[Debate] Yoshism

Mon Jun 18 18:49:29 BST 2012

I kind of doubt that Peter, Kate, Doug, et al. are interested in
objective assessments of either domestic politics of any country or
the "world system" (if they are interested in international inequality
at all, that is). The only human rights violations they care about are
the ones MSM tell them to care about.  Hence, "Down with ZANU-PF, up
with NATO's 'revolutionaries' in Libya"; "Sometimes with imperialists,
never with their official enemies"; etc.

On Mon, Jun 18, 2012 at 1:16 PM, Riaz K Tayob <riaz.tayob at gmail.com> wrote:
> On this one I am with Yoshie.
>
> BRICS as a collective are able to assert a more "progressive" position,
> in spite of their regressive policies at home, when acting as a
> collective. They have, if I recall correctly, also said some good and
> done some good things about intellectual property and access to
> medicines; which some like South Africa were reluctant to do in
> international fora.
>
> While domestic politics matters, it is also not entirely domestic.
> Domination has typically been exercised with collaboration and this time
> may or may not be different. However when taking into account power
> considerations in the shape and shaping of the World System there are
> countries that are more influential than others in setting the rules of
> the game. It should come to none of us as a surprise that even Evo (like
> Mandela and countless others before him) would have difficulty in
> carrying out progressive projects under such a system. This is not to
> excuse these serious lapses, merely to contextualise them.
>
> The alternative of we are all in this together and countries are the
> same (which is a gross simplification, but at this level of abstraction
> it will have to do) is an analytic view that eschews categorisation on a
> number of available variables, GDP, wages, poverty, employment, health,
> class mobility, etc. This categorisation is important if sites of action
> are to be prioritised. it is not an escape from the ethical choice  that
> needs to be made, merely an embrace of the complexity of the
> circumstances countries lower down the pecking find themselves.
>
>
> On 2012/06/18 02:23 PM, Yoshie Furuhashi wrote:
>> What is imperialism, in your view?  And what is sub-imperialism?
>>
>> On Mon, Jun 18, 2012 at 4:25 AM, peter waterman
>> <peterwaterman1936 at gmail.com> wrote:
>>> I am not quite sure which tea leaves, in whose tea cup, Yoshie has been
>>> reading.
>>>
>>> Nor whether she has ever read or heard of the concept of 'sub-imperialism'.
>>> Not one I would use myself, since it implies that Brazil, Russia, India and
>>> China are exercising their politically expansionist or merely
>>> economic-exploitative activities particularly on their 'near abroad'
>>> (Russia), on behalf of the supra-imperialists.
>>>
>>> I woud have rather thought it was in the nature of the state to centralise
>>> within its borders and expand (politically, economically, militarily,
>>> culturally) beyond. At least unless and until such marginal or peripheral
>>> entities were able to resist.
>>>
>>> So even Worker's Party Brazil continues to destroy its (and our) Amazon, to
>>> dominate economically in (parts of?) Paraguay and (parts of?) Bolivia, to
>>> invest in a Trans-Amazonian highway (not railway) through Peru so as to have
>>> access to the Pacific.
>>>
>>> [The above is impressionistic, I claim here only a newspaper knowledge. But
>>> reading news, particularly from 'alternative media', is surely better than
>>> reading tea-leaves].
>>>
>>> Pw
>>>
>>>
>>> On Mon, Jun 18, 2012 at 4:26 AM, Yoshie Furuhashi
>>> <critical.montages at gmail.com> wrote:
>>>> "First, do no harm."  BRIC seems better at it than most
>>>> self-identified "democrats," left, right, or center, when it comes to
>>>> international relations.  Too many "democrats" love encouraging other
>>>> people to fight to death for "democracy."
>>>>
>>>> On Sun, Jun 17, 2012 at 9:26 PM, Kate Doyle Griffiths-Dingani
>>>> <kategrif at gmail.com> wrote:
>>>>> I'm intrigued---a social democracy for the era of global  authoritarian
>>>>> capitalism. social minus the democracy...
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> On Sunday, June 17, 2012, Yoshie Furuhashi wrote:
>>>>>> If anyone is actually interested in the topic, yes.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> On Sun, Jun 17, 2012 at 6:34 PM, Dave Hollis
>>>>>> <david.hollis at netzwerkit.de>
>>>>>> wrote:
>>>>>>> -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
>>>>>>> Hash: SHA1
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> Yoshie,
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> Why not reply to the content instead of just sniping? I, for one,
>>>>>>> would be interested in a detailed reply to PW. Or is that too much to
>>>>>>> ask?
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> Dave
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> On 18.06.2012 00:18, Yoshie Furuhashi wrote:
>>>>>>>> Happy to know that you are unable to identify me with any hitherto
>>>>>>>> existing school of Marxism but amazed to learn that you managed to
>>>>>>>> make a 293-word comment on my 172-word note.  Must be a slow day
>>>>>>>> for you.  ;-)
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> On Sun, Jun 17, 2012 at 12:21 PM, peter waterman
>>>>>>>> <peterwaterman1936 at gmail.com> wrote:
