PEN-L message, Re: From Jim Craven on China-Cuba comparisons

>>The Western "left" has been performing the role of an ideological anvil for the materialistic hammer of neoliberal capitalism against all revolutionary governments that refuse to give up the long and torturous path toward socialism. The Western left promotes ideological extremism totally detached from socio-economic reality in concert with the neoliberal capitalists who promote peaceful evolution detached from ideological goals to create conditions that are expected to provide evidence that socialism cannot work, that is, to create wealth that will be shared by all. Both the radical left and the neo-liberal right in the West place abstract political goods, such as freedom and democracy, before material goods, such as food, health and income. Not only is this message meaningless to the long oppressed, but the world's poor are also told that only democracy and freedom can create wealth, a claim totally dicredited by three decades of undeniable, visible facts. One look at the quality of political leaders produced by Western democracy settles the whole argument.

There are fundamental geopolitical differences between China and Cuba in relation to US hegemony. The only similarity lies in both countries' steadfast determination to remain socialist in the face of overwhelming pressure to succumb to capitalism.

Approval from the Western radical left is unnecessary for revolution struggle in the Third World, for the left in the West can neither deliver any influence on Western, particularly US, imperialist policy, nor provide material assistance to struggling Third World revolutions. All energy of the Western left is spent on justifying its alleged superior ideological purity by preaching democracy to the starving.

The difference between Jim Craven's perspective on what is going on in China and that of Western neo-liberals is that Jim naturally drifts towards the right groups in China.

Henry C.K. Liu <<

My Comment

My admiration for much of the writings of Mr. Liu is no secret and best as I can, my efforts have been to abstract various theoretical propositions he advances concerning money; the current state of over capacity (not overproduction) and its technological basis and his fine series of articles on art. Mr. Liu is a real world economist, meaning he has an investment group.

There is another issue called real world politics and how the individual operates within various shifting political polarities. The Western "left" as Henry calls it, means the left political bench of the bourgeoisie. This is not an indictment against individuals but merely a statement on the origin and meaning of left wing.

I have stated that I believe the bourgeois property relations exists in China and the law of value operates more or less freely in various sectors but I have no way to quantify and qualify this. On the other hand I still believe that China has the largest socialist economy in the world ... but I lack the material to quantify and qualify this belief. I have read very little anywhere that outlines how the law of value operates in China and traces the cycles of reproduction of its centers of gravity that is its industrial infrastructure.

Telling me that the price of rice has risen in China does not prove capitalism. Tracing foreign investment does not prove capitalism in the fundamental of the infrastructure. And of course capitalism under the thumb of a communist regime is historically valid.

The entire world is caught up in the transition - leap, further into post industrial society and here is the real social revolution in the material power (of production).

"The Western "left" has been performing the role of an ideological anvil for the materialistic hammer of neoliberal capitalism against all revolutionary governments" since the October Revolution and that is the job of the left bench of the bourgeoisie in the ideological arena. This has also been the environment of our reform movement in America all of our life.

I am one of those guys from the better paid segments of the industrial workers and a former union bureaucrat and bribed official. What I have never succumbed to is the lie of democracy and freedom and clearly understand that our relative freedom has its infrastructure built on the impoverishment, slaughter and continued destruction of the worlds people and the earth itself. I was always clear that I possessed more individual freedoms than the next guy and most certainly more than the majority of the workers in our own country. Not because of my personality - which has a little to do with it, but my real world economic and social position as wage earner.

I was also clear that my relative freedom existed in connection with the existence of Soviet Power. We are in the process of learning some bitter lessons and those anti-Soviet soldiers of yesteryear did nothing but attack the very thing - with all its warts and shortcomings, that was the guarantee of our relative freedom. The worse time under the Soviet Regime - if it can actually called "worse," was better than the living circumstances of the overwhelming majority of the people in the earth between October 1917 and December 1989.

Then you have some guy who spends his life arguing about some group of painters not being able to paint a picture in the Soviet Union or the character of state sponsored mass demonstrations being fascistic. Talk about a loss of perspective and horrible sense of proportions. This same loss of perspective is often applied to China and the rest of the world. It comes down to whose side you are on in a living political polarity?

China still baffles me and information comes hard. Taiwan is of course part of China and not a national question. The current division with the mainland is a product of "European" and American democratic imperialism and indigenousness reaction.

The Western "left" speaks with a forked tongue and knife one in the back to protect their relative privileges. Sometimes just sitting still and being "cool" is the right thing to do.

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