Re: economic strategy and the state

[Doug Henwood <dhenwood@xxxxxxxxx>]

Marty Hart-Landsberg has expressed a great dilemma quite well - should
progressives support a strong-state policy (progressive nationalist) or a
transborder (progressive internationalist) strategy. I'd like to add to
this dilemma by pointing to a related one - do we like cobination and
centralization or not? Marxians, starting with the Old Man himself,
welcomed the larger scale of combining capitals as a forerunner of
socialism, whereas other socialists have opposed increasing scale as
oppressive and inherently undemocratic. Today's greens are obviously
heirs to the latter tradition. So which is it - large-scale
rationalization, or small scale craft production? Or to get back to
Marty's question, is cross-border integration a good thing or bad?

Need I say that nothing is all good or all bad, but that these are the
poles of the debate?

Doug

Doug Henwood [dhenwood@xxxxxxxxx]
Left Business Observer
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212-874-3137 (fax)