"the West"

[Toppler]

This phrase is used often, but what it is even supposed to mean? To me it is just a semi-fascist phrase that is supposed to divide the world into 2 imaginary groups, 1 living in total splendour and freedom, the other living in total poverty and oppression. So why so many supposedly leftist people use it? It has no actual definition (as the popular understanding is pretty much "the rich and luxurious countries", ignoring that, for example, that as late as 1970 Portugal had 30 percent illiteracy, the second worst infant mortality rate and the majority of Portuguese were working in agriculture, with most of the land held by 5% of the population [while Portugal was still thinking of itself as the superiors, believing that the "the "white man" must bring "higher civilization" to the "black man"], or the Depression era USA having conditions that would make many supposedly "third world" countries ashamed, or the Western European countries being poorer than today's Mexico in the 1950s etc.).

Just why people believe this bullshit? It is true that cca 50 percent of the world earns less than 2 dollars a day, however much of this poverty lies in a few very populous and poor countries (Sub-Saharan Africa, China [through this one is rapidly reducing poverty and the hygienic/nutritional/educational standards are far superior to most countries with the same poverty level], Southeat and South Asia), so most of the countries in the world are not actually that poor, and it is definitely bullshit to say that the "non poor 50 percents are the "Western countries" [especially considering that 2 dollars a day can be worth more in say rural China than 10 dollars a day in England]" and the "poor 50 percents are the "third world countries", as many "non elite" "third worlders" live better lives than poor Westerners, and poverty in the world is not distributed symetrically into 2 "worlds", but very asymetricaly, with it concentrated very much in some countries and almost absent from many supposedly "third world" regions.

Also, being moderately "poor" in a not totally rich country can be actually much better than living on the same amount of money in a very rich country. For example you'd have a pretty normal life for 450 dollars a month in 1990s Slovakia (through it was even then a "Western" country by most saner definitions, not in the consciouness of "Westerners" through, who sometimes think it looks like in Hostel or Eurotrip, I've heard Slovak people going on a holiday and the "Westerners" asking them stupid questions like do you have electricity there, have you been starving under the communists, do you have a TV, do you know how to operate a washing mashine, do you know how to turn on an electric light, do you know what a flushing toilet is etc.., basically, the "Western" bullshit idea about us is that either we live like the people in Borat or that our country is made mostly of child prostitutes huffing glue), but in the US or the UK 1000 dollars is already very low income.

Note, no, I am not denying the poverty that exists in the world. But a true leftist should recognise that every working class person in the world faces similiar issues, and that true leftism is not "oh my god how priviledged I am everybody else lives in dirt", but based on class consciouness and the genuine desire to help people not out of pity or compensation of imaginary "first world priviledge", but out of humanity and the desire to build a better world.

Also a lot of people have their opinion deformed by capitalist media. Media nowadays love to present developing Asia as some place that is super great to live in and Eastern and Central Europe as some hellholes of poverty and child prostitution (I even saw some "Western leftist" comparing post Eastern Bloc countries to sub-Sahara africa), while ex-Eastern Bloc is actually a part of the supposed "West" (despite media telling people in USA and W. Europe how "impoverished" we are, the reality is that we are, despite 2 years of capitalist plunder, still the 3rd wealthiest region in the world [after North America and Western Europe, yeah, seriously, go compare our poverty rates to that of China and "Shining India", the 2 countries that are being praised for their economic growth most often, fuck the hundreds of million there who live on the equivalent of 1/10x of our minimum wage [317 Euros per month]]).

The real reason for the developing Asia wank is that these economies produce the most new billionares. Billionares tend to have the power to manipulate media ;).

[Sinister Cultural Marxist]

I tend to think the whole idea of the "West" is bunk, but it's deeply rooted in philosophy from Europe and the US, including Hegel and Marx. In the 21st century it would be wise to abandon it though.

[B0LSHEVIK]

I tend to use 'the west' in reference to NATO and the UN which are ultimately manipulated by the US, UK, France, mainly, esp. for the former.

Oh, and it is inappropriate and wrong to use 'west' and 'first world' interchangeably. They are two different nouns altogether, like potatoes and tomatos.

[Omsk]

"The west" is a term used by the capitalist and imperialist slime,they tend to split Europe (and on the global level) in two different worlds - The ever advancing and prosperous west,ruled by the ever loving baby-kissing pressidents and king's and queens,where everything is nice and life is splendid,and the...east...A dark and gritty place full of evil socialist and communist countries,most of them Slavic,the 'east' is full of evil men is long suites who watch your every move so they can report it to the great evil leader who feeds on the blood of a thousand people..Etc etc.

In general - a term i hate from the center of my sole,it haunted my childhood,it was a devilish reminder used by the capitalist and imperialist,that i live in a neccesarily bad country,a country that is pure evil,and that must be 'liberated'.

The damn bastards all ready stole my freedom and ruined my country,but now they want to make it look like i did it myself,like i am to blame for the fall,like they saved me,and all of us...
You,comrade Toppler also hail from a 'eastern' country,and you know the life was not so bad,in fact,it was nice,until they decided we need 'freedom'

You remember,or at least your grandfather/father/mother does,the time when we had dignity,social equality,good and free health,a lot of work,a much healthier life-style,public vacations and a 'vikendica' - house from the state,that was there for the purpose of vacation,the cheaper goods and no rich pigs that bathe in money.
But now we can have the west way of life!Hell yeah!
Drugs,criminals,thieves and overly-rich men!No pay and no 'weekend house' ultra capitalism and forged history,buirocratic doom,sure we now have Coca Cola,Pepsi,cars,better clothes and TV's (not that the old ones were better)
But it all lost purpose,we were happy with what we had,our little piece and quite, ;) peace,unity and friendship,comradry,we had it all,now,for example,in the former YU countries,life is much harder,we are all divided by hate,something the imperialist's planted among us.The simplicity and happiness of life is gone,now we are all slaves to money,the overly rich are on every corner,and the number of extremly poor people is higher than ever.

Now we have drugs,rock and roll,and criminals,a lot of them.
Good thing we have 'democracy'
It sure is a good thing..
Now id best get back to work,considering my father was fired for being a socialist,(although he worked for 10 years as a capable and trusted worker) and has a hard time getting a new job.
Thank you democracy,thank you 'west'. ;)

[Rafiq]

Wow.

A lot of people tell me the Eastern block did not have all of the goods the west did, though they say that that was made up for, because of some weird feeling of solidarity and comradship, or something like that.

[TheGodlessUtopian]

I dunno...my impression of the term is that its just a word to describe a part of the world.

The West,the east,the middle east,southeast asia....all of these and others I just use in a geographical sense.I don't go beyond that though.

[Tomhet]

Drugs, Coca Cola,Pepsi,cars,better clothes and TV's, rock and roll
What is wrong with these things? I reckon pepsi tastes pretty good..

[Rafiq]

The problem is how they are produced(and who owns production) and distributed, and not the goods themselves.

