Re: [OPE] fascism / opposing imperialistmilitary interventioninLibya

The kind of thing that is particularly difficult to understand is the way in Europe we have the coexistence of the old former imperial states: France, Britain, Spain, Germany, Holland with the new EU. As Fischer shows the formation of a European economic union was a long term objective of German Imperialism, but arising as it did in the wake of German defeat, it did not originally have the German dominance that had been intended. For a period at least, France was the dominant power. It is arguable that the long term effect of German reunification has been to establish Germany as the dominant power. However successive international crises have shown that the EU as such does not yet function as a world power able to contend with the US as in their different ways de Gaulle and Hollweg had intended.

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From: ope-bounces@lists.csuchico.edu [ope-bounces@lists.csuchico.edu] On Behalf Of Paula [Paula_cerni@msn.com]
Sent: Saturday, April 16, 2011 5:59 PM
To: Outline on Political Economy mailing list
Subject: Re: [OPE] fascism / opposing imperialistmilitary interventioninLibya

Thanks to Paul C. for the reference on Germany. That’s the kind of study we need – in particular, we urgently need up to date and detailed research on the newer imperialist powers (China, Brazil, etc). Without them the left will be more and more out of touch with reality and will decline even further into political irrelevance.

Jurriaan wrote:
“Lenin argues that there is a fusion of bank capital with large-scale industry, this gives rise to a financial oligarchy...”

Lenin (and others) termed the combination of bank with industrial capital “finance capital,” an example of the high degree of concentration and centralization of capital characteristic of the imperialist period. This “finance capital” mustn’t be confused with “financial capital,” and even less translated into the idea that the large banks are omnipotent relative to other sectors. Unfortunately this kind of misreading is common.

Paula

The University of Glasgow, charity number SC004401
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Received on Sat Apr 16 13:19:04 2011