Re: Re: Re: Re: needs, wants, definitions

[Carrol Cox <cbcox@xxxxxxxxx>]

"J. Barkley Rosser, Jr." wrote:

> Louis,
>       Guess I'll dust it up with you here.
>       Several years ago, don't remember on which
> list, you said that Sweden's high standard of living
> was purchased at the expense of the sweat of
> workers in Central America growing fruit, etc.
> or words to that effect.

It seems to me that in this sort of argument two quite
separate questions get inextricably mixed. One question
is whether imperialism is bad and hurts the world's people.
I take that as a given -- and I take efforts to prove it as
stemming from lack of marxist conviction.

The other question concerns the kind of understanding
of imperialism we need if we are to destroy it -- which
I take as the central human task of this century. I suspect
that the way imperialism hurts most of the world, and the
way in which it supports (in fact is the mode of existence
of) capitalism, has only a little (if anything) to do with
the wealth flowing from the periphery to the center. There
are such flows, but the crippling of the periphery and
the domination of the center don't depend on the direction
of that flow.

One problem is illustrated by a frequent verbal error by
most progressives in the U.S. They speak of what "we"
did in Vietnam or what "we" are doing in Iraq. They
confuse the "nation" (the ruling class) with the "public"
(lackeys of the ruling class for the most part) with the
"people" (essentially the working class. There is no
doubt that imperialist profits flow to the "nation" so
conceived. It is doubtful that they flow to "the people."

The people mostly pay taxes to suport the military
and the intelligence agencies and the diplomatic corps
etc. which support the empire. The function of the
public is to keep the people confused.

Carrol

(I'm borrowing what I think is a useful ad hoc set
of distinctions from the late columnist Jospeph
Kraft.)