[Red Commissar]

It's a blanket term for the interests the US leads. Sometimes you get France and the UK thrown in too. So if you were looking at it from the Cold War standpoint, the "West" would represent the United States and her allies, including powers in Europe like France and the UK. This is set opposed to the Soviets and their Eastern Bloc.

It's not really entirely geographically coherent if we take a conventional map, since places like Australia and New Zealand might be considered part of "the west" too. So it might be used as a way to describe foreign intrigues in a nation, particular in the Middle-East.

Though like you said nowadays it's used by some who might be bemoaning the loss of their culture to globalization under "American" capitalism or something along those lines. I still find myself using it out of habit but I'm trying to work it out of my system because I think it's kind of a cheap way to describe things nowadays.

Or a certain song

7NZ04BG7TfA

[pranabjyoti]

This phrase is used often, but what it is even supposed to mean? To me it is just a semi-fascist phrase that is supposed to divide the world into 2 imaginary groups, 1 living in total splendour and freedom, the other living in total poverty and oppression. So why so many supposedly leftist people use it? It has no actual definition (as the popular understanding is pretty much "the rich and luxurious countries", ignoring that, for example, that as late as 1970 Portugal had 30 percent illiteracy, the second worst infant mortality rate and the majority of Portuguese were working in agriculture, with most of the land held by 5% of the population [while Portugal was still thinking of itself as the superiors, believing that the "the "white man" must bring "higher civilization" to the "black man"], or the Depression era USA having conditions that would make many supposedly "third world" countries ashamed, or the Western European countries being poorer than today's Mexico in the 1950s etc.).

Just why people believe this bullshit? It is true that cca 50 percent of the world earns less than 2 dollars a day, however much of this poverty lies in a few very populous and poor countries (Sub-Saharan Africa, China [through this one is rapidly reducing poverty and the hygienic/nutritional/educational standards are far superior to most countries with the same poverty level], Southeat and South Asia), so most of the countries in the world are not actually that poor, and it is definitely bullshit to say that the "non poor 50 percents are the "Western countries" [especially considering that 2 dollars a day can be worth more in say rural China than 10 dollars a day in England]" and the "poor 50 percents are the "third world countries", as many "non elite" "third worlders" live better lives than poor Westerners, and poverty in the world is not distributed symetrically into 2 "worlds", but very asymetricaly, with it concentrated very much in some countries and almost absent from many supposedly "third world" regions.

Also, being moderately "poor" in a not totally rich country can be actually much better than living on the same amount of money in a very rich country. For example you'd have a pretty normal life for 450 dollars a month in 1990s Slovakia (through it was even then a "Western" country by most saner definitions, not in the consciouness of "Westerners" through, who sometimes think it looks like in Hostel or Eurotrip, I've heard Slovak people going on a holiday and the "Westerners" asking them stupid questions like do you have electricity there, have you been starving under the communists, do you have a TV, do you know how to operate a washing mashine, do you know how to turn on an electric light, do you know what a flushing toilet is etc.., basically, the "Western" bullshit idea about us is that either we live like the people in Borat or that our country is made mostly of child prostitutes huffing glue), but in the US or the UK 1000 dollars is already very low income.

Note, no, I am not denying the poverty that exists in the world. But a true leftist should recognise that every working class person in the world faces similiar issues, and that true leftism is not "oh my god how priviledged I am everybody else lives in dirt", but based on class consciouness and the genuine desire to help people not out of pity or compensation of imaginary "first world priviledge", but out of humanity and the desire to build a better world.

Also a lot of people have their opinion deformed by capitalist media. Media nowadays love to present developing Asia as some place that is super great to live in and Eastern and Central Europe as some hellholes of poverty and child prostitution (I even saw some "Western leftist" comparing post Eastern Bloc countries to sub-Sahara africa), while ex-Eastern Bloc is actually a part of the supposed "West" (despite media telling people in USA and W. Europe how "impoverished" we are, the reality is that we are, despite 2 years of capitalist plunder, still the 3rd wealthiest region in the world [after North America and Western Europe, yeah, seriously, go compare our poverty rates to that of China and "Shining India", the 2 countries that are being praised for their economic growth most often, fuck the hundreds of million there who live on the equivalent of 1/10x of our minimum wage [317 Euros per month]]).

The real reason for the developing Asia wank is that these economies produce the most new billionares. Billionares tend to have the power to manipulate media ;).
Not totally imaginary. There are cultural differences too. Asia have a long standing history of feudalism and that still have its impact on the culture and mentality of many Asian countries. Africa (I mean what we mean by Africa, not the whole continent) have a long legacy of tribal society life i.e. primitive communism and that also put a deep mark on its culture and mentality. Therefore some mentality and practices of Asians and African often seem "out of the world" to many Europeans (I also mean American, Canadian and Australian). So there is certainly a difference. Introduction of capitalist mode of production and having a class of organized industrial workers doesn't mean capitalism is well rooted like European countries for Asia and Africa. The problem is worst in case of Asia as it had to bear the weight of a dead feudal past and its legacies. This is nothing more than a rotten corpse but it has been attached for such a long time that it had stuck to the living body and almost seems like a part of the body now.
Basically, by the term "west" means capitalism and imperialism. But, not only that, there are other factors attached to it. My suggestion to European comrades that don't rely on your European glasses to see Asia and Africa, specially Asia. There are high chances of making mistakes while doing so.

[Savage]

Asia have a long standing history of feudalism
As does 'The West'.

[Marxach-Léinínach]

Much more recent for Asia though

[Toppler]

Wow.

A lot of people tell me the Eastern block did not have all of the goods the west did, though they say that that was made up for, because of some weird feeling of solidarity and comradship, or something like that.

Yeah, but it was still "Western" in the sense of having low child mortality, well fed people, holiday opportunities... the general idea of "the West" of an ignorant W. European or North American is basically "the place where people don't starve and don't live on the trees", which not only includes the entire socialist bloc (at least after the 1930s and 1940s under Stalin, which affected only the USSR as there was no socialist bloc at all at that time), it also includes most of the post-communist world now and a lot of the "third world".

The reason why this divisive term is offensive in my opinion is that is is essential euphemism for the old racist concepts of the "civilized world" and "the savages".

A few months ago, in the news they reported some Japanese schoolkids visited Slovakia recently on a school trip. Among the questions asked, there was "Do you really sleep on the ground?", which implied that they though us so poor that we don't even have beds. My female's classmate dad was a driver when Princess Diana was visiting Czechoslovakia some 25 years ago or so (still under communism). She says that when he was driving the car with the princess in it, she asked him ridiculous questions like "Oh, you have cities? I thought your live in small poor villages" et. cetera. Kids are small and so a bit of naive ignorance from them is excusable and even cute, but when the freaking princess Diana thinks we live in Africa-like villages, it is too much dumbness.

The general "Western" view of both post-communist and communist (the past) countries is generally both ridiculous and offensive. And not just of these countries, their view of the rest of the world is generally even worse. Yes, there are some problems here, but it is not like you don't have the same problems to some degree either. And our (Slovak) economy is on the level of Greek economy in 2002-2003, or Spanish economy in 1999-2000. And better than Portugal right freaking now.. We even have a higher HDI than Portugal http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_Human_Development_Index#Very_ high_human_development_.28developed_countries.29 and we're just 5 places below the UK and 1 below Andorra, a country traditionally thought of as wealthy. So much for Hostel and Eurotrip bullshit...

