Re: Which Marxism? (fwd)

OK, maybe this will be my final comment on this topic.

> >I'm not sure what you mean by "Marx has been proven wrong."  Was Marx
wrong
> >on this particular issue?  Yes.
>
> This is the point, elson: Marx can only be wrong about things he actually
> said or predicted or that can be reasonably inferred from his writings. At
> this point, I don't believe you have actually read Marx. Your Marxism
> appears to be drawn from second and third hand textbook accounts.

Haven't read Marx?  Oh, come on.

Here's the question: on what basis do you contend that Marx did not believe,
until perhaps the last decade of his life as Shanin has argued effectively,
that colonialism was progressive and would bring "people without history"
into the midst of civilization through the spread of industrialization?


> [Austin] By definition capitalism creates a global economically stratified
system.
> And it is through colonialism that capitalism globalizes itself. This is
> one of Marx's central arguments. Just read the Communist Manifesto. It's
> all right there.

On the contrary, the Manifesto suggests that the rest of the world will be
industrialized like Europe --  "all Chinese walls..."  etc.   The point of
contention is over the form of this expansion.

To repeat, most of Marx's work, until his latter years, suggest that
colonialism would modernize the "poor countries" which was necessary for the
creation of a working class, revolution, etc.

Lenin, to a large extent, agreed with this orthodox interpretation of Marx.
I quote Lenin:
"The export of capital affects and greatly accelerates the development of
capitalism in those countries to which it is exported.  While, therefore,
the export of capital may tend to a certain extent to arrest development in
the capital exporting countries, it can only do so by expanding and
deepening the further development of capitalism throughout the world."
Lenin,   Imp., HSC, p. 72.

Note that for Lenin, development is arrested in the rich countries, not the
poor.

Need it be pointed out that the ideological basis for this stance was to
claim that Russia was industrializing, even in the agricultural sectors,
which
Lenin also analyzed, such that it was possible to argue that the country
could "skip" stages and have a revolution early rather than wait for Germany
or England.

Among the main differences between this perspective and IW, is that from
1550, there is a world (not yet global) div of labor in which only part of
the
periphery was created through imperialism.   Poland, for instance, was not,
and it is presumably through market mechanisms -- Western Europe's demand
and monopoly on more profitable activities -- that was fundamental to the
emergence of Poland's peripheral div of labor and the "second serfdom.


> >Warren does represent an orthodox Marxist perspective or genre, and has
> >certainly been described as part of that genre in reviews of his work.
That
> >is, there is a significant literature behind him.
>
> By people of your persuasion, evidently. But those who obviously know more
> about the subject have taken a different position. I will stick with these
> other judgments in lieu of any cogent argument from you.

You're making brash and groundless assumptions that I approve of Warren's
work.  In fact, I think Warren's work is bunk.   I'm simply pointing out the
difference between that genre of orthodox Marxism and the WS perspective.


> >You may not agree with these interpretations of Marx.  But they are
> >hardly strawdogs.  If they were, people, including Petras, would not
> >have responded.
>
> First, *your* arguments are the strawmen I have been talking about (I
> assume you have included your "interpretation" among these interpretors of
> Marx). Second, if you had read Petras' critique of Warren you would know
> that he was not responding because Warren presented a serious challenge to
> the body of theory about imperialism. His critique is, along with being a
> demolition of Warren's views, dismissive of Warren's method and
> conclusions. The critique does not have the tone of engagement with a
> serious scholar, but rather the hallmarks of an intellectual spanking.

I wonder on what basis you think your interpretation  of Petras is more
accurate than mine?.  I haven't read that particular review, but I took
classes with Petras, I know him, and I thus have some qualifications in
making my claims about his stance.  As prolific as Jim is, I doubt he would
take the time to criticize Warren if he didn't think it worthy of attention.
Why bother with just a spanking, to make himself feel superior?  That's not
his character.

Certainly Jim is not the only critic of Warren.  Outstanding Marxist thinker
Derek Sayer writes that this issue (of Marx's view of imperialism as a
modernizing force)  "is of some contemporary importance, given the influence
of Warren's reading of Marx."   See, The Violence of Abstraction: the
Analytical Foundations of Historical Materialism, p. 154.

I  personally find Sayer's work, and forerunners Korsch and Lukacs, a far
better interpretation of Marx.   As for Jim's other views, he's a very
strong critic of IW and WS and this was the earlier point I was making
before we got side-tracked onto Marx:  there is a significant debate between
those of the orthodox (including some mainstreamer) Marxists view who stress
class and imperialism and who criticize the WS and dependency perspectives,
as kohler pointed out in a previous message.

Petras is one type of critic of WS who happens to have a better
interpretation of Marx and Lenin than Warren (implicitly another WS critic).
Regardless, IW is a break with Marx and the variants of the orthodox Marxist
perspective.


> You have made a false argument here. Think about it: people didn't produce
> a mountain of critiques of the Bell Curve because they believed that
> Murray and Herrnstein actually presented a strong scientific argument.

Actually, the error is in your argument: that is, the idea that a "straw
man" is the same thing as a bad argument.   "Straw man," as I think most
people interpret the term, and as it is defined in the dictionary, is "an
argument or opponent set up so as to be easily refuted or defeated."
Granted, Warren's is a bad argument, but it is not a "straw man."

Thus, you are wrong on technical grounds alone:  these critics did not set
up Warren's argument.   What they have done, rather,  is to take the trouble
to read, reflect upon, and write critical articles or books about a scholar
or a perspective that they feel is/was of influence and importance.