the term layer. From my poin t of view it is a ver well researched and very well argued paper.

Paula,
I do not understand your point about "state monopoly capitalism" and "plus *private* monopoly capitalism". Can you say something more about this why you think that this point is important with regard to the issues David raises in his article. Again why is the observation that there is "'labor aristocracies' in developing countries as well" is for the point David is making in his article absolutely essential? Where in the article does David divide the world into good and bad capitalist nations? Do you realy think David is so premature to do that.

***************
My major critique of David would probabily concern his claim that service worker do not produce any surplus value. In the first volume of Capital there are passages where Marx says that "service workers" (our term) do produce value and surplus value.

Anyone wanting really to change the world should study David's article again and again and very carefully, in particular what he says about SWP in Britain as labour aristoctratism functions almost everywhere almost in the same way. The logic is the same.

Again I like almost everything that comes from David.

Doğan Göçmen
http://dogangocmen.wordpress.com/
http://www.dogangocmen.blogspot.com/

-----Original Message-----
From: Dave Zachariah <davez@kth.se>
To: Outline on Political Economy mailing list <ope@lists.csuchico.edu>
Sent: Mon, Dec 28, 2009 11:11 pm
Subject: Re: [OPE] Britain--parasitic and decaying capitalism: A comment

  On 2009-12-28 19:35, D. Göçmen wrote:
  
 Ilike almost everything that comes from David.
  
  

I'm less certain that you like the political corollaries of what myview is a faulty analysis?

It says to the working-class movement in the advanced economies:

"Workers, your struggles for better wages and livingconditions are not only useless since they perpetuate imperialism, theyare also immoral for you are the exploiters of the Third World. Youconstitute an oppressor nation, and whatever you do will be immoraluntil you destroy imperialism."

It says to the workers and peasants in the developing economies:

"Your nation is being looted by foreigners. The cause ofyour misery is the exploitation by *foreign* capital, if you just getrid of them you will be free, i.e. national independence."

In other words, its consequence is to destroy the confidence of theworking-class movement on a global scale and foster nationalism fromwhich ruling classes in the developing countries are only to gain (e.g.support Nasser, Bhutto, the Ayatollah etc.).

//Dave Z

 
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Received on Tue Dec 29 00:41:16 2009