[Toppler]

Not totally imaginary. There are cultural differences too. Asia have a long standing history of feudalism and that still have its impact on the culture and mentality of many Asian countries. Africa (I mean what we mean by Africa, not the whole continent) have a long legacy of tribal society life i.e. primitive communism and that also put a deep mark on its culture and mentality. Therefore some mentality and practices of Asians and African often seem "out of the world" to many Europeans (I also mean American, Canadian and Australian). So there is certainly a difference. Introduction of capitalist mode of production and having a class of organized industrial workers doesn't mean capitalism is well rooted like European countries for Asia and Africa. The problem is worst in case of Asia as it had to bear the weight of a dead feudal past and its legacies. This is nothing more than a rotten corpse but it has been attached for such a long time that it had stuck to the living body and almost seems like a part of the body now.
Basically, by the term "west" means capitalism and imperialism. But, not only that, there are other factors attached to it. My suggestion to European comrades that don't rely on your European glasses to see Asia and Africa, specially Asia. There are high chances of making mistakes while doing so.

Well, you've got a point, but then, Eastern and Central Europe fall squarely into the "West" category. The problem is, "Westerners" still see us as alien and think we live like it is still 1300s because of the bullshit Cold War propaganda they had deeply ingrained into their general worldview.

[Toppler]

I dunno...my impression of the term is that its just a word to describe a part of the world.

The West,the east,the middle east,southeast asia....all of these and others I just use in a geographical sense.I don't go beyond that though.

Well, if this term was used in the purely geographical sense I'd have no problem with it. Unfortunately it is mostly used in the "rich countries where "everybody" has 2 cars [and those homeless freezing to death in front of that hypermarket don't exist, no, your eyes are lying to you]" and "the poor countries full of pot bellied kids" context. This is unadulterated bullshit through because almost no countries fall into either category.

[Marxach-Léinínach]

Well, you've got a point, but then, Eastern and Central Europe fall squarely into the "West" category. The problem is, "Westerners" still see us as alien and think we live like it is still 1300s because of the bullshit Cold War propaganda they had deeply ingrained into their general worldview.
There are certainly parts of Eastern Europe that could probably be considered "western", albeit maybe to a lesser extent than say Germany or France or England. Places like Ukraine, Albania, Moldova though have a lower GDP per capita than some African and Latin American countries, so I'd consider them to be "Eastern".

I don't see being "Western", or rather having a "Western" mentality, as being a good thing anyway. To me, the "West" is the decadent imperialist countries that benefit off the super-exploitation of the "East" or the poor countries. I think "West" and "East" are overly simple terms anyway. Japan and Israel definitely ain't on the Western side of the map, and Latin America isn't exactly the most eastern place ever. I prefer to use "First World" and "Third World".

[Marxach-Léinínach]

Well, if this term was used in the purely geographical sense I'd have no problem with it. Unfortunately it is mostly used in the "rich countries where "everybody" has 2 cars [and those homeless freezing to death in front of that hypermarket don't exist, no, your eyes are lying to you]" and "the poor countries full of pot bellied kids" context. This is unadulterated bullshit through because almost no countries fall into either category.
Of course there are no countries where everybody is rich or where everybody is poor. In general though, the majority of people in the first world will be fairly well-off at least, while the majority in the third world will be pretty poor in comparison

[Toppler]

Of course there are no countries where everybody is rich or where everybody is poor. In general though, the majority of people in the first world will be fairly well-off at least, while the majority in the third world will be pretty poor in comparison

How do you define "first world" and "third world"? This is the issue.

[Toppler]

To me, the "West" is the decadent imperialist countries that benefit off the super-exploitation of the "East" or the poor countries. I think "West" and "East" are overly simple terms anyway. Japan and Israel definitely ain't on the Western side of the map, and Latin America isn't exactly the most eastern place ever. I prefer to use "First World" and "Third World".

This is the mindset of an outraged liberal, not a communist.
And it is not the post-communist countries that are being super-exploited, if you want to use old stupid terminology, "Global South" would fit more, as the main cheap labor centres are not in Eastern Europe.
Unfortunately, many "Eastern European" countries are just as much exploiting cheap "third world" labour. The shops are just as full of Chinese toys here, we are in the NATO, EU, OECD, Eurozone... in short we are just as much imperialist as the traditionally "Western" countries.

True, Ukraine, Moldova etc... are pretty poor. But they have the advantage of having infrastructure that survived the USSR, and relative equality compared to Asia and Africa, which means very low absolute poverty rates compared to other countries with the same GDP per capita. GDP per capita tends to lie too, for example Equatorial Guinea has a much higher GDP per capita than Ukraine but it is far poorer (even the capital city barely has electricity), because the wealth dispairities are just extreme. It is true that there are a lot of rich oligarchs in the EE, but I've traveled a lot of Ukraine and never saw a real slum, apart from some sloppier looking apartment blocks and really old village houses. I have family there, mostly in the countryside (and not some rich part either, Western Ukraine, one of the poorer parts), who, while living in quite poor material standards (in the countryside, for example, they still use outhouses because they don't have flushing toilets), still have more than enough to eat, have electricity, heating, TV, a cassete player, tap water etc. And my aunt who lives in Kiev has a normal flat, a TV, a computer etc. Moldova, which I admit to never having visited, while having a GDP per capita similiar to India, has the average wage in the private sector of 253.5 USD, which is low, but good compared to the pathetic 16 dollars a month that a typical Indian worker earns.

[hatzel]

And it is not the post-communist countries that are being super-exploited, if you want to use old stupid terminology, "Global South" would fit more, as the main cheap labor centres are not in Eastern Europe.

Ah...I think it's pretty clear that his 'East' doesn't mean Eastern Europe, but the Far East, Vietnam or Indonesia or whatever. There's actually something east of the Ural Mountains, you know...:rolleyes:

[Marxach-Léinínach]

This is the mindset of an outraged liberal, not a communist.
And it is not the post-communist countries that are being super-exploited, if you want to use old stupid terminology, "Global South" would fit more, as the main cheap labor centres are not in Eastern Europe.
Unfortunately, many "Eastern European" countries are just as much exploiting cheap "third world" labour. The shops are just as full of Chinese toys here, we are in the NATO, EU, OECD, Eurozone... in short we are just as much imperialist as the traditionally "Western" countries.

