[DEBATE] : Re: (Fwd) Crit of the Bamako Appeal & WSF: Susan George replies

[Patrick Bond]

(A comradely challenge from Susan to Franco, Heinrich, Prishani and 
Ahmed: where's the strategy?)


Hello and bonjour to all,
 
Many thanks to the four authors for their contribution which I've read 
with interest.   I did not sign the Bamako Appeal even though I know 
most of the authors who asked me to do so.  I felt as you do that it was 
extraordinarily 'old left' and could have been written in 1974.   Most 
of the authors are indeed white or nearly white males over 60 or even 
70.  Since I'm white and 72 myself, I don't condemn them, but nor did 
I think that this much-too-detailed blueprint was the answer to anything 
either, for reasons I will not describe in any detail as the Four have 
done so already.
 
I wondered in passing as I read this Contribution of the Four if any of 
those they call the "subalterns" or the "poors" would be able to 
decipher it.  Since I had a few problems myself, I would say the answer 
is No, but that is merely an aside.  They are writing here for the 
highly educated, people like themselves. 
 
More serious is what one could call a lack of seriousness--at least this 
was my perception.  Do these Four [none of whom I know personally], 
so highly educated and so well-grounded in theory, have a real idea of 
what capitalism has in store for their 'subaltern'?  My own sense, which 
I tried to articulate in The Lugano Report, is that globalisation has 
brought a new, much more dangerous phase of capitalism in which the 
'working class' and the 'reserve army' have become totally relative [and 
sometimes irrelevant] notions.   Anything can now be produced 
anywhere.    The combination, in China for example, of the repressive 
State with a huge and highly educated workforce makes the Ricardian 
notion of comparative advantage obsolete.   The capitalist class is not 
amused by the pressures exerted by huge, sometimes unruly numbers of 
unemployed who are not now and will not be needed in future.  The 
pressures exerted by such great numbers on the environment are beginning 
to alarm even the Chinese.  I could go on but if you want more in this 
vein, you can read Lugano which exists in many languages.
 
The point of all this is that there are now millions, hundreds of 
millions of useless people in the world who contribute nothing to 
capitalist production nor to capitalist consumption.  They are not just 
useless but a positive drag on the system.   The best thing, for the 
other side, would be that they get out of the way and disappear.   I see 
this as being increasingly organised and conscious, both through 
omission and commission.  I wrote Lugano in 1998-99 as my contribution 
to the millennium and I see it becoming more true every year.  The State 
will be their ally, and I don't think the Four take the State seriously 
either--they seem to think it's possible to live somewhere which is 
neither the State nor the market.  Doubtless it is, for very small 
numbers of people.      
 
So seriousness, in my mind, would mean organising resistance as rapidly 
as possible.  'Subjectivity' is all very well but it can also be 
extremely lonely and thereby ineeffectual.   l have been encouraging, as 
a *first step* in learning to work together worldwide that we accept 
that we need visibility.  The New York Times, after 15 February 2003 
when millions participated in anti-Iraq invasion marches and events, 
called us the second superpower.  It's not that I give much of a damn 
what the NYT thinks--simply that we are not visible we are more and more 
discounted.  The attitude of the press [again not that I care except 
that it is symptomatic] is that the movement's moment is past.   So I 
have been advocating that we decide collectively all to come out on day 
X to manifest against situation Y--I don't care what, and it doesn't 
mean people should stop their daily struggles for housing, medical care, 
workd, whatever.    It doesn't mean centralisation or giving permanent 
power to A B or C.  This necessarily implies some organisation, but that 
need not mean oppressive, permanent organisation by self-appointed 
'leaders'. 
 
It would only mean we can recognise the need to behave strategically.  
It is strategy I find  lacking in the contribution of the Four.   They 
seem to have all the time in the world.  I wish I did.
 
Very best wishes to all,
 
In comradeship,
 
Susan George
www.tni.org/george <http://www.tni.org/george>