[PEN-L:11199] Re: imperialist competition?

[Bill Burgess <burgess@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

On Mon, 7 Jul 1997, Terrence  Mc Donough wrote:

> Competitiveness is also effective in that it provides an umbrella for
> two different strategies.  One is Jim D's competitive austerity of
> which the U.S. and Britain are the exemplars. [Indeed, it would not
> be inaccurate to describe it as the Anglo-Saxon Strategy.]  The other
> promotes competitiveness through the control of monopolized markets,
> technology and scarce skills.  This is the so-called "high
> productivity" strategy.  The proceeds of a successful implementation
> of this strategy are to be divided between capital, labor and social
> services.  It hopes this income will maintain local demand.  This
> might be labelled the Continental Strategy.  The problem is not that
> this strategy cannot work (it's working very well in Ireland at the
> moment) but that it requires extraordinary luck to remain at the
> cutting edge of technology and skills.  Sooner or later the high
> productivity economy is overtaken by competition and the austerity
> strategy imposed.

Terrence previously noted he no longer agreed that NAFTA and EU were
blocks of imperialist competition (my words here). Can the two strategies
described above not qualify as the form this competition takes (in part)?

James Devine suggests there are tendencies towards a world state. I think
it is important to keep eyes fixed on the very real rivalries that
dominate even the most advanced prototype, the EU. Can
any of the major countries (UK, France, Germany) accept a real
common currency without blowing up? I doubt it. They have not even been
able to meet their own deficit schedules, and this in good times.

As for the position of smaller powers, whether in Europe or, e.g. Canada,
NZ, if we don't draw a basic line between imperialist status and
imperialized status *before* considering relative vulnerabilities
within the former group I think we have given up the most important point
Lenin ever made. Terrence rightly noted this discussion was occuring in
terms of metropole powers, and this is its major flaw, in my opinion.

US hegemony partially functioned during the long post WW2 boom;
those days are over. The military fact of the USSR blunted open rivalry
between imperialist powers for awhile, but its (partial) demise
opens more room for fighting over profit potentials. We're leaving off the
economy from political economy if we don't connect this to the wars
happening, including Iraq and intervention in Yugoslavia.

Bill Burgess