Re: anti-Imperialism vs. Internationalism??!!??

[Rod Hay <rodhay@xxxxxxxxxx>]

Sorry Jim, my phrasing was ambiguous. I meant, to say that third world
nationalism is dead, dead, dead. And buried.

Rod

Jim Devine wrote:

> (was:  [PEN-L:18063] Re: Re: Re: Anti-Eurocentrism: Idealist )
>
> At 02:19 AM 4/13/00 -0400, you wrote:
> >Anti-imperialism as a strategy for socialism is dead, dead, dead. It died
> >with the Vietnam War. There is only one strategy that has any hope.
> >International solidarity against capitalism. The old wobbly slogan "World
> >Labor Needs a Union" comes to mind. Or the even older one of Karl and
> >company. "Workers of the World Unite."
>
> I don't see how anti-imperialism contradicts "workers of the world unite"
> or "world labor needs a union." Why the opposition between these two
> "strategies"?
>
> If the US (to choose a country randomly) decides to smash a little country
> in the Balkans because it differs from the neo-Liberal consensus that it
> and its NATO allies want to impose on the world, that seems to an example
> of imperialism. It's a different _kind_ of imperialism that  that of, say,
> the inter-imperialism rivalry that helped spawn World War I (the subject
> matter of Lenin, Bukharin, et al) or the kind of imperialism that involves
> the US sending troops to, and bombing the bejesus out of, Vietnam during
> the Cold War (the kind of imperialism that many on the left cut their teeth
> on). But imperialism, like capitalism itself, changes its spots. The form
> of imperialism changes, but the song remains the same. Anyway, even though
> Milosevic (like Saddam Hussein or Noriega) may be the kind of thug that the
> US usually allies with (until a tame democracy is established, under the
> IMF's thumb), US victory against Serbia strengthened its hand against other
> dissidents against the neo-Liberal system, including those opposed to the
> "race to the bottom" (the competition to cut wages relative to
> productivity, environmental standards, etc. to attract private capital,
> IMF/World Bank favors, US arms sales, etc.) These dissidents includes labor
> unions and those struggling to create unions. (Not all of these dissidents
> are like Milosevic.)
>
> Those who want an international workers' union should oppose the
> international capitalist union formed by the US/NATO/IMF/World Bank combine
> (i.e., the newest form of imperialism). (Anti-imperialism isn't the same as
> naive third-worldism, which used to interpret the world between the evil
> North and the good South.)
>
> It also seems to me that anti-imperialism isn't really "a strategy for
> socialism" as much as a socialist principle. That is, one reason I'm a
> socialist is because I want to abolish imperialism.
>
> Jim Devine jdevine@xxxxxxx &  http://liberalarts.lmu.edu/~jdevine

--
Rod Hay
rodhay@xxxxxxxxxx
The History of Economic Thought Archive
http://socserv2.mcmaster.ca/~econ/ugcm/3ll3/index.html
Batoche Books
http://Batoche.co-ltd.net/
52 Eby Street South
Kitchener, Ontario
N2G 3L1
Canada