Re: "The World We're In" by Will Hutton

[Chris Burford <cburford@xxxxxxxxxx>]

At 18/05/02 08:18 -0400, Louis Proyect wrote:
> On Fri, 17 May 2002 22:28:31 +0100, Chris Burford wrote:
> >What the Marshall Aid plan was necessary to do
> >was *political*: to protect  western Europe from
> >going "Communist".
>
> I didn't think it was necessary for me to point this out.

Good. We are agreed on that. But I do not think my objection was a mere
quibble to this formula

> The Marshall Plan was necessary to jump start capitalist expansion in
> devastated post-WWII Europe. However, capitalism is flourishing throughout
> the third world, so what is the point of a Marshall Plan?


The Marshall Plan was necessary to jump start capitalist *accumulation*
again in western Europe but not capitalist expansion, in the sense of the
renewed circulation of goods and services under capitalism as the dominant
mode of production, which would have happened anyway after the disruption
of war subsided.




> >If we apply a counterfactual argument to this -
> >what would have happened in  western Europe had
> >there been no Marshall Aid plan? - the work
> >force would  have been as impoverished as say in
> >Indonesia today.
>
> This of course completely undercuts the first point you made.


I do not understand this alleged obvious error on my part. Counterfactual
arguments are particularly confusing if you are not both on the same
wavelength. My impression is that despite our substantial differences we
are struggling to describe the same situation. The differences are about
formulations, and then it may be that we are understanding the same words
in different ways eg ("capitalist expansion")

> .. there is no amount of aid that will
> relieve poverty in Indonesia since it is victimized by imperialism.


It can mitigate poverty.

> No amount of aid will make it into a G-7 type nation.

Agreed. Indonesia most unlikely.

Though in certain contexts countries like India, Brazil, or South Africa,
could be allowed to become subordinate exploitative powers.

Singapore is probably a privileged centre of regional finance capital as
well as local capitalism. (I do not know all the facts - I am talking about
the general range of possibilities)

> By the same
> token, the Marshall Plan was capable of restoring war-devastated
> imperialist nations back to "health" so that they could once again
> trample on the rights of Indonesia, Vietnam, the Congo, etc.


The US set western Europe up again as a secondary imperialist group of
powers in order to have allies against the Soviet Bloc. IT did not allow
them to trample on the rights of the colonies but maintained pressure for
decolonisation by the old colonial empires. However it also allowed a
capitalist world economic order in which countries like Britain benefited
materially in numerous ways by the opportunity to exploit the third world.
The USA undermined the colonialism of the old Empires and promoted
neo-colonialism. The USA pulled the rug from under Britain and France at
the time of Suez too.


> > The only future for  people
> >trying to better themselves in Europe would have
> >been to try to  migrate to the USA or being one
> >of a narrow body of exploiters within their  own
> >country, vulnerable to revolution.
>
> TINA
>
> >The
> >urgency of a Marshall Aid  plan is  much less
> >strong because there is no threat from the
> >Soviet Bloc  as a rival pole of attraction.
>
> It is urgent in moralistic terms. It is not urgent in economic terms.

My comment was a comparative one. A Marshall Aid plan is not urgent for any
imperialism except

a) Europe will move to attack the USA on these moral grounds, if it has the
chance, which it now has.

b) There is a crisis of credibility for the IMF and World Bank. They have
to be shown to be doing something otherwise the street demonstations will
intensify again.

> More to the point, no amount of aid will transform class relations on
> an international scale.


Yes yes, this is not about a battle for socialism. This is about a struggle
against US hegemonism. I ask citizens of the USA to join in.

> Lyndon Johnson's "War on Poverty" could not
> eliminate the ghetto. We are dealing with ghettos on a world scale
> here.


Yes there is a roughly 30 fold difference in wage rates across the world
which correlates with the uneven centralisation of capital.


> >Ten years ago the global sado neo-liberals we
> >saying that Africa might as  well have dropped
> >off the map. Nowadays under pressure of concern
> >about  AIDS, there is some feeling in capitalist
> >circles that there has to be a  policy for
> >Africa.
>
> Right, the imperialist shark Paul O'Neill and his stooge Bono are
> visiting this part of the world making noises about how poverty can
> be eliminated. An utterly grotesque spectacle.



I need to be clear about this important debate. Until yesterday I had not
got Hutton's book and I assumed it said something about a Marshall Aid
plan. The term does not however appear in the index, although it is clear
that he is Keynesian by leaning, and favours a more lenient apprach to
south East Asia and Argentina. If time permits I will try to give some
direct quotes.

As far as this thread is concerned I am saying it is right for the
oppressed and exploited people of the world to take advantage
contradictions between the oppressors. I am spreading no illusions about
the imperialist motivation of Europe in developing its conflict with the USA.

Marx's argument in Wages Price and Profit against Citizen Weston was that
through struggle it is possible to change the degree of exploitation and
the pattern of capitalist accumulation so that the products of labour are
consumed somewhat more directly by the oppressed and exploited.

Chris Burford