Re: Spain: colonizer and colonized

["Julio Huato" <juliohuato@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

Louis Proyect writes:

> capitalism *is not productive* for the vast majority of the world's planet.
> Even in places where it appears to have a certain dynamism like China, the
> ecological consequences will have the long-term effect of robbing future
> generations. One of the things that is often omitted from the discussions
> of how revolutionary capitalism was in the 17th and 18th century is the way
> it was able to displace environmental despoliation to the New World.

So, when fully taking into account the damage to the environment, the
adjusted measure of productivity in the capitalist countries will yield zero
percent growth throughout their capitalist history.  Thus, Western European
societies have been stagnant in the last four centuries."  I'd like to see
your figures.

> capitalism is *a world system*. The rise of Europe was dialectically
> related to the fall of Asia, Latin America and Africa. It was only Japan
> that exploited its geographical isolation to avoid the consequences of
> colonialism.

In my previous posting, I challenged this view.  It makes no sense.

What you are really saying is that, under capitalist production, the
environmentally-adjusted value of output and the value of the labor power
that produces it are equal (plus or minus an unsystematic error term).  That
there is no (systematic) surplus internal to capitalist production.  That
surplus sucked from outside is the essential fuel that keeps the mechanism
moving.  That the (systematic) surplus that feeds rich "capitalism" comes
from outside capitalist production, from colonized and 'dependent' countries
where forced labor is the rule and wage labor is the exception.

In turn, modes of production based on forced labor are not responsible for
any damage to the environment.  Since the forced labor sector has links and
trades with the capitalist sector and they are parts of a capitalist world
system, then whatever happens to the environment is to be imputed to the
capitalist sector.  And that the forced-labor sector does generate a
systematic surplus; so much so that it is the blood that keeps the
capitalist sector alive.  In net terms, forced labor does generate a
surplus, that is then siphoned out to the capitalist sector.  Why would a
sector with no systematic surplus keep under its thumb for so long a sector
with a systematic surplus is a mystery to me.

Of course, if there were an internal systematic surplus, then capitalist
accumulation would basically be a feedback mechanism internal to the
capitalist circuit.  Proportionally, the role of external surplus in its
reproduction would be secondary.  Capitalist reproduction would be basically
self-sustained and self-expanding -- as Marx obviously believed.

In Lenin's times, views like yours were in circulation.  And Lenin believed
it was Sismondist and Malthusian nonsense.  And I don't need much historical
evidence to say that it is nonsense.

It doesn't matter whether we attach to it the buzz words of 'revolution' and
'proletarian dictatorship' to make it sexy, any political strategy based on
this nonsense is flawed.

Julio

PS: In due time, I plan to respond to the existing postings criticizing my
views -- those by MARIPOWER716 and Nicholas Siemensma.  The postings that
may come up later may not get my reply.  Right now I need to get ready to
participate in the gay parade in NYC (I'm straight -- in case you wonder).

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