Re: Native American land rights

[James Heartfield <James@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

In message <l03102805b0c31f03af13@[166.84.250.86]>, Doug Henwood
<dhenwood@xxxxxxxxx> writes
>I don't know either, really, which is why I asked a lot of questions,
>instead of my usual mode of vigorous assertion. Terry Eagleton says in his
>little book on postmodernism that to a Marxist, capitalism is both the best
>and worst thing that ever happened to humanity. He's got a point.
>
>Doug

I tend to agree with Doug and Terry Eagleton on this point.

Capitalism does two things at the same time:

1. It develops social productivity to the point that it is possible to
advance to a better society

2. It makes the persistence of private property relations intolerable
for the majority making it necessary to advance to a better society.

Beyond that it is necessary to distinguish between capitalism today and
in Marx's day. In Marx's day it was still possible to talk of a
progressive capitalism. Today, any advances that are made are more than
offest by the destructive side of capital. In the main further
development of social productivity can only be won in opposition to
capital. There are notable exceptions. Real technological advances have
taken place is SE Asia.

What is not sensible in my view is to attack capitalism from the
standpoint of more archaic social forms. This romantic critique, far
from providing a secure alternative, is simply assimilated into
political conservatism. Instead of capital being the enemy, development
itself is seen as the problem.

More to the point, it is not possible to identify any part of the world
that is not already subsumed into capitalist social relations. The
Indian Marxist Jairus Banaji made this point in relation to supposedly
pre-capitalist economic formations in India. Banaji argues that th
existnce of these is an illusion, by distinguishing between the formal
subsumption of production relations into capital, which he says is
ubiquitous, and the actual reordering of production relations, which he
explains is patchy. All this meaning that uneven development is not
evidence that capitalistic domination is not partial, but rather that
uneven development is the form that capitalist domination takes.

The quotation from LM that cultures cannot be preserved like jam might
have been put precociously, but it seems unassailable to me. It reminds
me of the story about president Marcos' delight that anthropologists had
(mis) identified a prehistoric people in the Phillipines. Marcos was so
made up about the academics' interest in his country that he sent his
troops in to smash up these unfortunate people's cooking utensils and
steal their clothes before each new anthropolgical visit was about to
happen, to hide the knowledge that even this isolated group ahd
established trade relations with others.

In assessing indigenism as a political strategy today, it is necessary
to understand it as a modern development, in contemporary circumstances,
rather than a resistance to modernity. It is right that Marxists should
defend people's rights against oppression. But that must mean that
indigenous peoples' have a right to scure their own economic
development, as well as a right to seek work.

There really is no way forward but forward.
--
James Heartfield