[Marxism] Zuma's election & the ANC- my reply to Patrick Bond's second reply.

[noah tucker <csoc21@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Argentina's success following its actions in 2002 (& 2003) is very encouraging, 
and you are absolutely right to suggest that other countries can learn much 
from this experience. However, it is simply not true, as you seem to imply, 
that Argentina now has no relationship with international capitalist finance. 
As one of the CEPR articles (by Mark Weisbrot & Luis Sandoval) points out in 
reference to the IMF:

"As it turned out, the IMF backed down and rolled over Argentina's debt to the 
Fund, thus avoiding a real default. More recently, Argentina has received major 
loans from the World Bank ($1.76 billion in 2007) and the Inter-American 
Development Bank ($2.16 billion in 2007). These large loans from these two 
IFI's who work closely from the IMF, given Argentina's very antagonistic 
relationship to the Fund, would never have happened a few years ago, and are 
another indication of this drastic change in the international financial 
system."

Citibank has retained its involvement in Argentina's retail banking sector. 
According to Business News Americas:

"Citibank's Argentine subsidiary [...] has become a leader in credit card 
service and home banking in that country. In February 2003, it became one of 
the first banks to begin to return frozen time deposits to its clients after 
the economic crisis in Argentina."

Since when it has expanded its operations. A Citigroup press release in 
February 2007 stated:

"Citibank has opened a new branch in the city of San Luis, with a wide range of 
banking products and services; Citibank now has 59 branches throughout 
Argentina.
 
"The San Luis branch of Citibank offers a wide range of products and services, 
such as checking accounts with overdraft agreements, peso and 
dollar-denominated savings accounts, credit cards, ATM cards, personal loans, 
time deposits, insurance, FX transactions, and access to Banelco ATMs.
 
"In November 2005, Citibank opened the first credit card office in the city of 
San Luis. After over a year?s presence in that city and thanks to some great 
results, Citibank transformed this office into a full branch and began to 
solidify its presence in the heartland of Argentina."

Come off it, Patrick. Even North Korea uses the international banking system, 
and therefore was vulnerable to the additional extra-territorial banking 
sanctions imposed by the US Treasury in 2005. Cuba also suffers from the 
effects of the US blockade on its ability to arrange trade finance.

Neither my article in 21stcenturysocialism.com, nor my post in response to your 
critique, suggested in any way that the global context offers South Africa no 
prospects for change. Rather, the article 'Arrow in the Wind' made it clear 
that the developments in Latin America are signs of a very significant 
improvement in the prospects for movements towards socialism.

But there is a difference between taking decisive action, at the appropriate 
moment, and merely being "cheeky" when one is in a vulnerable position. 

Based on the policies of the ANC in government, and your interpretation of 
Jacob Zuma's behaviour, you are pessimistic about the likely actions of the new 
ANC leadership. Of course, Zuma himself may end up being a prisoner instead of 
being president.

But either way, the ANC is a mass movement which includes the trade unions, the 
communist party, and many thousands of activists among the poor & the working 
class. The mass base of the movement has changed the leadership because of the 
previous leadership's submission to neo-liberalism. As Zuma himself has 
emphasized, the ANC has a collective leadership.

You think that the best that can be hoped for following Polokwane is: "a bit of 
a wild time in which people will make some advances because of their renewed 
confidence". 

Renewed confidence is very a good thing, and so would be 'some advances'. My 
view is that more is possible- but by no means guaranteed.


Noah



In response to:

Date: Thu, 27 Dec 2007 07:18:39 +0200
From: Patrick Bond <pbond@xxxxxxxxxxx>
Subject: Re: [Marxism] Zuma. my reply to Patrick Bond.
To: Activists and scholars in Marxist tradition
    <marxism@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Message-ID: <477335AF.1010200@xxxxxxxxxxx>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed

noah tucker wrote:
> My point is this- unless you do nationalise the means of production &
 take state control of foreign trade, and furthermore, unless you have
 large and technologically advanced foreign partners with whom you can
 trade with and source investments from on a non-capitalist basis, then
 it is simply not possible for you to have no relationship with the
 Citibanks and Merrill Lynches.
>   

Huh? Argentina 2002? Read some about their experience defaulting and 
recovering without recourse to new foreign loans (aside from trade 
finance), at www.cepr.net

> Also unclear is how your current web-campaign against the new leader
 of the ANC could improve the prospects for a step forward in South
 Africa.
>   

The small role I play reporting/analysing from here is partly to
 address 
illusions flowing from their traditions of left rhetoric, that the ANC 
is anti-imperialist and anti-neoliberal - when in fact it's usually the
 
opposite. The step forward that people are taking here - in part by 
protesting on average 30 times a day in 2005-07 - is to decommodify and
 
democratise basic services (like water and electricity), healthcare and
 
AIDS medicines, education, land, housing and the like. The ANC, 
especially in government, usually tries to trip them up. After a bit of
 
a wild time in which people will make some advances because of their 
renewed confidence, I fear that what lies ahead is quite a militaristic
 
regime combining Zuma's rightwing populist tendencies (he apparently 
wants to reopen debate on the death penalty and has been incredibly 
misogynist in addressing his rape accuser) and the neoliberal economic 
policies he will continue.


________________________________________________
YOU MUST clip all extraneous text before replying to a message.
Send list submissions to: Marxism@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Set your options at: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/listinfo/marxism