Re: Don't blame the doctor-- (also known as "Don't Shoot the Messenger."

On Wed, 12 May 1999, Pat Gunning wrote:

>I suspect to other list participants. Perhaps you could define
>capitalism and explain how it caused Hiroshima to be bombed.

Capitalism is a political economic system where the means of production
are controlled by a small minority who extract from the majority social
surplus by manipulating labor. Capitalism is a form of class exploitative
society.

Capitalism caused Hiroshima because Western imperialism constrained the
ability of Japan to adapt to capitalist crisis through expanding their own
imperialist activities. Japan attempted to resolve the problem through
territorial expansion (as did Germany). The West fought to protect their
colonial interests in the Asia periphery. One of the means used to protect
their interests was nuclear war. This imperialist action in Asia was
followed by other imperialist actions, Korea and Vietnam. Of course,
Japan's interests were capitalist, as well.

At its most fundamental, stripped-down level, the war with Japan was the
product of dominant socioeconomic forces, and these forces were definitely
capitalist. Facilitating the selection of Japan for nuclear war was the
racist attitudes that were developed during the decades of colonial
domination of Asia. Racial ideology is also part of bourgeois development.

Andy