[PEN-L:27322] Re: LTV and income disparity

[Chris Burford <cburford@xxxxxxxxxx>]

At 28/06/02 07:07 +0530, you wrote:
> Chris Burford :
> > What *is* difficult is the nature of the alliance between progressive
> > people in the imperialist west and the mass of people in the LDC's.
>
> Please allow me to ask some questions.
>
> What or how much Western Marxists know really know about the rest of the
> world that they claim to provide "a global theory"? Some Marxists can not
> even distinguish between Sri Lanka and Senegal, but claim to possess "Theory
> of Accumulation on a World Scale" !


I do not want to appear apologetic, or to assume defensively that the
question is intended necessarily for me alone. But in my own case I am
aware that I do not understand whole aspects of what, for example, is going
on in India. I get the impression that India is having some success,
whatever its problems, in retaining a proportion of its own surplus and
sustaining and developing its own economic activity. The reports that Ulhas
Joglekar forwards add considerably to the richness of this list by
providing a perspective quite different at times to those coming from
Europe and the USA.

But the problem is not that western marxists have much of a global theory
now. Marx had a style of intense abstraction of the general from the
particular. He wrote very little directly relevant to the particularity of
the contradictions between the developed capitalist countries and what are
now called the LDC and of course was writing within the limits of his time
and perspective (which necessarily has some eurocentric distortions).

The problem is more IMHO that there is are few  voices from within the
marxist camp arguing whether the "general law of capitalist accumulation"
operates on a world scale. I am for example unclear what is Louis Proyect's
position on this.

I want to see people able to support Nancy in her exchanges. Perhaps she
can ask her knowledgeable purveyors of neo-classical subjectivist value
theory why a frappacino tends to cost less than a Rolex watch, if it is not
somehow related to the amount of labour power required to produce the
different commodities. After all they meet similarly subjective use values
- flattering to the subjective consciousness and best consumed in public
with a display of nonchalance, preferably together. Designer jeans also
meet the same need but generally cost a figure different again to a
frappacino on the one hand and a Rolex watch on the other. How funny if it
is all subjective supply and demand.

When the Group of 8 produce an utterly reformist response to the
immiseration of Africa this week and the well-intentioned liberals express
dismay, there is little in the way of a marxist counterperspective except
generalisations like that it is all the fault of imperialism and there must
be a socialist revolution.

I would indeed like to hear more about the particularity of how some
countries have bucked the trend and retain some of their surplus while
others haemorrhage capital and the trend overall is to lose it to the
centripetal pull of the centres of finance capital. Or does Ulhas Joglekar
not think there is a centripetal pull. Even George Soros thinks there is,
and he watches capital flows expecially closely.


> Why starvation in Malawi is regarded as a proper subject for discussion,
> while starvation in North Korea is ignored?


I am not going to get into this in detail because the particularity is too
complex and Ulhas Joglekar may mean different things to what others may
assume. But about the need to demonstrate the relevance of any abstract
generalisation within the particularity of the concrete contradictions, I
completely agree. On the other hand is the growing income disparity in the
world merely a result of an accidental combination of circumstances? I
would also appreciate Ulhas Joglekar's thoughts on this, that may underlie
his questions.

Chris Burford

London