[Marxism] Re: David Harvey

["Carlos Eduardo Rebello" <crebello@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

David Harvey:

The danger is that anti-imperialist
> movements may become purely and wholeheartedly anti-modernist movements
> rather than seeking an alternative globalization and an alternative
> modernity that makes full use of the potential that capitalism has
spawned.

There are political errors in the Marxist field that have been proven as
mistaken so many times and re-appear so many times that this persistence of
error can only be possibly explained in Marxist terms, i.e., those mistakes
serve a class interest.

Primo, the idea of Capitalism-as-progressive-modernity is as old as
Bernstein and was refuted one century ago by Rosa Luxemburg, who reminded
Bernstein to learn to think dialectically and to remember that economic
development can go hand-in-hand with the most terriblr kind of social and
political regression, viz.as  the whole German history up to Luxemburg's
time (and later, but this Rosa couldn't forsee) proved.

Secundo, the idea of anti-imperialism as anti-modernity. The target here, of
course, are Islamic fundamentalists. The idea, however, can be refuted by
quoting - for the nth. time, that old line by Trotsky in 1938 about a
conflict between bopurgeois democratic Britain and Vargas' dictatorship
Brazil over the expropriation of British concessions in Brazilian mining,
steelmilling, etc:

"If Brazil is victorious, this will give a mighty impulse to national and
democratic consciousness of the country and will lead to the overthrow of
the Vargas dictatorship" that's to say that a victory of the
"anti-modernists" would create an emancipatory feel among the masses which
would make the "anti-modernists" increasing out of place at their own home.
Simple as that.

But then, much of Marxist politics consists in reapeating the same things
over and over...

Carlos Rebello






_______________________________________________
Marxism mailing list
Marxism@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/listinfo/marxism