[PEN-L:8689] Serb dictatorship?

[Louis Proyect <lnp3@xxxxxxxxx>]

Max:
>I take your point that Serbia and Nicaragua are and were more
>open than Greece and a bunch of other us-backed regimes.  But
>it is less open than the bourgeois democracies.  If it had a
>kick-ass socialist economy, one might be more indulgent of its
>democratic shortcomings.

Nicaragua did not have a "kick ass socialist economy" either. Nor did
Allende's Chile. What the United States targets is not just socialist
economies, but mixed economies with left-wing governments. The reason for
this is that there is less chance for profit in such environments. On the
other hand, neocolonial governments and imperialism find ways to
collaborate despite state ownership based on the following arrangements:

1) foreign consulting companies get the right to "assist" the developing
country through hefty fees. This was the primary source of corrosion of the
Algerian revolution.

2) foreign corporations take control of the marketing of oil, copper,
diamonds or other commodities. Like railroads in the 19th century, they rip
off the supplier. Back then, the family farmer suffered. Today, it is the
population suffering under neocolonialism. For example, DeBeers had the
exclusive purchasing rights for Zaire's diamonds.

3) state owned firms rely on foreign banks for financing. This means that
the IMF can force the nation to act "fiscally responsible", which means
closing hospitals, etc. in order to balance the books.

As far as the Miskitu/Kosovo comparison is concerned, there are some
similarities. On one hand, although I am deeply sympathetic to Miskitu
demands, I would never have supported the right of the Atlantic Coast
population to secede. They deserved autonomy and got it. The FSLN woke up
from its dogmatic Marxist mistakes and signed a peace agreement with the
indigenous rebels. My problem with the KLA is that they are a bunch of
drug-smuggling, racist, fascist sympathizers who were used as a cats paw of
imperialism in the ongoing war against Yugoslavia. They have more in common
with the Spanish-speaking Somocista contras, who operated out of Honduras
and who got their initial impetus from a task force organized by fascist
goons from Argentina and the CIA.





Louis Proyect

(http://www.panix.com/~lnp3/marxism.html)