Re: Forwarded from Anthony (Brenner)

[Louis Proyect <lnp3@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

>Whatever one's view of Marx's use of "Asiatic forms of government" and
>"oriental despotism," his point is that basis of Spanish regionalism
>is not in regional differences or economy but in political failure of
>Spanish state to centralize as later European absolutist monarchies
>had.  In effect, external source of wealth from Americas freed
>Spanish state from task of national economic and political integration.
>Moreover, regionalism is not effect of mode of production but is
>effect of political level - the state.
>
>Re. Spanish colonizers, appears that pattern in which ostensibly
>absolutist-centralist form overlays essentially regionalist reality
>was transferred to Americas.     Michael Hoover

Michael, Spain and Spanish colonialism was not one of Marx's strong points.
He wrote an article on Bolivar for an encyclopedia which practically
labeled the liberator as a reactionary bandit. Marx was only a human being.

Louis Proyect
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