True, Ukraine, Moldova etc... are pretty poor. But they have the advantage of having infrastructure that survived the USSR, and relative equality compared to Asia and Africa, which means very low absolute poverty rates compared to other countries with the same GDP per capita. GDP per capita tends to lie too, for example Equatorial Guinea has a much higher GDP per capita than Ukraine but it is far poorer (even the capital city barely has electricity), because the wealth dispairities are just extreme. It is true that there are a lot of rich oligarchs in the EE, but I've traveled a lot of Ukraine and never saw a real slum, apart from some sloppier looking apartment blocks and really old village houses. I have family there, mostly in the countryside (and not some rich part either, Western Ukraine, one of the poorer parts), who, while living in quite poor material standards (in the countryside, for example, they still use outhouses because they don't have flushing toilets), still have more than enough to eat, have electricity, heating, TV, a cassete player, tap water etc. And my aunt who lives in Kiev has a normal flat, a TV, a computer etc. Moldova, which I admit to never having visited, while having a GDP per capita similiar to India, has the average wage in the private sector of 253.5 USD, which is low, but good compared to the pathetic 16 dollars a month that a typical Indian worker earns.
I'd probably see Eastern Europe as being second world then. Not as bad off as Africa, Latin America, Asia etc. but not as good off as North America, Western Europe, Australia etc. either

[Omsk]

Just because you bombed some of us and put us in sanctions does not mean we don't know whats good and we live in a hell on earth.:)
While you slept and feasted and lived the life of ease,we were your frontier,your guards,and we saved you countless times.
What would the 'esteemed' first world countries like the GB and France do if the brave comrades from the 'second world' (as you call it) didn't fight the nazis?You would retreat further?
What would the glourious Austrian monarchs do without southern-slavs who protected their frontier and saved them from the Ottomans?

[Toppler]

I'd probably see Eastern Europe as being second world then. Not as bad off as Africa, Latin America, Asia etc. but not as good off as North America, Western Europe, Australia etc. either

Well, would you then consider Spain in 2000 or Greece in 2002-2003 "second world"? Or, when it comes to poorer parts of the ex-communist world, the Spain and Greece in 1964, which had similiar GDP per capita and other development indicators to Ukraine of 2010? This division into "worlds" is bullshit, it is offensive because it implies that some countries are "second rate" or "third rate".

Plus, Czech Republic, Slovakia, Hungary and Poland are not actually Eastern Europe. It is Central Europe and the people here would get really angry if you call them EE. There is a reason why it is Central - there is even a landmark in Kremnica marking a geographical center of Europe. And don't do the "political term" excuse either please.

The richest countries tend to forget they were just like us a few years ago, and that they weren't living in horrible poverty back then either, just as we aren't now.

[Marxach-Léinínach]

Just because you bombed some of us and put us in sanctions does not mean we don't know whats good and we live in a hell on earth.:)
While you slept and feasted and lived the life of ease,we were your frontier,your guards,and we saved you countless times.
What would the 'esteemed' first world countries like the GB and France do if the brave comrades from the 'second world' (as you call it) didn't fight the nazis?You would retreat further?
What would the glourious Austrian monarchs do without southern-slavs who protected their frontier and saved them from the Ottomans?

That's precisely the point I'm trying to make

[pranabjyoti]

As does 'The West'.
Not as deep and as long as Asia.

[Toppler]

That's precisely the point I'm trying to make

That's true. Most of Central/Eastern Europe, except for Yugoslavia which was mercilessly shattered and destroyed by cappies, hadn't had a war in 66 years through (since WW2). One thing of which I am deeply ashamed done by Slovak goverment is that they, despite popular resistance to the idea, allowed NATO planes to fly through our territory to bomb remnants of Yugoslavia. So it is not "second world" because there are both oppressors and oppressed here. Some countries here are prosperous, but their goverments have sold themselves out to NATO (like my country, Slovakia, and Czech Republic etc.), others are relatively poor and have fought against NATO (like in former Yugoslavia), others are not poor but not in the NATO either, and other are both poor and in bed with NATO (the illegitimate state of Kosovo which had an organ trafficker as a head of state until recently).

[pranabjyoti]

That's true. Most of Central/Eastern Europe, except for Yugoslavia which was mercilessly shattered and destroyed by cappies, hadn't had a war in 66 years through (since WW2). One thing of which I am deeply ashamed done by Slovak goverment is that they, despite popular resistance to the idea, allowed NATO planes to fly through our territory to bomb remnants of Yugoslavia. So it is not "second world" because there are both oppressors and oppressed here. Some countries here are prosperous, but their goverments have sold themselves out to NATO (like my country, Slovakia, and Czech Republic etc.), others are relatively poor and have fought against NATO (like in former Yugoslavia), others are not poor but not in the NATO either, and other are both poor and in bed with NATO (the illegitimate state of Kosovo which had an organ trafficker as a head of state until recently).
Actually, from all of your post, it seems that by "west" you want to mean imperialism. Though economically your country Slovakia may be worse than even some Asian countries but historically and culturally your country is advanced.
Whatsoever, I hope other people, specially the workers of your country may understand that capitalism can not solve but worsen their problem soon and a new wave of movements will start.

[Toppler]

Actually, from all of your post, it seems that by "west" you want to mean imperialism. Though economically your country Slovakia may be worse than even some Asian countries but historically and culturally your country is advanced.
Whatsoever, I hope other people, specially the workers of your country may understand that capitalism can not solve but worsen their problem soon and a new wave of movements will start.

Worse than Asian countries? Better than Portugal in fact.
Well, worse than Japan and South Korea, but those are not typical Asian countries.
And I mean West as economically advanced countries. Those tend to practise imperialism.

[Toppler]

Anyways something about Slovakia:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slovakia


Slovakia is a high-income advanced economy[9][10] with one of the fastest growth rates in the European Union and the OECD.[11] The country joined the European Union in 2004 and the Eurozone on 1 January 2009. Slovakia together with Slovenia and Estonia are the only former Communist nations to be part of the European Union, Eurozone, Schengen Area and NATO simultaneously.


GDP per capita PPP: $22,267

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poverty_by_country both under 2 and under 1.25 dollar a day poverty is less than 2 percents.

So it is wrong to claim only W. Europe and North America is the "rich oppressors" and the others are just third world oppressed.

A poverty map of the world:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Percentage_population_living_on_less_than_$1. 25_per_day_2009.svg
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Percentage_population_living_on_less_than_$2_ per_day_2009.png

European countries in Net penetration:

http://www.internetworldstats.com/stats4.htm#europe

Ours is 74.3 % which is similiar to that of countries like Switzerland and USA (and I'd bet half of those not having it are old people who barely know what it is).

The biggest problems here are low pensions for old people, the relatively low wages paid to teachers and the atrocious conditions Roma live in.

But it is not like brown skin color minorities, schoolteachers and old people have it that great in the traditional "West" either.

True, the wages etc. are about 1/3 of those in the richest countries. But if Portugal, Greece and Malta are "Western", why are dumb Englishman still surprised we have electricity :D .

If movies can idolize Edwardian era England that had lower GDP per capita than modern Ukraine and an outrageous rich/poor division and a life expectancy worse than many poor Asian countries, then why post-communist countries are depicted as hellholes in movies and then tourists are surprised that we even have electricity, despite us having electricity in the cities in the 1900s and in all villages by the 1950s?

The stereotype basically says: Eastern and Central Europe is third world, every Slavic nations is Russians, we wear funny hats and live in disgusting slums. Compare actual Bratislava http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b-XJHp0YGZY to the "Bratislava" of Eurotrip http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JbcH_qYkeTc .

