Re: Hardt & Negri on Genoa

In a message dated 7/23/01 2:21:48 PM Pacific Daylight Time, 
bstremli@binghamton.edu writes:

<< 
 What are the bases of East Asian strength that would allow it to supercede
 the empire that is under construction?  What sorts of institutions look
 like they would be serviceable toward those ends?

As I see it, there are three areas of significant amounts of capital 
accumulation in the system today,  Europe, the US, East Asia.  Each has 
something of a different philosophy toward capitalism/society in general.  
Today the strongest in terms of shaping the world is the US--which pretty 
much believes in subordinating society to the market.  As a result of well 
developed tools--the IMF, the dollar, the glitz of its consumerism for the 
masses, its arms.. its been able to foist this idea on many 
countries--Eastern Europe and Latin America in particular..  But I'm not 
sure, if things were purely a popularity contest, that this form of 
capitalism would be as popular with the strata of professionals worldwide as 
the European kind--in which the market is subordinated to the wisdom of the 
professional classes.  The tensions over the Kyoto accords epitomize the 
different vision of Europe and the US. Europe isn't very good at bullying 
anyone these days, so it mostly preserves what it has on the continent. Then 
there is the East Asian brand of capitalism--the market subordinated to the 
needs of the maintenance of community.  

 Apart from several 'mouses that roar'--leaders of Malaysia and Singapore, 
notably, not Japan, China or even South Korea--East Asian leaders haven't 
made much of an effort to point the world in any sort of direction.

Why would these three capitalisms compete?  They all have specific industries 
and economic strategies they want to promote.  They have different strengths 
and weaknesses.  For example, East Asia can clearly produce anything the US 
can for much lower cost.  But as Walden Bello points out, the way the US 
tries to get around this is to institute global copyright notions that will 
indefinitely secure for the US monopoly positions in certain industries.

The second point of tension is in trying to maintain some degree of stability 
in the world.  Nobody particularly wants chaos to engulf the world.  But how 
does one address tension points?  The US basically suggests bombing one of 
the problem sides back to the stone age.  Its not clear how well this will 
work.  Nor is it clear that this is not just patching up chaos that keeps 
recurring because of neo-liberal/human rights problems.

The present day Empire, if you want to call it that, resembles the Catholic 
Church of the medieval era in that it can rule on the legitimacy of rulers.  
But like the church, which became hopelessly enmeshed in the accumulation 
center of Italy, this empire seems deeply compromised by its entanglement 
with the US.  Its ideology is free markets/human rights--the latter strictly 
the traditional western definition of individuals rights, basically for the 
middle class (the question of whether the impoverished have human rights vis 
a vis the police remains, well, a question). This ideology is powerful 
throughout the US and Western Europe--lots of people who traditionally don't 
like US power wavered (or advocated intervention) about Yugoslavia because 
they didn't want to be seen as compromising it.  On the other hand, does 
anyone recall any similar enthusiasm from East Asian quarters?  The East 
Asians pretty clearly have other priorities besides claiming every ethnic 
group has the right to self-determination.  In any case, the Europeans are 
already becoming somewhat unimpressed at the inability of the US to 
rigorously apply standards.  There was grumbling about why Sharon isn't 
arrested when he traveled to Europe.  The US doesn't have many tools to make 
East Asia submit. The US doesn't have the willingness  to take casualities 
that fighting a war over it would require.  As Peter Gowan argues, the Asia 
crisis was, in some ways, the US's best shot--and it failed--the US blinked 
before South Korea, and was not able to get the East Asian states to 
wholeheartedly adopt its form of capitalism.

So now what?  I think over the next twenty to thirty years we'll definitely 
see East Asia be more articulate about how it doesn't want to be part of this 
empire.  Much as the Protestants broke with the church while remaining 
Christian, I think they'll remain within the framework of human 
rights/rationalistic modernity, but redefine these for their own purposes.  
Latin America and Eastern Europe, unimpressed by the impact of Neoliberalism, 
may start looking for other models.  Will the East Asians try to lead the 
world?  I'm not sure--I don't think they are predisposed to, but if things 
get chaotic enough we will see each corner of the triad try to develop 
institutions and ideas about a more plausible world order (and ratify what 
social movements should be a part of it and which should be repressed).
Will the US become more and more dogmatic about the need to submit to 
Empire--possibly. But look at what happened to the Catholic Church/Habsburgs.


Today I was flipping through a book by John Gray, and was struck by something 
he said.  Typical successful empires employ an ideology of multiculturalism, 
tolerating many different cultural forms at the periphery, so long as they 
allow the institutions of the empire to do their work.  In this view, the US' 
universalism (and its hypocrisy on Israel and any of its other allies is just 
hypocrisy, not multiculturalism) could be its achilles heel.

Well, I hope that wasn't too rambling.  I worry about spending too much time 
figuring out the future, since there isn't really anything there to figure 
out.  Furthermore, what I think will happen doesn't always jibe with what I 
would like to see happen politically.

To come back to one of your questions I haven't answered--basically, East 
Asia and Europe both have a lot of money--money which could, if they wanted 
be centralized and used for bribery, propaganda campaigns, arms, etc.

Steven Sherman


 > Regarding the hypothetical responses to my questions:  Presently the US is 
 > able to defer many conflicts through bribery, flattery, propaganda, etc... 
 
 > The question is, can it do so indefinitely, given its own internal 
political 
 > situation, the various tensions that are out there, and, above all, the 
fact 
 > that it actually has the least economic resources (albeit by far the most 
 > political ones) of the three centers of accumulation.
 
 I'd like to hear more about why you think this is the case (this is
 related to my previous set of questions).  
  >>