>>>>>>>>> Peter sez:
>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>> I do not recall seeing this one on Debate, 2011, but I think it
>>>>>>>>> suggests the nature of Yoshism as a particular
>>>>>>>>> theoretical-ideological-ontological version of Marxism, by which
>>>>>>>>> I mean a seriously un-, not to say anti-, dialectical
>>>>>>>>> understanding of such.
>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>> It comes from:
>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>> http://montages.blogspot.nl/search?updated-max=2011-05-06T19:48:00-04:00
>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> I intersperse some comments in boldface (being myself somewhat
>>>>>>> boldfaced):
>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>> Pax Sinica for the Beijing Consensus
>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>> Theoretically,
>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>> I think this means 'hypothetically'
>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>> China can pursue global Keynesian policy in addition to domestic
>>>>>>>>> Keynesian policy, which would go some way toward countering
>>>>>>>>> austerity in the US and Europe and be good for China as well as
>>>>>>>>> the rest of the world.
>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>> Is there any grounds for such a 'hypothesis'...or 'theory'?
>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>> China says that "By the end of 2009, China had provided a total
>>>>>>>>> of 256.29 billion yuan in aid to foreign countries, including
>>>>>>>>> 106.2 billion yuan in grants, 76.54 billion yuan in interest-free
>>>>>>>>> loans and 73.55 billion yuan in concessional loans" (the figures
>>>>>>>>> are cumulative -- unfortunately no annual figure is given). For
>>>>>>>>> such a global Keynesian purpose, China should give away 5% of its
>>>>>>>>> GDP in grants.
>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>> I think here we would need to know the nature of Chinese 'aid'.
>>>>>>>>> In the same way as we need this in the case of the US, The
>>>>>>>>> Netherlands, Russia and Cuba.
>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>> Then, China would also have to learn to veto all Western wars, so
>>>>>>>>> that what it helps build won't get bombed. Pax Sinica based on
>>>>>>>>> the Beijing Consensus would be welcomed by the axis of resistance
>>>>>>>>> in the Middle East, North Africa, and Latin America; the rest of
>>>>>>>>> BRIC, Turkey, and South Africa; and anyone else who prefers peace
>>>>>>>>> for profit to war for power.
>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>> OK, first we have advice to China (a fairly large country which
>>>>>>>>> must have a considerable army of its own carefully selected
>>>>>>>>> advisors), then we have an assumption about an 'axis of
>>>>>>>>> resistance'. This includes, for example, Latin America, where
>>>>>>>>> China is a major foreign investor (aid giver?) and ruthless
>>>>>>>>> employer (an issue possible not addressed by any consensus),
>>>>>>>>> which makes deals with States over the heads or behind the backs
>>>>>>>>> of the people and peoples.
>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>> Finally we have Yoshian realpolitik, based on some notion of
>>>>>>>>> profit that belongs, surely to bourgeois liberal political
>>>>>>>>> economy, rather than any notion of, for example, Ubuntu or Buen
>>>>>>>>> Vivir (Living Well).
>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>> Oh. And is there an 'axis of resistance' effectively joining
>>>>>>>>> these very varied world regions and their even more varied
>>>>>>>>> nation-states? This might have briefly existed at the time of the
>>>>>>>>> Bandung or various Cuban 'axes of resistance' in the 1970s. But
>>>>>>>>> in so far as they were based on state-define--
>>>>>> Yoshie Furuhashi
>>>>>> <http://mrzine.org/>
>>>>>>
>>>>>> _______________________________________________
>>>>>> Debate-list mailing list
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>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> --
>>>>> Kate Doyle Griffiths Dingani
>>>>> 512-363-6484
>>>>> skype: katedgriffiths
>>>>> 777 St Marks Ave
>>>>> Brooklyn NY 11213
>>>>> kategrif at gmail.com
>>>>> KaGriffiths at bmcc.cuny.edu
>>>>>
>>>>>
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>>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> --
>>>> Yoshie Furuhashi
>>>> <http://mrzine.org/>
>>>> _______________________________________________
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>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> --
>>> 1. Contribute to Journal Special on 'New Worker Movements'!
>>> 2. Blog: http://www.unionbook.org/profile/peterwaterman
>>> 3. EBook 2011, 'Under, Against, Beyond - Essays 1980s-
>>>     1990s shttp://www.into-ebooks.com/book/under-against-beyond/
>>> 4. WorkingPaper 2012: 'Emancipatory Labour Studies':
>>> 5. Draft EBook 2012: 'Recovering Internationalism - Essays 2000-10' (draft):
>>>       http://www.scribd.com/doc/82125289/ReCovIntComp-A-2
>>>       http://www.scribd.com/doc/82129474/ReCovtIntComp-B-2
>>> 6. Essay 2012: 'The 2nd Coming of the World Federation of Trade   Unions':
>>>
>>>
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>>
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-- 
Yoshie Furuhashi
<http://mrzine.org/>