Re: [OPE] The Financial Times says the Left haven't got a clue

[Dave Zachariah <davez@xxxxxx>]

paul bullock wrote:
> why do you think that inter imperialist conflicts including war are 
> not 'necessary' for the system? What other explanations do you have 
> for  all the wars of the 20th Century.... types of 'unecessary' causes?
and Jerry wrote:
> My point was that a World War is not necessary for the resolution of the
> _current_ economic crisis. 

To say that imperialist wars are 'necessary' for the resolution of 
capitalist economic crises is an extreme form of functionalism. I think 
that the causal mechanisms that it postulates have little evidence. I 
cannot see any meaningful way to say that World Wars I and II were 
necessary for capitalist economies. WWI in particular was a result of 
imperialist rivalries for sure, but it is quite a leap to say it was 
'necessary for the system'.

I agree with Jerry that *all* the wars of the 20th century were 
certainly not imperialist. In that case the Vietnamese invasion of 
Cambodia that ended the genocidal Khmer Rogue regime would have been an 
'imperialist policy', something I find ridiculous.

//Dave Z
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