[Toppler]

I have to add something through - nothing of this would've be if there was no socialist period at all. The part of the world that is the post-communist world would be a semi-medieval, obedient colony of the "West". Perhaps the silly "Western" ideas of Eastern/Central European life as living in the trees, slums, w/o electricity etc. is more of an idea of what would the West like us to be. W. Europe and USA does not like to think of us as developed industrial nations because it then remembers than now they must share their plunder with us as we are now card carrying imperialist members of the OECD, NATO and EU.

The imperialism here is built on the bones of the dead socialism they so much despise while feasting on its flesh and staying at its bones.

If the socialists have not build roads, flats, hospitals, kindergardens, schools etc... the local cappies would still be semi-feudal peasants toiling the soil.

[Savage]

Not as deep and as long as Asia.
deep?

[pranabjyoti]

deep?
Yes, deep. I have wrote that word in full consciousness and knowing the full meaning of the word in this case. Though most Europeans just can not understand that, but that doesn't make the fact some "myth".

[Savage]

Yes, deep. I have wrote that word in full consciousness and knowing the full meaning of the word in this case. Though most Europeans just can not understand that, but that doesn't make the fact some "myth".
By deep i assume that you mean that feudalism was somehow more prevalent in what is now third world Asia than it was in Europe, even though If anything the opposite is true, as feudalism in Europe became much more advanced than that of Asia, leading into the first formations of capital(ism). I think you are referring to feudalism explicitly as a cultural structure rather than a historical mode of production (which is a very rightist thing to do), you should realize that feudal relations anywhere in the world today are little if even existent.


Though most Europeans just can not understand thatI would keep the third-worldist nationalism to a minimum if you don't want yourself banned.

[pranabjyoti]

By deep i assume that you mean that feudalism was somehow more prevalent in what is now third world Asia than it was in Europe, even though If anything the opposite is true, as feudalism in Europe became much more advanced than that of Asia, leading into the first formations of capital(ism). I think you are referring to feudalism explicitly as a cultural structure rather than a historical mode of production (which is a very rightist thing to do), you should realize that feudal relations anywhere in the world today are little if even existent.

I would keep the third-worldist nationalism to a minimum if you don't want yourself banned.
Actually, Asia was much more advanced during feudalism than Europe if you consider technological development as the yardstick. What brought capitalism in Europe i.e. gun powder, printing and civil service were all invented in China like many more inventions like the flame thrower, air-tight compartmented ships and many more. Actually capitalism flourished in Europe because feudalism was less developed there. Do you know that paper has been brought to Europe by Moor invaders. Before that, animal skin parchment was the medium to write information.
I don't want to say that there are some Asian countries which are still in feudal mode of production, but remains of feudalism is still reigning strong in the cultural field and mindset of most Asian people. Like present Europe, Asia was the center of science and technology during the feudal times.

[Savage]

Actually, Asia was much more advanced during feudalism than Europe if you consider technological development as the yardstick.
I would consider the yardstick to be the path of historical progression through different modes of production.


Actually capitalism flourished in Europe because feudalism was less developed there.
Capitalism arose from commodity production at the height of (or alternatively the decline of) feudalism:

The commodity, as the elementary form of bourgeois wealth, was our starting point, the presupposition for the emergence of capital. On the other hand, commodities now appear as the product of capital.-Karl Marx
It was, in effect, feudalism that began to lay some of the foundations necessary for the development of mercantilism, a precursor to capitalism. Feudalism took place mostly in Europe and lasted from the medieval period up through the 16th century. Feudal manors were almost entirely self sufficient, and therefore limited the role of the market. This stifled the growth of capitalism. However, the relatively sudden emergence of new technologies and discoveries, particularly in the industries of agriculture and exploration, revitalized the growth of capitalism. The most important development at the end of Feudalism was the emergence of “the dichotomy between wage earners and capitalist merchants”. With mercantilism, the competitive nature means there are always winners and losers, and this is clearly evident as feudalism transitions into mercantilism.-Karl Marx

[daleckian]

...I tend to think the whole idea of the "West" is bunk...In the 21st century it would be wise to abandon it though.

Why? it's a perfectly good descriptor of the nation bloc that effectively fucked up the world. It's not Africa that's colonizing, it's not Venezuela that's stealing people from other continents to work as slaves, it's not Singapore (no matter how state capitalist) that is funding and supporting coup d'etats worldwide...

...It's the usual culprits: the UK, France, Belgium, Italy, the US, Spain, Portugal, AKA THE WEST

[pranabjyoti]

I would consider the yardstick to be the path of historical progression through different modes of production.

Capitalism arose from commodity production at the height of (or alternatively the decline of) feudalism:
Well, then can you explain why the inventions (gun powder, printing, civil service) that destroyed the basis of feudalism in Europe just lay idle for a long time in China. Even centuries after renaissance, Chinese navy and ships were much stronger than any European navy and ship. I am pretty sure that if the English have to fight China instead of Spain, Admiral Nelson can not avoid defeat.
Capitalist commodity production can not be fallen like a bolt from the blue, it must have a history behind. And kindly tell me what kind of historical progress are you talking about without technological progress.

[Savage]

Well, then can you explain why the inventions (gun powder, printing, civil service) that destroyed the basis of feudalism in Europe just lay idle for a long time in China. Even centuries after renaissance, Chinese navy and ships were much stronger than any European navy and ship. I am pretty sure that if the English have to fight China instead of Spain, Admiral Nelson can not avoid defeat.
Capitalist commodity production can not be fallen like a bolt from the blue, it must have a history behind. And kindly tell me what kind of historical progress are you talking about without technological progress.
You obviously didn't read the passage from Marx that I posted, I'll give you the full text with the intention that you'll actually extract information from it:


