Re: "Socialist command type economy in Iraq"????

["Devine, James" <jdevine@xxxxxxx>]

Title: RE: [PEN-L] "Socialist command type economy in Iraq"????

One thing this discussion misses is that the US elite isn't really against state ownership of the means of production and control of the economy. It's against state ownership of the means of production and control of the economy that don't help the elite's own power and the greater glory of US capital. Thus, they're in favor of US control of Iraq, at least for now.

"Free markets" are convenient slogans -- attractive to many people -- but _in practice_ the US government has constantly violated the official principles that go with that slogan.

------------------------
Jim Devine jdevine@xxxxxxx &  http://bellarmine.lmu.edu/~jdevine

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Chris Burford [mailto:cburford@xxxxxxxxxx]
> Sent: Friday, May 30, 2003 12:01 AM
> To: PEN-L@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
> Subject: Re: [PEN-L] "Socialist command type economy in Iraq"????
>
>
> At 2003-05-30 00:17 -0500, you wrote:
>
> >In Iraq oil resources are nationalised and although it
> certainly was not
> >socialist there was certainly considerable public ownership
> and planning not
> >based upon market considerations but upon political policy
> command type
> >features. The US will privatise all of this and make
> everything open to
> >private investment and "competition"
> >among crony capitalists. That is what I meant by remnants of
> a socialist
> >command type economy. Perhaps publicly owned and non-market,
> non-capitalist
> >elements would be less provocative. I didnt mean to suggest
> that Iraq was
> >ever basically socialist.
> >
> >Cheers, Ken Hanly....
>
> I agree with this argument.
>
> One of the telling points is how the occupiers confirmed a policy of
> deBaathification of perhaps some 30,000 people, immediately
> after the UN
> resolution was passed. From a liberal imperialist point of view the
> quickest way to stabilise the country would be to leave the
> previous regime
> state structures and officials in place, most of whom would have had
> nothing to do with brutal interrogation methods, public shocking
> punishments, or summary execution of thousands of people in the mass
> uprisings of 1991. But these people would have the attitudes
> of mind of a
> centralised command economy and would not run an agressive competitive
> style economy held together by the sort of finance capitalism
> favoured by
> the neoconservatives.
>
> It is similar to how East Germany was colonised with a whole
> stratum of the
> intelligentsia  thrown to one side, with consequences that
> continue to this
> day.
>
> Chris Burford
>