the class struggle will no longer be offshored:
The victors on the right have not been the Keynesian, conservative wets (as Margaret Thatcher called them), but the hardliners. Until the left can come up with something better than moderately rightwing policies, it has no chance of winning. To change that, it must go back to the roots of the conflict between left and right. It must see beyond values, like feminism or antiracism, which the modern right is quite happy to adopt. It must address the fundamental question: who controls the economy?
(...) Once the means of production, and the means of information that emerged during the 20th century, are in private hands, specific individuals possess vast, almost feudal power over the rest of the population. Today the real successors of classic liberals are the proponents of socialism; while those who currently describe themselves as liberals are the supporters of a particular form of tyranny, that of the employers - and, often, of a violent form of state control through US military domination of the rest of the planet.
(...) Liberal thinkers deride Marx because the anticipated transition to socialism in developed capitalist countries failed to happen. One response should be that the system under which we live is not just capitalist, but imperialist as well. Europe owes its development to the existence of a vast hinterland. Imagine that Europe was the only landmass on the planet and that all the other continents had never risen from the oceans. There would have been no slave trade, no South American gold, no emigration to North America. What sort of societies would we have built without a constant supply of raw materials, cheap immigrant labour, imports from low-income economies, and a supply of educated people from the developing world to rescue our collapsing education systems? We would have had to save drastically on energy, the balance of power between workers and employers would be radically different, and the leisure society would not exist.
(...) Socialism failed in the 20th century largely because the countries where capitalism generated a degree of cultural and economic development, where the elements of democracy existed and where, consequently, it was possible and necessary to go beyond capitalism, were also the dominant countries in the imperial system. Imperialism has two consequences. Economically it allows dominant nations to delocalise problems to the periphery. Strategically it has a divide and rule effect: western workers have always enjoyed better living conditions than their equivalents in the developing world and acquire a feeling of superiority that helps stabilise the system.
(...) This is why decolonisation was the most significant transformation of the 20th century. It freed hundreds of millions of people in Asia and Africa from a racist form of domination. Its effects will continue into this century and bring a definitive end to the historical period that began with the discovery of America. Europeans will have to adjust to losing the benefits associated with our privileged position in the imperial system. At present the Chinese have to sell us millions of shirts to buy an Airbus; but once they can build their own Airbuses, who will make our shirts?
(...) Historically, change has often come from the periphery. The October 1917 revolution and the Soviet Union's role in the victory over the Axis powers had an enormous impact upon decolonisation and upon the possibility of creating a social-democratic Eden in Europe. The victory of the colonised nations led to a number of progressive changes in Europe during the 1960s. If we make the effort to understand and take account of it, the current revolts in Latin America and the Middle East may force radical changes upon the dominant powers. Which may mean a less depressing future for the rest of us.
collected snippets of immediate importance...

Sunday, September 9, 2007
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