While the chaotic battles among the dominant feudal nobility were filling the Middle Ages with sound and fury, the quiet labours of the oppressed classes all over Western Europe were undermining the feudal system and creating a state of affairs in which there was less and less room for the feudal lords. True, in the countryside, the feudality might still assert itself, torturing the serfs, flourishing on their sweat, riding down their crops, ravishing their wives and daughters. But cities were rising everywhere: in Italy, in Southern France, and on the Rhine, the old Roman municipalities were emerging from their ashes; elsewhere, and particularly in central Germany, they were new creations. In all cases, they were ringed by protective walls and moats, fortresses far stronger than the castles of the nobility because they could be taken only by large armies. Behind these walls and moats, medieval craft production, guild-bound and petty though it was, developed; capital accumulation began; the need for trade with other cities and with the rest of the world arose; and, gradually, with the need there also arose the means of protecting this trade.
As early as the fifteenth century, the townspeople played a more crucial role in society than the feudality. To be sure, it was still true that agriculture occupied the largest proportion of the population and thus remained the chief mode of production. Nevertheless, the few isolated free peasants, who had managed to hold out here and there against the rapaciousness of the nobles were adequate proof that it was the work of the peasants and not the sloth and oppression of the nobles which made the crops grow.
At the same time, the needs of the nobility itself had so increased and changed that even they could not do without the cities: after all, it was in the cities that the noble obtained his own special "tools" – armour and weapons. Domestic textiles, furniture and ornament, Italian silk, the laces of Brabant, furs from the North, the perfumes of Araby, fruits from the Levant, and spices from India: everything but soap he had to buy from the townspeople. A certain degree of international trade had already developed: the Italians sailed the Mediterranean and along the Atlantic Coast as far north as Flanders; in the face of increasing English and Dutch competition, the Hanseatic League continued to dominate the North Sea and the Baltic Sea; the connection between the trade centres of the South and those of the North was overland, on roads which passed through Germany. Thus while the nobility was becoming increasingly superfluous and more and more obstructive to progress, the townspeople were coming to form the class which embodied the further development of production and commerce, of education, and of social and political institutions.
Judged by today's standards, all these advances in production and exchange were of a very limited scope. Production remained confined within the pattern of guild craftsmanship, and thus itself retained feudal characteristics; trade continued to be restricted to European waters and did not venture farther than the coastal cities of the Levant where the products of the Far East were taken aboard. Yet, petty though industry and the businessman remained, they were adequate to overturn feudal society; and they at least remained in motion, while the nobility stagnated.
In this situation the urban citizenry had a mighty weapon against feudalism: money. There was scarcely room for money in the typical feudal economy in the early Middle Ages. The lord obtained everything he needed from his serfs, either in the form of services, or in the form of finished products. Flax and wool were spun, woven into cloth, and made into clothing by the serfs' women; the man tilled the fields, and the children tended the lord's cattle and gathered for him the fruits of the forest, bird-nests, firewood; in addition, the whole family had to deliver up grain, fruit, eggs, butter, cheese, poultry, calves, and who knows how much else. Each feudal domain was sufficient unto itself; even feudal military obligations were taken in kind; trade and exchange were absent and money was superfluous. Europe had declined to so low a level, had retrogressed so far, that money at this time served far less a social function than it did a political: it was used for the payment of taxes, and was acquired chiefly by robbery.
All that had changed by the fifteenth century. Money was again becoming a general medium of exchange, so that the amount of it in circulation was much greater than it had been. Even the noble needed it now, and since he had little or nothing to sell, since also banditry had ceased to be easy, he was faced with the necessity of calling on the urban money-lender. Long before the ramparts of the baronial castles were breached by the new artillery, they had already been undermined by money; in fact, gunpowder could be described as an executor of the judgment rendered by money. The citizenry of the towns used money as a carpenter uses his plane: as a tool to level political inequality. Wherever a personal relationship was replaced by a monetary relationship, a rendering of goods by a rendering of money, that was the place where a bourgeois pattern took the place of a feudal pattern. By and large, of course, the brutal system of "natural economy" remained in most cases. Nevertheless, there were already entire districts where, as in Holland, Belgium, and along the lower Rhine, the peasants paid money instead of goods and services to their overlords; where master and man had taken the first decisive steps in the direction of becoming landowner and tenant; and where, consequently, even in the countryside the political institutions of feudalism began to lose their social basis.
How deeply the foundations of the feudality had been weakened and its structure corroded by money around the end of the fifteenth century, is strikingly evident in the lust for gold which possessed Western Europe at this time. It was gold that the Portuguese sought on the African coast, in India and the whole Far East; gold was the magic word which lured the Spaniards over the ocean to America; gold was the first thing the whites asked for when they set foot on a newly discovered coast. But this compulsion to embark on distant adventures in search of gold, however feudal were the forms which it took at first, was nonetheless basically incompatible with feudalism, the foundation of which was agriculture and the conquests of which were directed at the acquisition of land. To this it must be added that shipping was definitely a bourgeois business, a fact which has stamped every modern navy with an anti-feudal character.
So it was that the feudality of all Western Europe was in full decline during the fifteenth century. Everywhere cities, with their anti-feudal interests, their own law, and their armed citizenry had wedged themselves into feudal territories; had, through money, in part established their social – and here and there even their political – ascendancy over the feudal lords. Even in the countryside, in those areas where agriculture was favoured by special circumstances, the old feudal ties began to dissolve under the influence of money; only in newly opened territories (such as the German lands east of the Elbe) or in other remote regions away from the trade routes, did the domination of the nobility continue to flourish. Everywhere, however, there had been an increase in those elements in the population, rural as well as urban, which insistently demanded that the senseless and eternal fighting should stop, that there should be an end to the feuds among the lords which produced a perpetual state of domestic warfare even when a foreign enemy was at the gates, that the uninterrupted, wholly purposeless devastation which had lasted throughout the entire Middle Ages should cease. Though these elements were still too weak to impose their own will, they found a sturdy support at the very top of the feudal heap: the monarchy. And it is at this point that analysis of social relations leads to consideration of the relations within and among states; here is where we proceed from economics to politics.
The new nationalities had arisen gradually out of the confusion of peoples which characterized the early Middle Ages. This is a process, in which, as is well known, the conquered assimilated the conquerors in the once Roman provinces; the peasants and townspeople absorbed the Germanic masters. Modern nationalities are thus the creations of the oppressed classes. Menke's district map of central Lorraine[1] (http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1884/decline/index.htm#n1) gives us a clear picture of the manner in which here a mixing, there a sorting out, took place. One need only follow the line which divides the German from the Roman place names in order to convince oneself that this line in Belgium and lower Lorraine very nearly coincides with the linguistic boundary between German and French as it existed as late as the last quarter of the 18th century. Here and there a small area could be found in which predominance of language was still a matter of dispute. But by and large the dispute had already been settled, and which area should remain German, which Roman, had been established. The Old Lower Frankish and Old High German forms of most place names on the map go to prove, however, that they belong to the 9th, or at the latest the 10th century, and that, therefore, the boundaries had already been drawn by the end of the Carolingian period. Now it is interesting that we find, on the Roman side, and especially in the vicinity of the linguistic border, bastard name forms, made up of a German personal name and a Roman place name; thus, for example, west of the Maas, near Verdun: Eppone curtis, Rotfridi curtis, Ingolini curtis, Teudegisilo villa. Today these are, respectively, Ippecourt, Recourt la Creux, Amblaincourt sur Aire, and Thierville. These were Frankish manors, small German colonies in Roman territory, which sooner or later succumbed to Romanization. In the cities, and in individual rural stretches, there were more resistant German colonies which retained their language for a longer time; in one of these, for example, the Ludwigslied originated at the end of the 9th century. But the fact that Romance appeared as the official language of France on the oath – formulas of the kings and notables in 842 proves that a larger part of the Frankish masters had by that time been Romanized.
Once the language groups had been fixed and their boundaries established (though account must be taken of later wars of conquest and extermination, such as those against the Slays of the Elbe), it was natural that they should serve as established foundations for the building of states, that the nationalities should begin to develop towards nations. The rapid collapse of the linguistically-mixed state of Lorraine suggests the importance of language uniformity. To be sure, linguistic boundaries and national boundaries were far from coinciding with one another during the entire Middle Ages; nevertheless, every nationality, the Italian to some extent excepted, was represented by a particular large state; and the tendency towards the formation of national states, which appeared with ever greater clarity and consciousness, provided one of the most fundamental of the levers by which progress was attained in the Middle Ages.
