Re:The US Left Now, Part [2]

["M. Junaid Alam" <redjaguar@xxxxxxxxx>]

In my opinion, for the purpose of the current discussion, we may classify
capitalists in the US as: (1) those who benefit from poverty, inequality,
instability, uncertainty, and conflicts, (2) those who benefit from more
economic opportunities, certainty, and stability, and (3) those who don't
care one way or another or who have their bets evenly spread."

You can't be serious...[1] and [2] are inseperably linked. What is all this
chatter about "opportunities, certainty and stability" in contradistiction
to "instability, uncertainty, and conflicts"? The only way for capitalism to
expand and consolidate is to impose misery on one class in order to maintain
stability for the other. Where did these magical [2] capitalists spring
from, they have no historically identifiable counterpart.

"The[se] [capitalists] emphasize international cooperation,
international law, multilateralism, etc."

That is only so many hollow phrases that have been rendered irrelevant by
reality, which is unipolar U.S. hegemony. It would be suicidal for American
corporations to reduce the comparative advantage afforded to them by US
unilateralism. The whole facade of "international cooperation" is merely a
smokescreen behind which one law prevails: the United States runs the world,
the Europeans need to bargain from their secondary position,and all parties
come away having inhibited inter-imperial rivalry. So if these capitalists
really are interests in stripping themselves of the comparative advantage of
hegemon, then they would face fierce competition and rising costs of
production from the Europeans alone--quite apart from the demands that the
ex-colonial world would make in
"fairness" to their workers.


"They would even be willing to give up the use of force internationally as
long as there is a credible and legitimate way to enforce order and
stability in the world. Their profits are at stake.  I think most US
corporations of international scope fit or would like to fit into this
category.  Garten is right in saying that they have much to lose if chaos
prevails in the world."

Again, the contradiction. Credibility and legitimacy of capital depends upon
overwhelming US economic and military power to crush any and all
dissent--look at Latin America. Why is Garten some kind of hero? He is
simply another man able to recognize what most in his class cannot, this may
make him intelligent, but it does not at all mean that suddenly some chunk
of the capitalists will escape the logic of their own system. Every damn
person "has much to lose" if chaos prevails in the world; that is not even
the point. That is like saying the slave-owner will ultimately have some
problems if doomsday arrives, or if his slaves rebel, but as a social class,
the slave-owners have a vested interest in continuing to do what they
do--own slaves.

"Furthermore, some of these capitalists seem to understand that poverty and
inequality in the Third World impose a huge opportunity cost on them"

Gee, maybe they should have thought about that a couple hundred years ago,
back when they began capitalism and initiated super-exploitation in the
colonies to prop up the capitalist system. Again, this is totally
meaningless--what some of them see--and only in glimpses--and what they are
driven to do by their social relations are not the same. Consider AIDS in
Africa. Big companies know their costs of production are rising because
Africans are dying of disease, but it is far, far too late for their
pathetic little health programs instituted for a smattering of factory
workers here and there to change the overall demographic and social African
scene.

Hell, that is why we call it the *reactionary* capitalist class--it creates
problems that it cannot solve. The task of the Left is not to ingratiate
itself with a dying class and latch onto it, but to break
free from its ideology and pave a way forward.




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