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

i do not want to jump into this debate because of time constraint but i
just want to mention that wars in a capitalist world system are
qualitatively different from wars in a non-capitalist world system
whereas the former is motivated by economic purposes, the latter was
motivated by political purposes--military recruitment to develop an empire
based army. for example, the roman empire's imperialist strategies  were
oriented towards  territorial expansion, which, then, undermined the
material foundations of the empire--slave labor-- because slave labor
could not adapt itself to the natural economy of the inner lands. it
became scarce and more expensive. hence, the empire lost the resources
from which it got "nourishment" (1). when the middle ages started, the
wars were "inter-baronial" not "inter-state" because the kind of modern
world system did not yet flourish for such wars to exist (2). the wars
under capitalism, currently and historically speaking, are motivated by
two factors moving dialectically 1.territorial expansion, 2. material
expansion (3)

i will expand in details later,

regards,


Mine Aysen Doyran
phd candidate
dept of pol scie
Nelson A. Rockefeller College
SUNY/Albany
Albany/NY

references:

1. Max Weber, The Agrarian Sociology of Ancient Civilizations (verso).

2. Immanuel Wallerstein, The Modern World System II: Mercantalism and the
Consolidation of the European World Economy, 1600-1750 (Academic press).

3. Giovanni Arrighi, The Long 20th Century (verso)


>> 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.

>This sounds like fascism, feudalism, and Soviet communism. Could you be
>more specific by differentiating these isms?