In each of these medieval states, the king was the apex of the entire feudal hierarchy – an apex which the vassals could not dispense with, and against which, at the same time, they found themselves in a state of permanent rebellion. The characteristic relationship of the whole feudal economy – the granting of rights to the use of land on condition that certain personal services and certain goods be rendered – provided in its original and simplest form plenty of occasion for quarrels, especially where there were so many who had an interest in any dispute. How was it now in the later Middle Ages, at a time when the feudal relations in every land were a hopeless snarl of granted, withdrawn, renewed, forfeited, changed, or otherwise qualified rights and duties? Charles the Bold, for example, was a vassal of the Holy Roman Emperor for part of his lands; in other parts, he was a vassal of the King of France. On the other hand, the King of France, Charles' lord in regard to these territories, was the vassal of Charles in regard to others. How could conflict be avoided in a situation like that? Here we see the explanation of the centuries-long counterpoint between the attraction of the vassals to the monarchy (for only the monarch could protect them from enemies outside and inside the system) and the repulsion away from the monarchy into which that attraction ceaselessly and inevitably shifted; of the uninterrupted battle between the monarch and the vassals, the ugly cacophony of which drowned out all others during the long period when banditry was the only source of income worthy of a free man; of the endless sequence of betrayal, assassination, poisonings, malice, and every other conceivable villainy, a sequence which, stopped for a moment, would always renew itself, hiding behind the poetic label of Chivalry and speaking in terms of Honour and Fidelity.
It is obvious that the monarchy was the progressive element in this general confusion. It represented order in chaos, the developing nation as against fragmentation into rebellious vassal-states. All the revolutionary elements which were coming into being under the feudal surface were as inclined to dependence on the monarchy as the monarchy was inclined to dependence on them. The alliance between monarchy and bourgeoisie dates from the tenth century; often disrupted by conflicts – for during the Middle Ages no movement was free of zigs and zags – the alliance was always renewed, stronger and more potent, until it enabled the monarchy to attain final victory; whereupon, the monarchy, in gratitude, turned on its allies to oppress and plunder them.
King and bourgeoisie found powerful support in the rising profession of jurist. With the rediscovery of Roman Law there came into being a division of labour between the clergy, the legal counsellors of feudal times, and the non-clerical students of jurisprudence. These new jurists were from the beginning predominantly bourgeois. But not only that: the law which they studied, lectured on, and practiced had an essentially anti-feudal and in certain respects bourgeois character. Roman Law is to so great an extent the classic juridical expression of the living conditions and frictions of a society in which the dominating concept is one of pure private property, that all later legislation could add but little to it in this respect. Bourgeois property in the Middle Ages was, however, still permeated with feudal limitations; it consisted, for example, largely of privileges. Thus Roman Law was in this regard an advance on the bourgeois relationships of the time. Yet the further historical development of bourgeois property could only be in the direction of pure private property, and this indeed is what happened. The lever of the Roman Law, which contained ready made everything to which the bourgeoisie of the later Middle Ages was still unconsciously striving, clearly added enormously to the strength and pace of this development.
Even though the Roman Law offered a pretext in many individual cases for the increased oppression of the peasants by the nobility – for example, wherever the peasants were unable to furnish documentary proof of their freedom from obligations which were otherwise customary – this does not change the principle at issue. The nobility would have found adequate pretexts without the Roman Law, and did find them, daily. Beyond question, it was a mighty advance when a system of law was established which did not rest on feudal relations and which fully anticipated modern ideas of private property.
We have seen how the feudal nobility began to become superfluous and even economically detrimental in the society of the late Middle Ages; how it already stood politically in the way of the development of the cities and of the national state, for which a monarchical form was the only possibility at the time. Despite these facts, the nobility had been preserved by the circumstance that hitherto it had had a monopoly on the bearing of arms, by the fact that without the noble no war could be waged, no battle fought. Even this was to change, and the last step was to be taken which would make abundantly clear to the feudal lord that his period of social and political domination was at an end, and that even in his capacity as knight, even on the battlefield, he was no longer useful.
To fight feudalism with an army which was itself feudal, the members of which were more closely bound to their immediate lord than the royal army command, would have been to move in a vicious circle. From the beginning of the 14th century, the kings strive constantly to emancipate themselves from feudal armies, to create their own armies. It is from this period that we find an ever increasing proportion of recruited or hired troops in the royal armies. In the beginning, they were mostly infantry, the dregs of the city, fugitive serfs – Lombards, Genoese, Germans, Belgians, and the like – used for the occupation of towns and the siege of fortresses, since at first they were scarcely serviceable on the field of battle itself. Nevertheless, before the end of the Middle Ages we also find the knights, who are already contracting themselves and their god-knows-how recruited followers into the mercenary service of foreign princes, and in so doing announcing the hopeless doom of the feudal military system.
Simultaneously there arose the basic prerequisite of a militarily competent infantry in the cities and among the free peasants, where the latter had persisted or had once again emerged. Prior to this, the knights and their mounted followers had formed not so much the nucleus of the army as the army itself; the gang of accompanying serfs, the "footmen" hardly counted: it seemed – on the battlefield – to be present merely for flight and plunder. As long as feudalism flourished, until the end of the 13th century, the cavalry fought and decided every battle. From then on, however, the situation changed; and it changed in many aspects simultaneously. In England, the gradual disappearance of serfdom gave rise to a numerous class of free peasants, yeomen or tenants, and therewith to the new material for a new infantry, practiced in the use of the longbow which was, at the time, the English national weapon. The introduction of these archers, who always fought on foot though they might or might not be mounted on the march, was the occasion for an essential change in the tactics of the English armies. From the 14th century on, the English knighthood preferred to fight on foot wherever the terrain or other circumstances made it appropriate. Behind the archers, who started the battle and softened up the enemy, the dismounted knights awaited the enemy attack in a closed phalanx, or waited for a favourable opportunity to break out with an attack themselves. Only part of the knights remained on their horses in order to help in the decision by flank attacks. The unbroken succession of English victories in France at this time is to be attributed primarily to this reintroduction of a defensive element into the army; for the most part, they were as much defensive battles followed by offensive counter-attacks as were the victories of Wellington in Spain and Belgium. With the adoption of the new tactic by the French – which was possible because mercenary Italian crossbowmen could be used as the counterpart of the English archers the victorious surge of the English was brought to a halt. It was likewise at the beginning of the 14th century that the infantry of the Flemish cities had dared to oppose the French knighthood in open battle – and they were often successful. The emperor Albert, in his attempt to betray the Swiss peasants into subjection to the Archduke of Austria, who happened to be Albert himself, gave the stimulus to the formation of the first modern infantry of European repute. In the triumphs of the Swiss over the Austrians and, in particular, over the Burgundians, lay the final succumbing of armour, mounted or not, to infantry; of the feudal army to the beginnings of the modern army; of the knight to the townsman and peasant. And the Swiss immediately went on to turn their martial prowess into hard cash, thereby establishing from the word go the bourgeois character of their republic, the first independent republic in Europe. All political considerations disappeared; the cantons converted themselves into recruiting offices in order to corral mercenaries to offer to the highest bidder. Elsewhere, too, and particularly in Germany, the recruiting drum went around. But the cynicism of the Swiss regime, whose sole purpose appeared to be the sale of its sons, went unequalled until the German princes, in the period of deepest national abasement, surpassed it.
It was also in the 14th century that gunpowder and artillery were brought into Europe from the Arabs, by way of Spain. Until the end of the Middle Ages, small firearms remained unimportant, which is understandable in view of the fact that the longbows of the English archers at Crecy reached as far, and with perhaps as much accuracy if not with the same effect, as the smooth-bore muskets of the infantry at Waterloo. Field artillery was likewise still in its infancy. In contrast to this, however, the heavy cannon had already breached the unsupported walls of many a knight's castle, thus announcing to the feudal nobility that the advent of gunpowder had sealed its doom.
The spread of the printer's art, the renaissance of the study of the ancient literatures, the whole cultural ferment which became constantly stronger and more general after 1450 – all these things favoured the bourgeoisie and monarchy in their conflict with feudalism. The concatenation of all these factors, strengthened from year to year by their increasingly dynamic interaction on one another in the same direction, was the fact which, in the last half of the 15th century, confirmed the victory, not, to be sure, of the bourgeoisie, but certainly of the monarchy, over feudalism. Everywhere in Europe, right into those more remote areas which bordered on it and had not passed through the feudal stage, the royal power suddenly got the upper hand. Behind the Pyrenees, two of the Romance language groups of the area united to form the Kingdom of Spain and subjugated the Provencal-speaking nation of Aragon to the Castilian written language. The third group consolidated its language area, with the exception of Galicia, into the Kingdom of Portugal, the Iberian Holland; turned its face seaward; and proved its right to a separate existence by its maritime activity. In France, Louis XI finally – after the downfall of the Burgundian buffer state – created a monarchical national unity in the still very limited French territory to such good effect that his successor was already able to meddle in Italian squabbles. The fact is that its existence was threatened only once – by the Reformation – in later years. England had finally given up its quixotic wars of conquest in France: in the long run, it would have bled itself white in these wars. The English feudal nobility sought substitute recreation in the Wars of the Roses. It got more than it bargained for: tearing itself to pieces in these wars, it brought the House of Tudor to the throne, and the royal power of the House of Tudor surpassed everything that had gone before or was to come after. The Scandinavian countries had long since been unified. After its union with Lithuania, Poland was on the way to its period of greatest glory, with a kingly power as yet undiminished. Even in Russia, the overthrow of the princes and the throwing off of the Tatar yoke went hand in hand and were completed by Ivan III. In all of Europe, there were only two countries in which the Monarchy, and the national unity which at that time was impossible without it, had not arisen, or existed only on paper: Italy and Germany. -Friedrich Engels:The Decline of Feudalism and rise of the Bourgeoisie

