Re: meiksins-wood article

[Louis Proyect <lnp3@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

>Isn't this just complete, arid piffle? What on earth is the use of
>distinguishing between 'maintenance strategies' and 'real transformational
>struggles' if the latter turns out to be just a more theoretgically-vacuous
>version of the former? What am I missing?
>
>Mark Jones

The context for all this is the notion of "globalization" which at its
worst ends up as an excuse for Foucauldian micropolitics. For example,
Roger Burbach, Orlando Nuñez and Boris Kargalitsky wrote a book titled
"Globalization and its Discontents: The Rise of Postmodern Socialisms" that
argued with the collapse of the USSR, socialism would be impossible since
imperialism would destroy the revolutionary state as it did in Nicaragua.
The only option was to fight for small-scale changes around squatters
struggles, soup kitchens, etc. sponsored by NGO's. Truly dreadful stuff.
Kargalitsky, to his credit, has broken with Burbach politically and states
now that much of the book was written without his review.

So Doug Henwood and Ellen Meiksins Wood were polemicizing against this
trend, more than anything. The problem is that neither Doug nor Ellen has a
grounding in Leninist politics so the question of what they mean by
fighting on the terrain of the national state is open to question. In
Doug's case--at least a few years ago--this meant fighting to preserve the
welfare state. In Ellen's case, there is a bit more engagement with Marxist
theory but it has a decidedly academic cast.

I am not quite sure what the politics of the next ten years is going to
look like, but I would strongly suggest that Venezuela's close bond with
Cuba and the election of a Venezuelan to head OPEC indicates that the
struggle will truly be international. Of course, when it comes to making a
revolution, the target remains the existing bourgeois state which must be
dissolved and replaced by the armed people.

Louis Proyect
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