AUT: Re: Seattle, now what?

["rc-am" <rcollins@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

some belated comments on recent discussions:

alvaro wrote:

> This would in effect allow domestic neoliberals to
> reinsert organized labor into their agenda-where labor
> could continue to live somewhat comfortably at the expense of the rest of
> the world.(Something Sweeney would obviously be more than happy to
> accept) I believe this new "national compromise" between Clinton and
> Labor would go a long way too re-assembling some type of social majority
> to legitimate the state, a task that has been nearly impossible
> considering the hightened individualism of the neoliberal imaginary, the
> falling wages of labor, and the rightful emergence of claims from outside
> of the traditional labor-management divide (i.e. women, latinos, african
> americans, environmentalists, ....)

the picture that's emerging is clearly one of trying to refound the basis
for some kind of neo-corporatist national bargain.    but two questions
still make sense in this: a) would such a neo-corporatism be able to
deliver sufficient gains to the at least some sections of some of those
constituencies in order that their presence as representatives does not in
fact eventuate in the destruction of those organisations? b) is 'seattle'
confined to its meaning at the level of representational politics, ie.,
confined to seattle and the US, and more specifically, subsequent points in
the US political calendar (elections and so on)?

i think the answer to the first question is a qualified 'no', and and the
answer to the second, a more definitive 'no'.    that doesn't mean i'm
optimistic, since it's also clear that the most delusional of social
democrats and liberals are more than willing to countenance alliances with
the right, if not forming auxiliaries for buchanan -- perhaps because the
US is a dazed, though still rather malevolent, hegemon.  maybe that's
just a problem for the US; but i'd like to get a sense of what the
europeans here think about its effects on EU politics.

what you write about 'third world' govts is quite true: "they now have much
to lose if they can no longer contract out their populations for slave
wages. These global neoliberals have now become Capitals' most ardent
representatives-they now feel Capital is strong enough to break its ties to
the U.S.  They must feel like the force of capital is now on their side and
they and capital are stronger than any one nation-I mean it is pretty bold
of them to just flat out say no to Clinton's plan and walk away from the
table."

...with perhaps the exception of what you say about 'capital being on their
side'.  let's not forget the EU and Japan. is this what you meant?  there's
no reason to squeeze this into the dichotomy of US v the third world.  we
should be as hesitant about configuring the US as global capital (it
remains for the EU and/or Japan to break the opposition to those govts
acting as global cops) as we are of configuring the third world as a
constant or otherwise unit.

steve wrote:

> to draw up a score card with two columns entitled 'marxists' and
'anarchists', and then start placing ticks or crosses in each, just seems
comical.<

more than comical i would say.

the more i think about these recent debates, the more i think that the
question is: 'why is such a debate being conducted at this particular point
i time?'   my initial question, and the one i've been thinking about for
some time, has been: 'what do J18 and N30 indicate for the shape and
prospect of struggles into the next century?'

but what's even more striking than this is that on some e-lists, the entire
twentieth century is being replayed (you name it: kronstadt, the
rosenbergs, storming the winter palace...).   despite what any of us might
say, i think the sense of historical movement has in fact returned at the
end of the millenium, but it's not the kind of historicity that social
democrats (or leninists) can register or account for.  thankfully, we can
all admit that the 'eighties slogan of 'the end of history' has now been
shattered; but perhaps we had to pass through that moment in order to give
'history' itself a completely different _sense_.  that is,  it's also true
i think that the _sense_ of history as advanced by the second (as well as
the third and fourth) international is dead, if not limping around inviting
amorous attachments in the echo chambers of cyberspace.

anyone for walter benjamin instead?

Angela
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