[pranabjyoti]

You obviously didn't read the passage from Marx that I posted, I'll give you the full text with the intention that you'll actually extract information from it:
I am just unable to understand how Marx's view contradicts my view. During the time of Marx, little (almost nil) were known about far east and Asian countries. What Marx had described in your mentioned piece is nothing but the description of development of capitalism and destruction of feudalism in Europe. But, how does this fact contradicts the fact that during feudal times, Asia was more technologically advanced than Europe and that's why the legacy of feudalism is much stronger in Asia.

[Savage]

During the time of Marx, little (almost nil) were known about far east and Asian countries.
This is simply false, Britain along with other growing capitalist powers had both diplomatic and imperialistic influence throughout Asia throughout Marx's lifetime, and he wrote quite a few pieces on India.


What Marx had described in your mentioned piece is nothing but the description of development of capitalism and destruction of feudalism in Europe. But, how does this fact contradicts the fact that during feudal times, Asia was more technologically advanced than Europe and that's why the legacy of feudalism is much stronger in Asia.

In contradicts your implication that the formation of commodity production (hence the original formation of capital) in Europe was the direct product of the feudalistic brilliance of Asia, obviously Marx never wrote anything about the legacy of feudalism in Asia (by the way the text from Marx that i was referring to was on commodity production, not feudalism, the text on feudalism is from Engels).

[pranabjyoti]

This is simply false, Britain along with other growing capitalist powers had both diplomatic and imperialistic influence throughout Asia throughout Marx's lifetime, and he wrote quite a few pieces on India.
Not much, specially in comparison to what we know today. Even today, how many people around you know that paper has been introduced in Europe by Arab invaders and Chinese Nave and ships were far better even in the 15th century. Until and unless steam engine was added to the ships, European ships were by no way comparable to Chinese ships.

In contradicts your implication that the formation of commodity production (hence the original formation of capital) in Europe was the direct product of the feudalistic brilliance of Asia, obviously Marx never wrote anything about the legacy of feudalism in Asia (by the way the text from Marx that i was referring to was on commodity production, not feudalism, the text on feudalism is from Engels).
If you want to deny that fact the introduction of gun powder, printing has made dramatic historical effect on Europe and Chinese Ships totally changed the course of shipbuilding in Europe and many modern war machinery like flame thrower, air tight compartment, missiles were discovered in China, I am helpless.
If you ask me, it doesn't make any difference whether a piece was written by Marx or Engels.

[Savage]

Not much, specially in comparison to what we know today.
Well obviously. Believe it or not but telecommunications are a bit more advanced now than what they were in the 1860's. However, this does not detract from Marx's extensive writing on India related subjects:

http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1853/06/09.htm

http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1853/06/22.htm

http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1853/06/25.htm

http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1853/07/11.htm

http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1853/07/20.htm

http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1853/07/22.htm

http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1853/07/25.htm

http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1853/08/05.htm

(I can't be fucked posting anymore, but that's about 1/3 of what is listed in his work on India)


If you want to deny that fact the introduction of gun powder, printing has made dramatic historical effect on Europe and Chinese Ships totally changed the course of shipbuilding in Europe and many modern war machinery like flame thrower, air tight compartment, missiles were discovered in China, I am helpless.I don't deny any of that, what I do deny is that this, or any other aspect of Asian (a term which you seem to be using with explicit regards to China) feudalism directly contributed to the original formations of early commodity production. The fallacious nature of your assumption is that whilst you consider Marx's knowledge on Asia at this time to be 'almost nil', you also consider the the economic influence of China to have been vital to the formation of capital, even though to formulate his theory on capital (which I assume you uphold), Marx would have needed a profound understanding of Asian feudalism.


If you ask me, it doesn't make any difference whether a piece was written by Marx or Engels.I just thought that you'd want to correctly honor our gods (sarcasm).

[La Comédie Noire]

Marx is not the best source for information on India or any of the other eastern countries.

[Savage]

Marx is not the best source for information on India or any of the other eastern countries.

The fact that he knew little more than that they existed is contrary to a particular argument in this thread.

[human strike]

Negri, Empire etc. etc.