[Marxism] From Gindin and Panitch

[Louis Proyect <lnp3@xxxxxxxxx>]

Hi Louis,
We appreciate the response and the argumentation made. To clarify our
argument, we are trying to get at the difference between a phase of
capitalism in which the forms of specifically capitalist exploitation and
accumulation were still at an early stage and the present nature of the
American empire. In the former case, capitalism was fragmented into
exclusivist spheres of influence with the densest linkages running within
the empires. Today, the drive is to a unitary capitalist space, open and
integrated through informal means  (which is not to say that states
disappear or are marginalized, but that they in fact play an expanded role
on behalf of both domestic and international capital). The densest linkages
are amongst the developed capitalist states themselves (in part, because
that's where the bulk of accumulation occurs but this is not to deny the
significance of other linkages). And while previously informal (market)
linkages were limited by the prevalence of accumulation linked to what we
called 'pre-capitalist' formations, today it is the penetration of
capitalist structures that dominates exploitation and accumulation.

The point about slavery is that it existed before capitalism and is not a
specifically capitalist form of exploitation, even if capital did not
hesitate to adopt and in fact horrifically expanded it. Our point was that
the interaction of slavery as a 'pre-capitalist' form (because it was not
wage labour) and capitalism per se was one factor that led to a different
kind of imperialism than a specifically capitalist imperialism. We see the
American state as having been central to the construction of a specifically
capitalist empire.

If we understand your criticism, it is that our argument might seem to free
capitalism from being implicated in 'pre-capitalist' formations like
slavery. We would absolutely agree with you that capitalism is so
implicated,  and we'll try to restate this in ways that makes this clearer.

In Solidarity,
Sam and Leo



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