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

[Patrick Bond <pbond@xxxxxxxxxx>]

----- Original Message -----
From: "Hari Kumar" <hari.kumar@xxxxxxxxxxxx>
> ... we (Alliance ML) would contend,
> shows how the weak but ambitious national bourgeoisie of Tanzania
> attempted to build state owned enterprises that offered a hope for
> development. Until that is, the imperialists broke up the party.
> Given the age of our analysis, I should apologise for the referencing as
> being perhaps out-dated

Not at all, it was an important precursor to the unfolding process of class
formation today. I saw this first-hand in Arusha and Dar last November.
Updated sources would include a variety of papers by Issa Shivji, who --
with practically no support and few resources at the decripit (once great)
university on the Hill -- continues to pound out amazing analysis. (He's
moved more decisively into human rights, land and law issues, though
poli-econ and class analysis of who wins from neoliberalism are still
there.) There are also a few NGO comrades who are moving the critique
forward; six weeks ago I wandered around a good couple of Washington
protests -- anti-war and then anti-BrettonWoods -- with a tough feminist
from Dar. Others are contributing to the African Social Forum.

If there's a parasitical financial/commercial circuit of capital promoting
neoliberal capitalism in Tanzania today, what is most obviously missing is a
proletariat, and all that that entails. But one bad idea for resolving that
problem, which Jeffrey Sachs has been punting, is draining the Dar
wetlands/swamp area to wipe out the mosquitos and lower malaria, and getting
an export processing zone going. That may be their wretched future, like
Port-au-Prince...

> Perhaps I could also - since we have been segueing into Africa on this
> strand - ask you for a Mist - if not a ML-ist view of current crises in
> Congo?

Haven't personally got hold of anything yet, but check anything on the
subregion by Mahmood Mamdani (head of African Studies at Columbia, and
author of several marxist works and slightly post-marxist material on
state/society relations, including a recent book about the DRC --
Understanding the Crisis in Kiwu -- as well as a Rwanda genocide analysis).
Also check http://www.africanworld.com for Great Lakes region books in
english. Africa World Press is still the premier lefty publisher about the
continent. For buying a wider variety of books, even though the website
isn't fully up, I always look first to the Africa Book Centre at Covent
Garden in London (http://www.africabookcentre.com/catalogue.htm)...

> Chris Burford's earlier suggestion on PEN-L, that
> progressives should support some sort of intervention (whether UN or
> support of local tribal militas - I forget the phrasing exactly) touches
> me with some alarm.

Yes, I always read Chris with interest, and often also with alarm. I'm sure
it's mutual!

Cheers,
Patrick